Creasy’s Coziron up and running with Pilbara gold and iron ore

Plus, DGO cleaning up on its 16% stake in De Grey and Firefly in a halt pending gold assays

4th September 2020

Barry FitzGerald

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Given De Grey Mining’s multi-million ounce Hemi gold discovery in the Pilbara, it’s not hard for a junior with exposure to gold exploration in the region to have a market cap of $50 million.

And it’s not hard for a junior with a WA iron ore deposit and plans to become a boutique producer of the material to also have a $50m market cap, such is the allure of cashing in on $US127/t prices.

Coziron (CZR) – majority owned by legendary “prospector” Mark Creasy - has both Pilbara gold and Pilbara iron ore. But its market cap of $50m suggests that while there is market interest in one of its legs, there isn’t (yet) in the other.

That sort of panned out earlier this week when Coziron shares went for a bit of a trot, prompting a speeding ticket from the ASX.

Helped along by a write-up by a Melbourne-based share trading newsletter, Coziron ran from 1.4c on Monday to a 2.1c close on Tuesday.

The run was in anticipation of first results from a follow up drilling program at Corizon’s Croydon gold project, about 50km south-west of the Hemi excitement machine.

The 12-hole program is designed to follow up the 8m hit grading 10.2g/t gold reported back in February. There was enough encouragement in results reported on Wednesday from the first two holes to keep up interest in the on-going Croydon program.

But Coziron is now back at 1.8c. On the assumption that it’s Pilbara gold that has been driving Corizon’s share price, it is a bit of a bonus that its iron ore production credentials are about to come into a sharper focus.

Coziron said as much in its June quarterly, released on July 31. It said a strategic review was underway into unlocking the “potentially considerable value” of its Robe Mesa iron ore deposit within its Yarraloola project in the Pilbara.

The review is considering options ranging from a full or partial sale, a joint venture development, and other scenarios in which Coziron could retain a free-carried economic interest.

Yarraloola’s Robe Mesa deposit has an 89Mt resource grading 53.7%, including a high-grade component of 24.7mt grading 56%.

It is the same stuff Rio mines at its Robe River operation.

Most importantly, it is close to existing roads and is close to the coast, lending itself to a low-cost dig-and-truck style operation – the type where even small production ambitions and longer trucking distances have given rise to $50m market caps for others.

So what comes of the review could be meaningful for Coziron.

It has to be said though it doesn’t want to be pigeon-holed as an iron ore stock, given the rise of interest in its Pilbara gold leg. That’s why it is planning a name change to CZR Resources, dropping the “iron” bit.

An update on the iron ore review can’t be far off now. Best to wait and see. But what can be said is that whatever the outcome, it will be the real deal as Coziron’s chairman David Flanagan knows a bit about the dig-and-truck iron ore business.

He led the way for the juniors back at Atlas Iron in the early 2000s, eventually establishing Atlas as a Pilbara producer from its “starter” Pardoo mine in 2008. Atlas went on to greater things before iron ore prices messed with its ambitions and it was eventually acquired by Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting.