Craig Nolan

Altech Batteries has revealed a compelling set of numbers for its planned Cerenergy battery project in Germany, with its DFS forecasting a NPV of €169 million and annual revenue of €106 million generating EBITDA earnings of a juicy €51million per annum. The company says capital cost estimates of €156 million and a steady-state payback period of 3.7 years add to the project’s appeal.

Toro Energy is poised to launch drilling at its Wiluna uranium-vanadium play in Western Australia in a bid to provide sufficient ore samples to feed its upcoming pilot plant that is expected to begin operating in the next quarter. The company’s aim is to generate sufficient drill-core to provide a bulk sample of 20 tonnes to the pilot plant that is being designed in Perth.

ABx Group has expanded the rare earths zone at its Deep Leads-Rubble Mound project in northern Tasmania, with new drill hits showing mineralisation enriched in the valuable heavy rare earths, dysprosium and terbium. The company says its latest drilling proves that the site west of Launceston retains the highest proportion of the two elements of any clay-hosted rare earths resource In Australia.

Reach Resources has linked up with emerging developer Delta Lithium, signing an earn-in and JV agreement on its Morrissey Hill and Camel Hill projects in Western Australia’s prospective Gascoyne region. Delta will pay Reach a non-refundable $3.2 million and can earn an initial 51 per cent interest by spending $3 million on exploration within the first two years.

DiscovEx Resources has stretched its Hercules prospect to a whopping 7km of anomalous gold found in soil after a sampling program at its Edjudina project, about 200km north of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia. The extensional program completed north of the Hercules target produced multiple higher-tenor results within the broad anomalous zone, adding to several prospective targets already identified at the project.

American West Metals is set to launch a new drill attack and smash into an exploration and resource expansion program at its Storm copper play on Somerset Island, within the Canadian territory of Nunavut. After recently boosting its cash holdings by $10 million, it expects the drill program to begin next month, with about 22,000m of reverse-circulation and diamond drilling planned.

King River Resources is set to kick off a new drill campaign at its Tennant Creek East project in the Northern Territory as part of a $2 million commitment to hunt for high-grade copper-gold this year. Drilling will target the promising Commitment, Langrenus and Providence prospects, all in proximity to several head-turning copper-gold drill intersections recorded in recent years in the highly-regarded Tennant Creek region.

Strickland Metals’ aggressive gold hunt in Western Australia is steaming ahead at full pace, with its recent air-core drilling program highlighting consistent hits in a newly-defined 750m zone at its Yandal project near Wiluna. The company says bottom-of-hole intercepts indicate a new structure west of its highly-promising Dusk til Dawn prospect that contains an inferred resource of 109,000 gold ounces.

Infinity Lithium has continued its chase for the rights to mine lithium and establish a conversion facility at its San José project in Spain by formally lodging an application with the local government. The project, with a mineral resource of 111.3 million tonnes grading 0.61 per cent lithium oxide and 206 parts-per-million tin, is in Extremadura – a remote mountainous region that borders Portugal.