Inca Minerals (ASX:ICG) has a new name as it prepares to head to Queensland’s iconic Sunshine Coast for the Noosa Mining Investor Conference next week armed with a new flagship project and brand.
The junior explorer completed the takeover of public unlisted Australian exploration company Stunalara Metals in April, which expanded its portfolio to include new projects in Queensland, Tasmania, and Western Australia.
This included the “high-grade” Hurricane Gold-Antimony Project in North Queensland that has multiple undrilled gold and gold-antimony prospects identified from rock chip and grab sampling.
With the expanded portfolio comes a new name – Rokeby Resources (ASX:RKB) – which the company is now trading on the ASX as from today (21 July) following shareholder approval and registration with the Australian Securities and Investment Commission.
CEO Trevor Benson, who had been carefully considering a number of acquisition proposals since he was appointed to the top job last year, tells Mining.com.au the team is very keen to increase the awareness of Rokeby as a company and its project in Queensland.
“Specifically, we’d like investors to be aware of the current drilling campaign which has just started on our Queensland Hurricane Project,” he says.
“Rokeby is a refocused new exploration story, and we believe the activities at the Hurricane Project should attract considerable interest, especially from Queensland investors.
“We are a very small company leveraged to both gold and antimony. These two commodities are trading at near all-time highs.”
The gold price continues to hover above US$3,300 ($5,004) an ounce, while antimony this year hit a record US$60,000 a tonne.
Antimony has experienced “one of the most dramatic price increases in the commodities sector”, surging from US$5,500 a tonne in 2019, according to Discovery Alert founder and CEO, and seasoned investor, John Zadeh.
Antimony is not traded on any formal metal exchange — prices are privately negotiated between buyers and sellers, often through long-term, confidential contracts.
China’s decision to completely halt its antimony exports earlier this year delivered a 50% kick to the price within weeks.
Benson says the timing of the Noosa Mining Investor Conference, which runs from 23-25 July at Peppers Noosa Resort, has perfectly aligned with the start of the company’s maiden drilling campaign on the Hurricane Project.
“This is a very exciting time for the company as this project has never been drilled,” he says.
“We have refocused the company to near-surface, shallow drilling targets with the potential to find high grade gold-antimony deposits.”
Benson tells this news service the strategic rebrand has generated increased investor interest.
“Since Rokeby acquired the new assets, including the Hurricane Project in Queensland prospective for gold and antimony, we have seen a tremendous increase in interest from investors which has translated to increased volumes of shares traded over the last six months,” he notes.
On the day the acquisition was announced in early February this year, Inca’s share price closed up nearly 17% with around 12.3 million shares traded over the course of the session.
To put that in perspective, that’s a nearly 30% increase in trading volume in just one day versus the combined trading volume of the seven trading days leading up to the announcement.
Shortly after the takeover of Stunalara was announced, Inca reported grades of up to 81.5 grams per tonne gold and 35.1% antimony from rock chip sampling at Hurricane.
“From our recent site visits to Hurricane we have announced to the ASX very high-grade gold and antimony assay results over the many mapped outcropping mineralised veins,” Benson says.
With maiden drilling now underway, Inca is hoping to reveal some good results in the near term.
“Should we have early success we’ll continue drilling throughout the season and have a continued flow of assay results from the project,” Benson says.
Mining.com.au is an official media partner of this year’s event. To register click here.
Write to Angela East at Mining.com.au
Images: Inca Minerals
