The All Ordinaries Index (ASX: XAO) is very unlikely to return 79% over the next year, but this ASX All Ords gold stock has been tipped to do just that.
The promising gold miner in question is Saturn Metals Ltd (ASX: STN), which is primarily focused on its 100% owned Apollo Hill Gold Project, located in Western Australia.
Saturn Metals shares have already delivered some smashing gains to stockholders over the past year.
Indeed, 12 months ago, you could have bought the ASX All Ords gold stock for 28.5 cents a share. On Tuesday, shares closed up 3.7% to end the day trading for 56.0 cents apiece. This sees the Saturn Metals share price up 96.5% over the past 12 months, smashing the 15.1% one-year gains posted by the benchmark index.
And according to the analysts at Canaccord Genuity, Saturn Metals shares could have a lot further to run yet.
Here's why.
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Should you buy this ASX All Ords gold stock today?
Canaccord noted that Apollo Hill hosts a resource of 2.24 million ounces at 0.51 grams of gold per tonne (2.24Moz @ 0.51g/t Au), with the project being assessed as a potential, large open pit heap leach operation.
Canaccord said that since Saturn Metals listed in 2018, the ASX All Ords gold stock has "scaled and de-risked Apollo Hill through drilling, metallurgy and staged studies".
These have helped the miner define a bulk-tonnage, low-strip, single open pit enabled by heap leach, which Canaccord said is key differentiator among Australian developers.
The broker said that after falling out of favour around 2018, heap leaching is re-emerging in Australia as a "disciplined, mainstream development pathway rather than a low-cost fallback".
Canaccord said this return is being driven by three key shifts. According to the broker:
Decades of global operating experience have de-risked design, agglomeration, stacking and monitoring; WA offers ideal conditions with low seismicity, flat terrain, arid climate, strong regulation and deep technical capability; and modern workflows assess heap leach viability early, using detailed mineralogy, large-scale column testwork and improved geosynthetics to define realistic recoveries and performance.
Commenting on how this could help Saturn Metals' returns, Canaccord added:
This proven, predictable positioning of heap leach as a tool to be selectively applied where ore characteristics and jurisdictional conditions are amenable align with the development route being advanced at Apollo Hill.
Connecting the dots, on 31 March the broker initiated coverage of the ASX All Ords gold stock with a speculative buy rating and a price target of $1.00 a share. That represents a potential upside of 78.6% from Saturn Metals' closing price on Tuesday.
Saturn Metal shares have gained 36.6% since market close on 30 March, spurred by new high-grade gold results from ongoing drilling at Apollo Hill.
