Last week saw one of the biggest resources sector conferences of the year – the RIU Sydney Resources Round Up. Dozens of resources companies flew from across the country to present themselves before investors, industry professionals and their fellow ASX listees.

All of them sold hope to investors that they could stumble across the next major deposit for their chosen commodity. Although of course, unless you are in gold, it is difficult to hold optimism amidst the current bust in prices of many metals, particularly battery metals.

At Stocks Down Under, we attended the conference, met with several companies, attended external events put on separate to the conference where we had the chance to discover more than we would’ve from the presentations. Without any further ado, we thought we’d share with you the 5 that caught our eye.

The 5 most intriguing stocks from the RIU Sydney Resources Round Up 2024

Matador Mining (ASX:MZZ)/AuMega Metals (ASX:AAM)

We start with a $35.6m company focused on Newfoundland in Canada. It owns a portfolio of projects in that province with Indicated Resources of 6.2Mt @ 2.25g/t gold for 450koz. It is receiving the results from a winter drilling campaign, with 47 of 158 holes in and initial results showing significant gold and copper shallow mineralisation. It told investors more exploration is to come, and the programs will be designed based on Return on Investment.

And investors were told to expect more copper exploration in the future. It will be changing its name from Matador Mining to AuMega Metals on May 30, subject to shareholder approval at that day’s AGM.

Fenix (ASX:FEX)

If you thought Fortescue was the only iron ore miner out there, you are wrong. Capped at over $200m, it owned a single project just two years ago, but now owns a number of projects (operating projects and exploration deposits) in WA close to Geraldton. Since 2021 it has sold over 4mt of iron ore, generating $688m in revenue, over $152m in profits, and paid $65m in dividends. In 1HY24, it made a 48% ROIC and closed the period with $63m in cash.

American West Minerals (ASX:AW1)

American West Minerals is a diversified resources company that is focused on North America. It has three projects:

Storm Copper in Canada’s Nunavut region with a JORC Resource of 17.5Mt @ 1.2% copper and 3.4g/t gold
West Desert in Utah with an underground resource of 33MT @ 3.83% zinc, 0.15% copper, 9g/t gold and 20g/t indium.
Copper Warrior in Utah that is at the exploration stage but is 15km from Utah’s 2nd largest copper mine.

Copper prices aren’t in the best of shape right now, but there is potential for copper to improve as the supply deficit widens and the amount of copper output declines as mines close down due to increased costs, ESG issues and exhaustion of their resources.

The company is not just exploring, but is looking ahead to future production with processing and economic studies are underway.

Delta Lithium (ASX:DLI)

Delta has been on our radar screen for a while. Chris Ellison’s Mineral Resources (ASX:MIN) has accumulated a near 20% stake in the company and Ellison himself becoming chairman of Delta.

This company has four projects: the Yinnetharra and Mt Ida lithium projects, the Eureka gold project and the Earaheedy Basin lead and zinc project. Yinnethharra appears the most exciting lithium project with a MRE of 25.7Mt @ 1% lithium, whilst Mt Idea has 14.6MT @ 1.2% lithium. Although lithium is not an exciting space to be in, it appears to have stumbled across gold at Mt Ida that could provide extra cash flow for the project. The Maiden Resource Estimate of gold at Mt Ida is 3.1Mt @ 4.1g/t for 412,000 ounces.

Coda Minerals (ASX:COD)

Coda Minerals (ASX:COD) is an ASX-listed copper junior that is developing the Elizabeth Creek copper-cobalt project, in South Australia’s Olympic Copper province.

Elizabeth Creek is an open-pit and underground project based on a large Zambian Copper Belt-style copper-cobalt deposit. The most recent Scoping Study update showed an NPV of A$735m and an IRR of 27%, for 307k lifetime tonnes of copper (25.4k per annum) and 16.9k cobalt tonnes (1.3k per annum).

Investors will remember this company for a share price rally across 2021-22 due to encouraging exploration results. Despite completing scoping studies, Investors have reacted more nuanced to the company ever since given the pre-production capital cost ($306m), notwithstanding the NPV, IRR and payback, not to mention the fact that the project is in a Tier-1 jurisdiction and has further exploration upside.