ASX mining shares are rising strongly on Thursday, with the S&P/ASX 300 Metal & Mining Index (ASX: XMM) up 1.6%.
Meantime, the S&P/ASX 300 Index (ASX: XKO) is up 0.3%.
On The Bull this week, market analysts revealed buy ratings on two mining shares at opposite ends of the market in terms of size.
One is the biggest ASX mining share on the market, the other is a micro-cap stock.
Let's take a look.
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BHP Group Ltd (ASX: BHP)
The BHP share price is $42.96 on Thursday, up 1.5% today and up 7.5% in the year to date.
Remo Greco from Sanlam Private Wealth has a buy rating on the ASX large-cap mining share.
Greco said the Sanlam team has been "lukewarm" on BHP shares for some time, but fundamental changes are now underway.
The analyst commented:
The new chairman Ross McEwan appears to be driving positive change, and the prize is a better balanced business with the copper division becoming more prominent.
As we've reported, the 'Big Australian' is now the world's largest copper producer.
In FY25, the red metal represented 45% of BHP's total underlying earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA).
Greco said BHP dividends would likely stay around current levels as the miner reinvests more of its profits.
We're not overly concerned about dividends if the global miner generates share price growth.
This will depend on the company allocating its capital expenditure in a responsible and profitable manner.
We believe BHP can achieve this and suggest it's a worthy addition to portfolios at current levels.
BHP has a market capitalisation of $215 billion.
Maronan Metals Ltd (ASX: MMA)
Maronan Metals is a mineral explorer that owns the Maronan lead-silver and copper-gold deposit in Cloncurry, in Queensland's northwest.
At the time of writing, this ASX micro-cap mining share is 32 cents, up 5% today and up 43% in the year to date.
Tony Locantro of Alto Capital has a buy rating on Maronan Metals shares.
He says the miner's Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) study for the Starter Zone of its Maronan deposit, released in September, indicated potential for a long-life and diversified polymetallic operation.
Locantro commented:
A strong economic case to develop the starter zone of the Maronan underground project in North Queensland has been delivered.
Both onsite processing and toll treating options were provided, with standalone life-of-mine (LOM) free cash flow of $683 million and pre-production capital expenditure of $266 million.
A regional toll treatment option assumes LOM cash flow of $595 million and pre-production capital expenditure of $98 million.
Maronan Metals says the starter zone represents approximately 22% of the deposit's silver-lead mineral resource estimates and less than 10% of its copper-gold estimates.
On the company website, Maronan says:
The team at Maronan are working hard to "turn a discovery into a mine".
Since IPO in 2022, over 27,000m of new drilling has been completed which has fed into the recently announced 2025 updates to the project's mineral resource estimates.
The inferred and indicated silver-lead mineral resource estimate at Maronan is 33.1Mt at 6% lead (Pb) and 108g/t silver.
The starter zone has an indicated 5.3Mt at 5.2% lead and 116g/t silver, and an inferred 6.9Mt at 4.8% lead and 109g/t silver.
The inferred and indicated copper-gold mineral resource at Maronan is 32Mt at 0.85% copper, 0.63g/t Gold, and 7g/t silver.
Looking ahead, Locantro concluded: "We see strong resource growth and conversion from inferred to indicated as a key driver."
Maronan Metals has a market capitalisation of $75.5 million.
