It certainly has been a positive day for the Image Resources NL (ASX: IMA) share price.
This morning the mineral exploration company's shares stormed 15% higher to a 52-week high of 19.5 cents. This took its year to date gain to an impressive 77%.
Why is the Image Resources share price on fire today?
Investors have been fighting to get hold of Image Resources shares on Tuesday following the release of its preliminary actual average ore feed grade update for March.
According to the release, the preliminary actual average ore feed grade reported for March 2019 is approximately 2.5 times higher than expected.
The preliminary average ore feed grade for March, which remains subject to end of month reconciliation adjustments, has been reported to contain approximately 19% heavy minerals, compared to a budgeted ore grade of 7.4% heavy minerals which is based on ore reserve estimates for ore from the mined area.
Management believes this result further corroborates the existence of a very high grade horizontal core section in the eastern ore strand at its 100%-owned zircon-rich Boonanarring mineral sands project located 80 km north of Perth.
Managing director Patrick Mutz appeared to be delighted with the operational results.
He said: "Operational results for March 2019 are clearly outstanding, given the enormous uplift in the average ore grade compared to the expected ore grade as modelled in the Ore Reserve. Now that drilling has begun to delineate the high grade Core in the eastern ore strand, we eagerly look forward to understanding the significance of the ore grades in the Core on the overall Ore Reserve."
Should you invest?
Whilst it is a little too soon for me to invest, this is certainly a positive development and means I'll be keeping a close eye on how things develop at Image Resources in the coming months.
For now, though, I'll be sticking with BHP Group Ltd (ASX: BHP) and Rio Tinto Limited (ASX: RIO).
