Small Cap Watch: Alkane lifts gold resource, St George hits record-thick Araxá intercept, Janus secures Frankfurt listing and more...

The S&P/ASX Small Ordinaries slipped modestly on Tuesday, with the index easing 3.8 points, or 0.11%, to close at 3,322.8. The small-cap benchmark has declined 20.5 points, or 0.61%, over the past five trading sessions, reflecting a subdued stretch for the junior end of the Australian market. Despite the softer index performance, company news remains active, with resource upgrades, drilling results, quarterly production figures and international expansion initiatives providing several points of interest for investors.

Alkane Resources Ltd (ASX:ALK, OTC:ALKEF) has reported further exploration success and an updated mineral resource estimate for the Storheden deposit at its Björkdal operation in northern Sweden. Storheden is about 700 metres north of the Björkdal mine, where recent drilling has intersected gold-bearing quartz veins across a 2.7-kilometre strike length and to a depth of 464 metres. Mineralisation remains open in all directions. Alkane completed 16 extensional diamond drill holes at Storheden between January and March 2026, intersecting high-grade mineralisation within target zones identified through earlier campaigns. The drilling has also improved the company’s understanding of the lithostructural controls on gold-bearing quartz veins, defining geological units that will form targets for future exploration. Updated modelling...