Public Company News

American West Metals has vowed to uncover new zones of copper mineralisation at its Storm project on Canada’s Somerset Island after kicking off this year’s exploration and resource definition drilling program. The initial RC campaign will also further explore the resource potential at the company’s Thunder prospect where last year’s drilling jagged a 48.6m copper intercept going 3 per cent copper.

Image Resources has revealed a compelling prefeasibility study for its 100 per cent-owned Yandanooka mineral sands project north of Perth in Western Australia, showing an annual EBITDA of $277 million for more than eight years and a capital payback of just 15 months. The project is modelled to produce 1.04 million tonnes of heavy mineral concentrate during its 8.2-year mine life.

This week’s Bulls N’ Bears top ASX runner is … Dalaroo Metals. Its share price rose more than 182 per cent to join fellow movers and shakers Nimy Resources, Adherium and Firebrick Pharma.

Perth-based explorer Estrella Resources has uncovered another manganese prospect in Timor-Leste, with pXRF grades from float going as high as 27.9 per cent manganese. The company’s new Sauro prospect sits just 12km south-east of its Lalena prospect that just last week threw up pXRF results from grab samples going up to 57.2 per cent and 48.1 per cent manganese.

Si6 Metals has detailed plans to kick off its third drilling program in Brazil’s renowned “Lithium Valley”, with 20 auger holes to be plunged as the company homes in on lithium and rare earths soil anomalies going as high as 103ppm lithium and 710ppm TREO in the Padre Paraiso prospect area. The area has proven to be highly-prospective for lithium and rare earths.

Triangle Energy will be hunting a 279Bcf resource in ground south-east of Geraldton in WA’s Mid West when it launches drilling for oil and gas at its Booth prospect in the onshore Perth Basin in late June. The Booth-1 well is expected to cost less than $1.5 million and will be followed by the Becos-1 well as the search for hydrocarbons intensifies in the region.

A second drill rig has rolled onto Strickland Metals’ Yandal project in WA’s Eastern Goldfields region to target high-grade gold intercepts from last year’s reconnaissance drilling program that pulled up 39m averaging 6.1g/t, including a 7m core running at 22.2g/t of the precious yellow metal. It is back to business for Strickland after it yesterday confirmed the acquisition of a giant Serbian gold project.

Empire Energy Group says it has received binding commitments to raise a hulking $46.8 million from new and existing institutional shareholders, including two United States-based oil and gas heavyweights. The company will be extremely well-funded after the raise and will use its new “cash stash” to drill a 3km-long development well at its Carpentaria pilot project in the Northern Territory’s Beetaloo Sub-basin.

Meeka Metals has unveiled a 60 per cent boost for its St Anne’s gold resource in Western Australia’s Mid West region, increasing to 40,000 ounces at more than 3 grams per tonne. The resource forms part of the company’s 1.23 million-ounce Murchison gold project that sits in the area bearing the same name, about 650km north of Perth.

Strickland Metals has entered the lucrative Serbian gold game after acquiring the Rogozna project that already boasts a whopping resource of 5.44 million JORC-compliant ounces of gold equivalent. The company says advanced exploration targets at Rogozna offer near-term growth, with diamond drilling outside of the existing resource going as high as a staggering 352m at 2.1 grams per tonne gold equivalent from 240m.

Thunderbird Resources has assembled a surprising array of interesting-looking uranium and lithium targets in some of the hottest mineral territories in the world, including Canada’s Athabasca uranium basin. The Athabasca basin is remarkable for its average uranium grades of about 2 per cent and its massive-scale deposits – and Thunderbird appears to have picked the eyes out of it.

Gold Mountain has revealed encouraging anomalous lithium results from a stream sediment sampling program carried out at its Campo Formoso project in Brazil. The company says six strongly and nine moderately anomalous samples were returned from an area overlying a granite body considered to be of similar age and setting to the prospective Jaguar pegmatite to the north.