Gary Kjellgren

Massive lithium battery maker Amperex Technology has picked up 10 per cent of St George Mining’s seven hard rock lithium projects in WA with a $3m punt into a St George subsidiary. Amperex is the world’s leading producer of lithium-ion batteries and is potentially a significant ally for St George as it looks to develop its suite of battery metals projects.

Infinity Mining has enlarged its lithium footprint at three Tambourah South prospects in Western Australia’s East Pilbara region after discovering more pegmatites through field mapping and confirming lithium prolificacy through rock-chip and drill-sampling assays. Rock chips recorded a best value of 3.7 per cent lithium oxide and eight RC holes cut 23 pegmatites with a maximum thickness of 25m.

Askari Metals is preparing its backhoe for trenching across four LCT pegmatites in a bid to reveal more battery minerals potential at its flagship Uis lithium project within Namibia’s Uis-Cape Cross pegmatite belt. The company will dig 111 trenches to try and deepen its knowledge of the surface expression and mineralisation of the highly-fractionated pegmatites within the anomalous corridor that hosts Andrada Mining’s tin mine.

Askari Metals has captured a battery metals-prospective permit via a corporate takeover to add to its growing flagship Uis lithium project that sits within Namibia’s Uis-Cape Cross pegmatite belt. The permit, which Askari gained through its full acquisition of Green Lithium, is along strike and juxtaposed next to Andrada Mining’s operating tin mine and Spodumene Hill discovery.

Buru Energy has moved to fast-track the phase-one small LNG plant development at its Rafael gas-condensate project in Western Australia’s Kimberley region by launching a pre-front end engineering design (FEED) study. Part of a multi-pronged strategy to monetise the asset, it is expected to be completed in the first half of next year, with the final FEED to follow soon after.

Triangle Energy has casing and wellheads lined up for two of three high-value wells it will drill at its onshore Perth Basin areas in the first half of next year. The company has received regulator approval to farm out a 50 per cent interest in its permits, which will see some $20 million enter the company’s coffers to offset drilling and seismic processing costs.

Toro Energy has kicked off its Lake Maitland extension study, which will also include uranium-vanadium ore from its Lake Way and Centipede-Millipede deposits that sit some 30km south-east of Wiluna in Western Australia. The company’s new assessment is aimed at adding considerable value to its original scoping study that forecast an annual EBITDA of $101 million during a 17.5-year mine life.

Buru Energy has acquired some 200 square kilometres of high-resolution 3D seismic data within and around its 100 per cent-owned prodigious Rafael gas-condensate project in Western Australia’s Kimberley region. Once the data, which also includes several 2D lines in an adjoining permit, is processed and interpreted by year’s end, it will provide enhanced clarity on the subsurface structure and will drive appraisal drilling for next year.

Middle Island Resources has prioritised exploration targets for iron oxide-copper-gold mineralisation and sediment-hosted base metals of copper-zinc-lead-silver at its Barkly project near Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory. The company says one of its company’s application areas has two high-priority shallow targets based on historic data that reveal a pathway copper-gold indicator of silver showing 87 grams per tonne.

Aurum Resources has launched its maiden 74-hole, 3500m air-core drilling campaign at its Ryans Find gold project, north-east of Koolyanobbing in Westerm Australia, to follow up on some alluring gold and base metals soil anomalies. The holes will be oriented in multiple transects perpendicular to the strike of a prospective north/north-westerly-trending greenstone belt, with the aim of netting some trophy catches.

Lycaon Resources has intersected more than 45m of 1 to 5 per cent visual nickel-copper sulphides from 330m after thrusting a second diamond drillhole into its Bow River project near Argyle in Western Australia’s Kimberley region. The company says the sulphides show a strong correlation with the upper limit of a gravity anomaly that is open along strike in excess of 1km.

Si6 Metals is banging ahead with the drill at its Dibete copper-silver project in Botswana, having revealed that five out of 15 reverse-circulation holes are glittering with chalcopyrite and chalcocite in rock-chip samples. A diamond drilling rig has arrived onsite to test pipe-like geophysical anomalies at depth and the company believes it has “barely scratched the surface”.

Lycaon Resources has struck a key land agreement with traditional owners, allowing it to start exploring for niobium and rare earths in highly-prospective carbonatites at West Arunta in far north-eastern Western Australia. The land access agreement with the Parna Ngururrpa people is the final hurdle before the company plunges the drillbit for the first time into tantalising magnetic anomalies within its tenements.

Aurum Resources is set to launch a maiden 74-hole air-core drilling campaign at its Ryans Find gold project, north-east of Koolyanobbing, after completing trackwork for the rig and a heritage clearance survey. Some 3500m of drilling will be oriented in multiple transects perpendicular to the prospective greenstone belt to follow-up on gold and base metals anomalies observed in soil sampling.

Aruma Resources is chasing more gold with a multi-hole diamond drilling program at its Salmon Gums project in Western Australia following previous campaigns where the company discovered bonanza grades of up to 224 grams per tonne of gold. The project is in the same stratigraphy and 30km south of Pantoro’s Scotia project, which has a mineral resource of 1 million ounces of gold.

St George Mining has jumped into a new critical minerals exploration program for lithium, rare earths and copper at its district-scale Woolgangie project within the fertile Coolgardie Mineral Field in Western Australia. The site sits adjacent to operating lithium mines and where historical drilling previously identified rare earths and copper anomalism. It will be the company’s first drilling program at Woolgangie.

Empire Energy Group has lit up with increased gas flow rates from its fracture-stimulated Velkerri shale gas horizontal well, known as “Carpentaria-3H”, in the Northern Territory’s Beetaloo Basin. The company says it has reaffirmed its optimised extended production test strategy. The results replicate post-soaking improvements seen in its other horizontal well, Carpentaria-2H, auguring well for the planned gas pilot project to service existing gas pipelines.

Maiden drilling on two prospects at St George’s Ajana project in Western Australia has turned up trumps, with significant widespread and shallow zinc-lead-silver mineralisation seen in an untested play concept for the area. The company is now planning more drilling through a vast crop of highly-prospective targets with a similar fingerprint of gravity and/or magnetic anomalies.

Lycaon Resources says it has intersected more than 13m of visual nickel-copper sulphides from 364m after plunging a maiden diamond drillhole into its Bow River project near Argyle in Western Australia. The company says it signals the potential for a deep and prolific economic accumulation. A second hole is planned to test the keel position of the ultramafic intrusive, where massive sulphide accumulations could exist.

Altech Batteries has revealed a vital update for key aspects of its Silumina Anodes pilot plant in the German State of Saxony to help progress its definitive feasibility study for a 10,000 tonnes per annum operation. The company says permitting, site design and supplier quotations are also advanced. An earlier prefeasibility study returned a net present value of US$507 million (AU$787 million).

BMG Resources is again cranking the drillbit, with a 36-hole air-core (AC) drill program to home in on multiple, high-quality lithium and gold targets at its Bullabulling project where anomalous lithium-caesium-tantalum pegmatites were identified in its maiden reconnaissance program. Fieldwork and geochemical analysis previously outlined lithium-bearing pegmatites within a 4km corridor and gold occurrences were also recorded at the major Coolgardie lithium and gold province.

Xanadu Mines has revealed its massive Mongolian copper-gold Kharmagtai deposit is now connected to the local electric grid, paving the way for current and future construction and exploration activities. The company says its vital 35,000-volt connection to the Mongolian Southern Electricity Distribution Network is expandable and will accommodate Kharmagtai moving closer towards operational mine status.

Surefire Resources has engaged premier mining and exploration consultant Snowden Optiro to provide a mine plan, cost estimate and report for the upcoming prefeasibility study (PFS) at its 100 per cent-owned Victory Bore vanadium project in Western Australia’s Mid West region. The company expects to deliver the PFS for what it describes as its “world-class” deposit in November.

Positive new data has renewed the confidence of Chimeric Therapeutics in its pathway towards treating multiple types of cancer with its next generation armoured natural killer cell platform, “CHM0301”. The platform, which is being evaluated in its first clinical trial, has shown positive in vitro results in modelling human acute myeloid leukaemia and colorectal cancer by overcoming the resistance created by a tumour’s microenvironment.

Reach Resources’ maiden drill campaign for lithium has begun at its Bonzer pegmatite field in WA’s Gascoyne region, with some 2500m of reverse-circulation drilling and about 2000m of diamond drillhole work. The campaign has been designed to target soil sampling and rock chip lithium anomalies, the lithium grade, the size of the mapped surface pegmatites and any others that may occur in the sub-surface.

DiscovEx Resources has continued to build the prospectivity of its Sylvania project near the Western Australian town of Newman after its maiden soil-sampling program returned anomalies of up to 78ppb gold and 1315ppm lead, close to the mineralised Prairie Downs fault zone. The company says it is the first time the zone has been investigated for gold.