Resources Top 5: M&A brewing as New World rises on $185m US copper takeover

News.com.au

22-05-2025

New World Resources soars ~70% on $185m takeover from London-listed Central Asia Metals
Aurumin has entered into binding term sheets with Newcam Minerals
Omega Oil and Gas has confirmed that an extensive oil & gas system is present across its Taroom Trough acreage
Your standout resources stocks for Thursday, May 22, 2025
New World Resources (ASX:NWC)
M&A activity is heating up in the resources sector and it is not restricted to gold stocks.
New World has fielded an offer from London-based Central Asia Metals and directors unanimously recommend a vote in favour of a scheme implementation deed valuing the company at $185m.
Investors share the enthusiasm of directors, sending NWC shares 71.43% northward to 4.8c, a two-year high, with more than 237m shares changing hands. It closed up 66% at 4.65c.
The all-cash offer of 5c per share represents a 95.7% premium over the 30-day volume weighted average price of the company's shares and is 150% higher than the issue price of its March 2025 capital raise.
'We believe this transaction represents an exceptional outcome for New World shareholders, delivering certainty of value at a significant premium,' New World's managing director Nick Woolrych said.
'The board decided to pursue this transaction despite receiving exceptionally strong interest from multiple Tier-1 project financiers and strategic partners, which reflects the quality of the Antler Copper Project and its inherent strategic value in the global copper landscape.
'Ultimately, the board believes that this transaction offers a superior risk-adjusted outcome compared to a standalone development of the Antler Copper Project, allowing shareholders to crystallise their investment at a significant premium without the risks associated with a longer-term standalone financing and development pathway.
'We believe that CAML will be a great steward for the Antler Copper Project moving forward, bringing their strong balance sheet and extensive underground mining and operating expertise to the table, together with New World's established US operations team, to bring this high-quality underground copper asset into production.'
Central Asia Metals is a London-based base metals producer with operations in Europe and Central Asia – the SASA underground zinc-lead mine in North Macedonia and Kounrad SX-EW copper project in central Kazakhstan.
It also owns an 80% interest in CAML Exploration, a subsidiary formed to progress early-stage exploration opportunities in Kazakhstan, and a 28.4% interest in Aberdeen Minerals Ltd, a privately-owned UK company focused on the exploration and development of base metals opportunities in northeast Scotland.
CAML brings extensive experience in developing and operating underground mines of a similar size and scale to New World's Antler Copper Project and is committed to continuing the rapid advancement of Antler towards development.
An independent expert will be appointed by the company to determine if the offer is in the best interests of its shareholders.
The offer will then be put to a vote by New World shareholders at a scheme meeting with the company's directors saying they will vote in its favour.
'I commend the entire New World team who have done an exceptional job advancing the Antler project to date,' New World's chairman Richard Hill said.
'The CAML scheme is the culmination of many years of hard work and delivers certain value for shareholders at a significant premium.'
Earlier this month, New World Resources announced a substantial increase in the contained metal and the confidence level of the JORC MRE for Antler following a successful exploration drilling program and a comprehensive exploration review.
The total MRE, inclusive of newly defined mineralised zones, now stands at 14.2Mt at 3.8% copper equivalent. Contained CuEq metal increased by about 16% to 543,000t, including a 27% increase in contained silver and a 15% increase in contained gold.
That confirmed Antler's position as one of the highest-grade copper projects globally.
Aurumin (ASX:AUN)
Also on the transaction front, Aurumin has entered into binding term sheets for two strategic arrangements with Newcam Minerals Pty Ltd that advance AUN's path to gold production and unlock value from non-core assets.
The first agreement is valued at $4m and will see Newcam earn up to 50% interest in the Johnson Range and Mt Dimer gold projects via staged expenditure with the intention of forming a joint venture over the gold rights.
Exploration and development will be led by Newcam during the earn-in period and Aurumin can elect to be free-carried to net profit.
A term sheet has also been entered for a $1m cash sale of the non-gold mineral rights across Aurumin's Sandstone tenure, streamlining the company's portfolio and strengthening its balance sheet.
Together, these transactions support the near-term development of the 64,700oz at 2.51g/t Au Gwendolyn deposit, which is on a granted mining lease and recently underwent its first drilling in more than a decade.
Newcam, which can begin exploration expenditure immediately, is a private company with a multiple mineral portfolio including gold and iron ore assets in WA's Mid West.
With its own drilling, mining and haulage fleet, Newcam is a fully integrated mine operator, ready to deploy its experienced team and quality equipment onto new projects.
'Subject to completion, these transactions are strategically transformative. With gold trading above A$5000/oz, securing a fully funded, non-dilutive pathway to production at Johnson Range will be a major milestone for Aurumin,' Aurumin's managing director Daniel Raihani said.
'The joint venture with Newcam, once executed, will unlock value from both Johnson Range and Mt Dimer, while the $1 million cash sale of non-gold rights at Sandstone strengthens our balance sheet and sharpens our focus as a pureplay gold developer.
'We're pleased to be working with a partner that brings proven capability and a production mindset, and we look forward to delivering further results as assays from Gwendolyn are returned.
'This is the first drilling at Johnson Range in over a decade, and our new management team is hitting the ground running at a time when the outlook for gold could not be stronger.'
Investors have welcomed the arrangement with AUN shares as much as 28.8% higher to 8.5c, a new high of two years, on volume of more than 36m.
Johnson Range is 200km north of Southern Cross and includes the Gwendolyn deposit, a near-term development opportunity on a granted mining lease and within haulage distance of multiple processing centres
The Central Sandstone Gold Project is 520km northeast of Perth and has a total resource of 886,000oz as well as iron ore opportunities. Aurumin fielded an approach last year from Brightstar Resources (ASX:BTR), owner of the Sandstone projects formerly held by Alto Metals and Gateway Mining (ASX:GML), to JV its Sandstone assets.
Omega Oil & Gas (ASX:OMA)
The Taroom Trough in Queensland's Bowen Basin has been drawing attention due to its potential to feed oil and particularly gas to the energy hungry east coast of Australia.
One ASX-lister making noise in this region is Omega Oil and Gas which has confirmed that an extensive oil and gas system is present across its acreage after completing a cased hole logging program at Canyon-2 well with shares jumping 24% to a daily high of 26c.
High-quality, pulsed neutron logs were acquired in the well, which sits 15.7km from the Canyon-1H horizontal well that flowed significant quantities of oil with gas during testing.
This tool was not run back when Canyon-2 was first evaluated following drilling in 2023.
Omega Oil and Gas (ASX:OMA) noted that open hole logs obtained at the time were subject to difficult hole conditions causing 'stick-slip' and subsequently were sub-optimal quality. By contrast, the new logs are of very high quality and have confirmed an extensive oil and gas petroleum system within the project area.
They indicated a thicker and higher-quality pay interval within the Canyon Sandstone interval, which corresponds with the zone tested in Canyon-1H, and some additional zones with good reservoir qualities that had not previously been identified.
The logs also allow clear distinction between oil-bearing and gas-bearing intervals, allowing the company to select intervals for the diagnostic fracture injection test, which is essentially a mini fracture stimulation test.
Canyon-2 penetrated the Canyon Sandstone 167m shallower than at Canyon-1.
Notably, the enhanced reservoir properties observed from log analysis may indicate that reservoir properties are likely to improve further in the eastern part of the Canyon project area where the prospective Permian interval is up to 800m shallower than at Canyon-1.
'The Canyon-2 cased hole logs have provided confirmation of an extensive oil and gas province with encouraging signs pointing toward commerciality,' managing director Trevor Brown said.
'The Canyon-2 DFIT program will add to our understanding of stacked pay potential and allow important regional correlations – further de-risking the play.'
Trigg Minerals (ASX:TMG)
Looking to grow its antimony position, Trigg Minerals this week executed an s covering the Antimony Canyon Project (ACP) in Utah.
With the ink barely dry, on Wednesday Trigg bulked up its capabilities by hiring experienced antimony downstream expert Wiehann Kleynhans.
From 3.8c on May 16, shares of the $53.8m market cap company reached 5.6c, including a jump of 21.8% from the close on May 21.
ACP is currently the largest and highest-grade antimony project in the US, with the Bureau of Mines reporting a foreign resource estimate of 12.7Mt grading 0.79% antimony for 100,300t of contained antimony.
It also features several historical high-grade mines, including Emma mine averaging 1.5% antimony with considerable zones averaging 2.2%; Mammoth averaging 1.5% Sb with considerable zones averaging 2.4%; and Nevada averaging 2.2% Sb with considerable zones averaging 3.6%.
And what's more … Utah is the world's top mining jurisdiction according to the latest Fraser Institute Survey.
Trigg Minerals (ASX:TMG) says the acquisition strengthens its antimony strategy, complementing its 1.52Mt resource at 1.97% Sb Wild Cattle Creek project in NSW and expanding its footprint across tier-one jurisdictions, while advancing both projects simultaneously supported by a healthy cash balance.
To support the strategy, Kleynhans – an experienced geologist, resource and commodity analyst and dealmaker with deep experience in the antimony sector – has been appointed the company's vice president, US downstream operations, and will spearhead downstream and smelting processes at ACP.
Hawsons Iron (ASX:HIO)
Fresh testwork has backed the plan of Hawsons Iron to use 100% dry processing at its namesake Far West NSW project as it is a cleaner, cheaper alternative to the traditional wet method.
An independent report from Stantec Australia confirms the dry circuit is not only viable but also cuts costs and improves environmental outcomes while also opening the door to potential value-add side products like silica sand.
Shares of the $19.82m market cap company have been as much as 43% higher to 2c.
The dry comminution testwork has been completed by the independent engineering consultants along with a mineral resource variability study.
Stantec's Project Report provides confidence for further investigation into potential secondary products (eg hematite, silica sands) and flow on optimisation of mine design, processing and logistics.
Detailed analytical work completed recently demonstrates a high level of geochemical and physical material consistency, throughout the current resource, particularly within the early phase of operations, which significantly contributes towards de-risking the project during its early years of operation.
The company is collating engineering and cost data with the aim of releasing an updated prefeasibility study together with maiden ore reserves for the Hawsons iron project.
'The results are crucial for cost optimisation and smarter decision making as we head towards finalising the Hawsons process flow sheet by the end of the year,' CEO Tom Revy said.
'The next phase of detailed work will involve piloting of the material through GEBR Pfeiffer's test facility in Germany which will result in defining the project's final process design criteria."
This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent financial advice before making any financial decisions.