1. Bell Copper (TSXV:BCU)

Year-to-date gain: 126.47 percent; current share price: C$0.385

Bell Copper is a copper explorer working out of Arizona, US. The US is the fifth largest copper-producing country in the world, and Arizona is responsible for 71 percent of its output. The company is currently focused on exploring two copper prospects in the state — Big Sandy and Perseverance — which are within 30 kilometers of each other.

At the beginning of February, Bell Copper's share price shot up 100 percent to C$0.39 when it announced the discovery of copper sulfide in quartz porphyry at Big Sandy. The company later jumped again, this time to C$0.66, in early March after a further update on drilling, although it fell back within a week. March saw another update on Big Sandy: the commencement of metallurgical testing on the drill samples.

Additionally, Cordoba Minerals (TSXV:CDB,OTCQB:CDBMF), which has a joint venture earn-in agreement for Perseverance, announced it has spent enough on exploration to earn a 51 percent stake in the project. The company’s share price remained elevated around the C$0.50 mark through mid-April before beginning a slow descent. However, it is still up significantly since the beginning of the year.

2. Max Resources (TSXV:MXR)

Year-to-date gain: 120.41 percent; current share price: C$0.54

Max Resources is a copper and gold exploration company that describes itself as “one of the true mineral explorers.” Its CESAR copper-silver project in Colombia is part of the Andean belt, and the company made three high-grade discoveries as part of its 2020/2021 exploration at the property. Max will continue exploration at the asset into 2022; it also has the right to acquire 100 percent of the RT gold project in Peru.

Max gained momentum in March and April after seeing slow gains earlier in the year, and it has released plenty of news in that time. Its first news in March was about a ticker symbol change; later in the month, the company announced that its cooperation and financing agreement with Endeavour Silver (TSX:EDR,NYSE:EXK) for the Cesar project had been finalized. Endeavour will assist Max in “significantly expanding its landholdings.”

The company’s share price saw its biggest gains in the weeks following March 28, when it closed a C$7.7 million private placement. It reached new heights of C$0.82 after Max made a new high-grade discovery at CESAR's URU zone, including assays grading 8.3 percent copper and 146 grams per tonne silver over 16.8 meters.

3. ATEX Resources (TSXV:ATX)

Year-to-date gain: 108.33 percent; current share price: C$0.75

ATEX Resources is focused on projects in Latin America. The company’s flagship asset is its Valeriano project — located in the Atacama region of Chile — which hosts a copper-gold porphyry deposit, as well as a near-surface oxidized epithermal gold deposit. ATEX is performing further exploration in Chile as well. According to the company, it is using “techniques developed by ATEX’s management team which have proven successful, resulting in a number of significant precious metal deposits discoveries.”

ATEX has focused on a Phase 2 drilling program at Valeriano in 2022, which commenced in late January and has the goal of expanding the deposit’s footprint. The company’s share price saw an early spike to around C$0.60 at that time, and it jumped again around the end of March. Most recently, ATEX shared an exploration update on drilling at Valeriano, saying it has been successful so far in expanding the footprint of the porphyry system.

4. NGEx Minerals (TSXV:NGEX)

Year-to-date gain: 86.49 percent; current share price: C$3.45

NGEx Minerals is an explorer focused on copper and gold. Its primary project is the Los Helados copper-gold project in Chile, and it also has a portfolio of exploration projects in Argentina, including the Valle Ancho gold project. NGEx owns 64 percent of Los Helados, and shares ownership with Nippon Caserones Resources. The project is in close proximity to Nippon's Caserones mine, allowing Los Helados access to that mining infrastructure.

NGEx’s share price spiked to C$2.96 on February 22 after starting the year at C$1.76. NGEx began that month by announcing a new 16,000 meter diamond drill program at Los Helados with the goal of defining and possibly extending the resource. Additionally, after commencing a drill program in January at Valle Ancho, NGEx announced initial drill results, including 1.05 grams per tonne gold over 150 meters.

Although the company didn’t release news in March or early April, its share price started climbing on March 22 to reach a year-to-date high of C$4.09 by April 14. The day before its high, NGEx released its 2021 results and an exploration update for its drilling at Los Helados. A further drill program update revealed initial assay results, including a highlight of 210 meters at 1.06 percent copper equivalent from a depth of 314 meters. Since peaking in mid-April, the company’s share price has slowly declined, but it is still up significantly year-to-date.

5. Aranjin Resources (TSXV:ARJN)

Year-to-date gain: 71.43 percent; current share price: C$0.06

Copper explorer Aranjin Resources is focused on projects in Mongolia. In 2021, the company entered an agreement to acquire the “highly prospective” Sharga copper project located in the country's Gobi Altai region. Since then it has worked on exploring the project, which it says is promising, but still in its early stages of exploration. In addition to Sharga, the company also has its Bayan Undur copper project.

The company’s only news in 2022 thus far came on February 1, when it entered into an agreement with ION Energy (TSXV:ION,OTCQB:IONGF) for an exploration joint venture. According to the release, “both ION and Aranjin will leverage one another’s expertise in their respective metals, with Aranjin being granted a right to explore ION’s properties for base metals ... and ION being granted a right to explore Aranjin’s properties for lithium.” The company’s share price saw a small spike in the week following that news, but its most substantial gains came throughout April, when it reached a year-to-date high of C$0.07.