Magnetic (ASX:MAU): A pre-Xmas poll on stocks to watch in 2024...

Magnetic (ASX:MAU):

A pre-Xmas poll on stocks to watch in 2024 highlighted Laverton gold explorer Magnetic (MAU).

Led by founder and managing director George Sakalidis of former mineral sands fame, Magnetic performed strongly in 2023.

It last traded at 90.5c for a market cap of $216m. Argonaut, which has a $1.80 price target on the stock, and others reckon there is more to come in 2024.

Magnetic’s drilling along a section of the Chatterbox Zone some 15km or so from Laverton has already delivered a resource of 1.23Moz grading a handy 1.69g/t across a number of deposits.

The main deposit is Lady Julie North 4 (LJN4) with its 852,000oz at a better grade still of 2.02 g/t, making it the highest-grade open-pit deposit in WA of scale.

Interesting enough for sure. But the real game-changer for Magnetic, and the reason the company has captured the market’s attention, is the potential for LJN4 to get bigger still.

Drilling for more of its high-grade and seriously thick stacked lodes below the existing known resource is underway, with results likely in the near-term.

Come next month, Magnetic plans to start bringing things together with the release of a scoping/pre-feasibility study for development of the broader Laverton project.

There will be no surprise should the study point to a project with 100,000ozpa production potential for the long term.

Whether any future development on that sort of scale will have Magnetic’s name on the front gate remains to be seen. Laverton, like Leonora to the east, is ripe for consolidation.

There are three big mills within trucking distance owned by others that could do with a feed of the sweet grade ore LJN4 could offer up.

Sakalidis is alert to all that and 18 months ago appointed Jefferies to run a data room on the Laverton project, with toll treatment/sale/takeover all possibilities.

The February study could be the trigger for some action from one of the interested parties. In the meantime, the prospect of thick and even higher grade results from the deep drilling program will continue to enhance the project’s stand-alone credentials.