Below we take a look at the latest drilling results that look to be driving investor interest in the ASX resource explorer.

What drilling results were announced?

The Coda Minerals share price is surging after the company reported "significant preliminary results" at its Elizabeth Creek Project, located in South Australia.

The results come from its ongoing iron oxide copper gold (IOCG) drilling program at Emmie Bluff Deeps. That's part of Elizabeth Creek, which Coda is exploring along with its joint venture partner on the project, Torrens Mining Ltd (ASX: TRN). The Torrens share price is up 5% today.

According to the release, 4 new holes had hit thick copper-sulphide mineralised intercepts. This now extends the mineralised envelop to the north, east and south. The company highlighted that one hole struck zones "dominated by bornite, a high-grade copper sulphide". The core of that mineralised zone has been extended 70 metres and remains open to the south.

The Coda Minerals share price could be getting an extra boost from the company's statement that historical data "indicates the potential for significant extension in multiple directions" across the project.

Commenting on the results, Coda Mineral's CEO, Chris Stevens said:

We have now had an outstanding run of nine holes from this and the previous drilling program. All have returned materially important intersections and we are beginning to demonstrate a clear trend of increasing thickness and tenor of mineralisation as we systematically follow the bornite-dominant zone to the south-east.

In particular, the results from EBD3W3B are exceptional. Once confirmed by assays, this hole will not only materially extend the known bornite-dominated zone but should also give us one of our thickest sulphide intersections to date.

Stevens said Coda had a cash balance of $17.8 million as at 30 September, leaving the company well-funded to continue its "ambitious ongoing exploration program" well into 2022.

Citing delays at assay laboratories that are impacting everyone in the industry, Coda expects to receive assay results for the 5 holes before Christmas.

Stay tuned.

Coda Minerals share price snapshot

It's been a banner year for the Coda Minerals share price, up 211% since 4 January. For some context, the All Ordinaries Index (ASX: XAO) has gained 8% year-to-date.

Over the past month shares, in Coda Minerals are up 12%.

The post Here's why the Coda Minerals (ASX:COD) share price is rocketing 18% today appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

Below, we take a look at the ASX resource explorer's latest drill results that appear to be driving investor interest.

What drill results were announced?

Coda Minerals' share price is surging after the company reported promising results from its ongoing drilling program at Emmie Bluff Deeps, located in South Australia.

According to the release, new data from visual logging of core from the exploration campaign, conducted along with Coda's joint venture partner Torrens Mining Ltd (ASX: TRN), has "significantly increased the interpreted scale of the copper-bearing mineralisation" at the project.

(The Torrens share price is up 10% at this same time.)

Coda said it has now intersected iron oxide copper gold ore (IOCG) style mineralisation over a significant area at Emmie Bluff Deeps. Its exploration model continues to evolve as new results come in.

One of the recent holes highlighted by the company encountered 67 metres of mineralisation over 2 vertically stacked lodes, including:

• 27 metres of bornite-chalcocite-covellite mineralisation from 803 metres down hole in the upper lode immediately adjacent to a significant fault zone
• 40 metres of blebby chalcopyrite dominated mineralisation (with trace disseminated bornite) from 913 metres down hole

Commenting on the drill results, Coda CEO Chris Stevens said:

These new results substantially increase the mineralised footprint of the system and show that there is a significant amount of copper present. We are also seeing increased thicknesses of potentially economic mineralisation and, importantly, the presence of a higher grade bornite core.

We are particularly encouraged by the intensity of alteration and abundance of sulphides which are being reported by our field team, as well as the fact that we are seeing far greater lateral extensions to the mineralisation than we have seen before.

There are 2 drill rigs on the site digging wedge holes to follow up on recent promising drill holes.

"Our task now is to continue to test the areas of open mineralisation as we seek to extend the copper-rich bornite zones and to further test areas for vertical extension and additional stacked lodes," Stevens said.

Coda Minerals share price snapshot

The Coda Minerals share price is up a stellar 226% year to date, well outpacing the ~8% gain posted by the All Ordinaries Index (ASX: XAO) so far in 2021.

Over the past month, Coda's shares are up 0.48%.

The post Why the Coda Minerals (ASX:COD) share price is surging 16% today appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

During mid-morning trade, Coda Minerals shares are swapping hands for $1.26, down 9.03%

Placement update

Investors are scrambling to sell Coda Minerals shares as the company prepares to dilute existing shareholder value.

According to its release, the mining outfit announced it has received $14.4 million in firm commitments by a way of placement. The offer saw significant oversubscription from both institutional and sophisticated investors.

In total, 12 million new ordinary shares will be added to its registry at a price of $1.20 a pop. This represents a discount of around 4.1% to the 5-day volume weighted average price (VWAP) until 16 June 2021. However, the 12 million shares will join the 69.7 million already on its registry.

Coda Minerals will use its existing placement capacity to create the new shares. Under listing rule 7.1, this allows up to 15% of its total shares to be issued without shareholder approval.

The proceeds of the placement will see Coda Minerals fund an exploration programme at the 70%-owned Elizabeth Creek Copper Project in South Australia. The company will also tap into its existing cash reserves to accelerate resource drilling activities.

Coda Minerals will have approximately $21.5 million in the bank after costs of the placement.

It's expected the placement's new shares will be settled on 25 June 2021, with allotment following thereafter on 28 June.

Coda Minerals chair, Keith Jones commented, "We are absolutely delighted with the strong support received from the market."

"The next six months promises to be a transformational period for Coda shareholders."

The Company remains on track to deliver its Mineral Resource Estimate at the Emmie Bluff Copper-Cobalt Deposit in the second-half of 2021.

Coda Minerals share price summary

It's been an exciting month for Coda Minerals shares, having accelerated to astronomical highs. The company's share price hit an all-time high of $1.75 on 16 June, before plummeting today.

On valuation grounds, Coda Minerals commands a market capitalisation of around $87 million.

The post Coda Minerals (ASX:COD) share price sinks 9% after placement update appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

This monumental price rise comes after the company announced a "significant" iron oxide copper-gold (IOCG) result at its South Australian mine. IOCG ore can contain large amounts of copper, gold, and sometimes uranium.

Let's take a closer look at today's news.

Why the Coda Minerals share price struck proverbial gold

In a statement to the ASX, Coda Minerals, along with its 30% ownership partner Torrens Mining Ltd (ASX: TRN) – also up an impressive 106% today, declared "highly encouraging" preliminary results at Emmie Bluffs Deep in its Elizabeth Creek project in SA.

According to the statement, its initial drill hole yielded "a 200m sequence of intense haematisation and alteration," in other words, signs of IOCG deposits. These included "a 50m sequence of zoned copper sulphide mineralisation."

Coda Minerals has stressed in its announcement, however, these initial drill results are indicative only and yet to be confirmed in a laboratory. Investors are clearly jumping on the bandwagon anyway, judging by the performance of the Coda Minerals share price today.

Management commentary

Coda Minerals Chair Keith Jones said:

We have long known we are exploring in elephant country – a view backed up not only by the world class projects which surround us, but also by historical and geophysical evidence of an IOCG system in the northern part of the tenure.

Given that we knew the enormous potential of our tenure, it is still tremendously exciting for our first deep exploration hole at Elizabeth Creek to have intersected evidence of a major IOCG system existing on our ground.

Coda CEO Chris Stevens added:

This is a very exciting and significant result for the very first deep IOCG exploration hole to be drilled at our Elizabeth Creek project since we listed on the ASX, and it represents the culmination of significant geological and geophysical targeting work undertaken prior to listing.

Regardless of the final assays, it is clear based on geological data alone we have intersected an IOCG alteration system of significant scale.

…we feel we owe it to our shareholders to pursue this game changing opportunity with vigour.

Gold and copper commodity prices

While gold is up 3.2% over a month to US$1,893 per troy ounce, copper is down 4.2% to US$4.53 a pound.

Trading Economics says the price of gold has been rising in recent weeks due to fears of inflation while copper is down because of lacklustre demand for the metal from China. The website, however, expects the price of both metals to decrease in 12 months' time.

Coda Minerals share price snapshot

Over the past 12 months, the Coda Minerals share price has increased 145%. To put today's price rise into perspective, it's 90% greater than Coda's total gains across an entire year.

In fact, if an investor had bought shares in the company at the start of 2021, they would be sitting on an impressive 272% return on investment.

After today's phenomenal result, the market capitalisation of Coda Minerals has jumped from $24.3 million to more than $75 million.

The post Here's why the Coda Minerals (ASX:COD) share price just rocketed 235% appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

Let's take a look at some of the ASX 200 shares that are being the most heavily traded today:

3 ASX shares that are the ASX 200's biggest movers today

Whitehaven Coal Ltd (ASX: WHC)

Coal miner Whitehaven is one of the most active ASX 200 shares on the markets today, with 14 million shares having traded hands so far at the time of writing. That can probably be explained by Whitehaven's strong 5.72% jump today to $1.94 a share, which we looked at earlier. Whitehaven has also had a very strong month of performance, with the shares up close to 54% since early May. Investors can likely thank galloping coal prices for this situation.

Coda Minerals Ltd (ASX: COD)

Coda Minerals shares are also finding their way around the ASX boards today, with a hefty 23.5 million shares changing hands so far today. One look at the current Coda share price gives away the probable cause here. Coda shares are currently up a whopping 162% today to 93 cents a share. A promising ASX update this morning, which flagged a significant discovery at one of Coda's copper mines, has seemingly gotten investors very excited over the company's future.

Imugene Limited (ASX: IMU)

Imugene was the most traded ASX 200 share yesterday and has scored a double today, with the company topping ASX 200 trading with a substantial 52 million shares bouncing around the ASX boards. There have been no major news or announcements that might have sparked such a move. However, this company's trading today has been volatile. Imugene shares were up close to 7% in early trading this morning, but have since given up those gains, and are now down 3.12% to 32 cents a share at the time of writing. With such volatility, it's no real surprise to see such a large number of shares swapping hands today. Even so, Imugene shares are still up more than 19% over the past month, and 675% over the past year.

The post These 3 ASX 200 shares are the most actively traded today appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.