Doug Bright

Octava Minerals is on the cusp of kicking off a soil sampling program in a bid to expand the Razorback gold prospect at its 202sq-km Talga lithium-gold project, 30km east of Marble Bar in WA’s Pilbara region. Despite Razorback showing significant gold intersections in previous drilling, including 5m at 2.23g/t from 24m, only 700m of its interpreted 4km strike has been drilled.

Quantum Graphite says its airborne geophysics have defined a new high-grade graphite zone about 2.5km long in the north-west area of its Uley 2 exploration licence on SA’s Eyre Peninsula. It comes after the company confirmed in April the completion of its helicopter-borne versatile time domain electromagnetic (VTEM) and magnetics survey that was part of its planning for Uley 2 and Uley 3 project extensions.

Gold Mountain has defined several new drill targets at its Down Under project in Brazil following the completion of extensive scout stream sediment sampling and 85 line kilometres of radiometric surveying. While 800 stream sediment samples have been collected to date, only 25 per cent of the results have been returned, with about 61 of them revealing strong potential for high-grade, monazite-hosted rare earths-niobium-uranium-scandium mineralisation.

Lycaon Resources has completed a crucial heritage survey for its multi-element Stansmore carbonatite project in Western Australia’s West Arunta region, marking a significant step towards drilling. The clearance relates to three priority drill targets at the company’s Stansmore, Volt and Ions targets where it is chasing niobium, rare earths and iron oxide copper-gold and it is now eyeing a drilling program later this year.

GreenTech Metals has knocked off the first 1743m of a planned 2200m reverse-circulation drilling program to test the Austin, Shelby and Ayshia targets at its Whundo copper-zinc project in Western Australia’s Pilbara region. The first phase of the program was designed to test the company’s unexplored Austin and Shelby targets and for possible extensions of its Ayshia deposit – all associated with fixed-loop electromagnetic geophysical anomalies.

ABx Group has polished off a 37-hole air-core drilling campaign that explored a previously-untested north-west area of its Deep Leads rare earths project sitting 45km west of Launceston in northern Tasmania. Previous success at ABx’s high-grade Deep Leads target has led it to interpret the area as prospective for rare earths and the latest drilling has yielded 316 samples that have been sent for analysis.

In this week’s edition of Bulls N’ Bears Big Hits, we examine some of the notable drill intersections revealed on the ASX, including Encounter Resources’ 46m at 3.1 per cent niobium pentoxide from 60m to hole end at 106m. We also take a close look at other interesting drill hits from last week as reported by Future Battery Minerals, Riversgold and Spartan Resources.

After pocketing $5 million in new money, Larvotto Resources is on the cusp of launching a 5250m exploration drilling program to infill and extend its Clarks Gully gold-antimony resource that sits just 4.7km north-west of its Hillgrove Mine in NSW. The measured and indicated Clarks Gully resource contains 266,000 tonnes at 3.8 per cent antimony and 2g/t gold, or 8.40g/t gold equivalent.

GreenTech Metals has reinforced evidence for three major lithium trends within its Kobe and Osborne tenements in Western Australia’s Pilbara region following an infill geochemical soil sampling program. The campaign has confirmed continuity of the Kobe South lithium anomalism that is well-defined through a 5.5km east-to-south-east-trending corridor, with maximum responses in the range of 200ppm to 467ppm lithium oxide.