Top 5 Australian Mining Stocks This Week: African Gold Shines on Acquisition by Montage

Market and commodities price round-up

The S&P/ASX 200 (INDEXASX:XJO) largely remained flat this week, opening at 8,619.30 on Monday (December 1) and closing at 8,618.40 on Thursday (December 4).

For gold and silver prices, gold pulled back slightly while silver continued climbing. The US dollar gold price decreased by 0.4 percent from US$4,210.71 on Monday to US$4,193.84 by the close of Australian trading Thursday. In Australian dollars, the yellow metal saw a dip of 1.39 percent, moving from AU$6,428.37 to AU$6,339.32.

The silver price saw significant gains during the week and set a new all-time high price of US$58.92 mid-week before pulling back slightly. Over the week, silver climbed 1.86 percent in US dollars, rising from US$56.42 to US$57.47. In Australian dollars, the metal demonstrated a smaller 0.86 percent increase, starting the week at AU$86.13 and closing at AU$86.87.

Top ASX mining stocks this week

How did ASX mining stocks perform against this backdrop?

Take a look at this week’s five best-performing Australian mining stocks below as the Investing News Network breaks down their operations and why these companies are up this week.

Stocks data for this article was retrieved at 4:00 p.m. AEST on Thursday using TradingView's stock screener and reflects price movements between Monday and Thursday. Only companies trading on the ASX with market capitalisations greater than AU$10 million are included. Mineral companies within the non-energy minerals, energy minerals, process industry and producer manufacturing sectors were considered.

1. African Gold (ASX:A1G)

Weekly gain: 69.84 percent
Market cap: AU$279.94 million
Share price: AU$0.535

Subiaco-based African Gold is a gold developer with projects in Côte d’Ivoire and Mali focusing on exploration and development of the Didievi gold project in Côte d'Ivoire.

Didievi’s Blaffo Guetto deposit hosts an inferred resource of 12.4 million tonnes at 2.5 grams per tonne gold containing 989,000 ounces of gold.

This week, African Gold made a huge announcement on Monday that Montage Gold (TSX:MAU,OTCQX:MAUTF) will acquire the company through an all-scrip transaction.

Under the scheme, each African Gold shareholder will receive 0.0628 new Montage shares

for every 1 African Gold share held on the record date of the share scheme.

Montage is currently the largest shareholder of African Gold, holding 17.3 percent of all African Gold shares. Its stake came as part of a strategic partnership in March that also made Montage the operator of the Didievi project.

African Gold shareholders, excluding Montage, will own approximately 7.8 percent of the combined company following transaction completion.

Shares of African Gold largely remained flat this week since the announcement, peaking at AU$0.535 on Thursday.

2. DGR Global (ASX:DGR)

Weekly gain: 40 percent
Market cap: AU$41.75 million
Share price: AU$0.035

DGR Global is a creator and developer of grassroots resource exploration companies, with interests in several public resource companies and unlisted subsidiaries covering a wide range of resources, including copper, gold, oil and gas, nickel and more.

Among the companies under its wing is SolGold, which announced on November 28 that it rejected a second proposal from Jiangxi Copper to acquire it, citing confidence in the company’s standalone prospects.

DGR Global reported the news to its shareholders on Tuesday (December 2).

SolGold’s board unanimously rejected the first non-binding proposal from Jiangxi on November 23.

The flagship asset of SolGold is the Cascabel project, located in the Imbabura province in Northern Ecuador.

Cascabel’s February 2024 prefeasibility study highlighted an average annual production of 123,000 tonnes of copper, 277,000 ounces of gold and 794,000 ounces of silver.

SolGold and DGR Group’s share prices both spiked significantly during trading Monday, the next trading session after the proposal rejection. DGR closed Monday at AU$0.042 compared to AU$0.025 on November 28.

3. Magnum Mining and Exploration (ASX:MGU)

Weekly gain: 40 percent
Market cap: AU$16.82 million
Share price: AU$0.007

Magnum Mining and Exploration is a South Melbourne-based company that is currently focused on advancing critical metals projects, including its wholly owned Palmares rare earth element (REE) project, which is located in the Jequié Complex in Brazil.

The company is also planning the Lovelock antimony and REE processing hub, located in Nevada in the United States.

Magnum also owns the Buena Vista magnetite project in Nevada, at which it plans to produce green pig iron by using HIsmelt direct smelting technology and replacing coal with sustainably sourced biochar.

On Monday, Magnum announced the start of a reverse circulation (RC) drill program with two drill rigs at its Palmares REE project’s Feirinha prospect.

The RC drilling program includes 133 holes totaling 2,000 metres, with all permitting and land access already secured. Work is expected to take about seven weeks to complete.

Final assays are anticipated roughly four to six weeks after drilling wraps up, around the end of January.

Following the announcement, shares of Magnum rose to AU$0.006 on Monday, and moved higher to AU$0.007 on Wednesday (December 3).

4. Cokal (ASX:CKA)

Weekly gain: 35.71 percent
Market cap: AU$47.47 million
Share price: AU$0.057

Cokal is a metallurgical coal company with offices in Sydney, Australia, and Jakarta, Indonesia.

Its four coal exploration projects are located in the Kalimantan province of Indonesia, namely Bumi Barito Mineral, Borneo Bara Prima, Tambang Benua Alam Raya and Anugerah Alam Katingan.

The company began mining operations at its 60 percent owned Bumi Barito Mineral project in mid-November.

On Wednesday, Cokal announced that it has delivered the first barge of a 7,000 million tonne coal shipment to Krakatau Posco, a 50/50 joint venture between Korea’s POSCO Holdings (NYSE:PKX,KRX:005490) and Indonesia’s Krakatau Steel. The second batch is scheduled to be loaded within the week.

Cokal noted that market conditions allowed it to secure improved pricing for the shipment.

“With improving market fundamentals and increasing buyer interest, Cokal hopes to be well-positioned to continue building sales traction and achieving price outcomes through the end of 2025 to 2026,” the report states.

Shares of the company jumped from a AU$0.043 close on Wednesday to AU$0.057 on Thursday.

5. Altair Minerals (ASX:ALR)

Weekly gain: 35 percent
Market cap: AU$143.34 million
Share price: AU$0.027

Altair Minerals is an Australian explorer with projects in Australia, Guyana and Peru.

The company holds 80 percent ownership of the Olympic Domain copper assets in South Australia, namely Horse Well, Pernatti C and Lake Torrens, all of which are currently being explored by Altair, with drilling underway at Horse Well.

Additionally, in October, Altair signed a definitive earn-in agreement to earn up to a 70 percent interest in the Greater Oko project in Guyana, which includes the South Oko and North Peters project areas.

Trenching has reportedly commenced at South Oko ahead of schedule, according to Altair’s report on Tuesday.

Groundworks are also progressing aggressively to accelerate drilling at multiple target areas, and a second batch of soil samples has been delivered to the laboratory.

“In (the) next two weeks, all of Trench 4 and a third of Trench 3 samples are anticipated to be dispatched to the laboratory and have assays pending,” Altair wrote.

Shares of the company started to climb this week following the South Oko update, peaking at AU$0.027.