James Pearson

This week’s Bulls N’ Bears Runner of the Week is… icetana. The video analytic solution provider inked a three-year Malaysian security deal for 1 Utama, Malaysia's largest shopping mall which saw its shares peak more than 100 per cent higher during the week. Patriot Lithium also had a nice time in the sun following a transformative deal to buy into the highly prospective Zambian Kitumba copper project while a huge cheer went up for Mesoblast after it landed FDA approval for its cell therapy treatment. There was also Black Dragon taking out the silver… but we’ll get to that.

Ora Banda Mining has extracted first ore at its new WA Sand King underground gold mine, just four months after opening the portal. Full-scale mining is set for March, with 60,000 ounces of gold per year expected by mid-year. The Sand King mine is a key piece of the company’s ambitious Drive to 150 plan, aiming to produce up to 160,000 gold ounces annually by mid-2026.

Meeka Metals’ infill drilling at its WA Murchison project has revealed high-grade gold at the Turnberry and St Anne’s prospects, boosting plans to expand its production schedule. The key results at Turnberry included 9m grading 16.83g/t gold, including 5m at an eye-catching 29.02g/t gold while at St Annes the best hits included 11m grading 13.01g/t gold, with a sizzling 4m section running at 30.66g/t gold

Aurum Resources has unveiled spectacular gold intercepts at its Boundiali gold project in northern Côte d'Ivoire with one 1.19m hit grading 277.54 g/t gold from 31m depth at its BM prospect. The drilling program included 76 diamond drill holes at the Boundiali BM and BD prospects, covered more than 21,700m of drilling and delivered a plethora of high-grade finds.

Novo Resources has options to buy two exceptionally high-grade, drill-ready gold projects in New South Wales, including the John Bull prospect that has walk-up drilling targets in an area with seven historical shafts including one sunk in the mid-1880s. Novo said the acquisitions align with its strategy of identifying standalone projects that could host at least one million ounces of gold.

88 Energy has reinforced its position on Alaska’s North Slope after securing four new, highly promising petroleum leases adjoining the existing 10 blocks it already holds at the company’s Project Leonis grounds. Seismic data revealed the discovery of significant oil potential at the new prospect, which covers 43 square kilometres and contains a sizable target up to 102m thick.

Meeka Metals has posted a massively improved definitive feasibility study that places its Murchison gold project in WA firmly on the road to almost doubling its total free cash flow to $1 billion over the mine’s expected 10-year lifespan. It also outlined a 31% boost in reserves and a 40% rise in production to 544,000 ounces over the decade with peak annual sales reaching 76,000 ounces in year five.

Novo Resources has picked up a new gold and base metals exploration play in WA’s Pilbara region by locking up a 1520-square-kilometre land package near Onslow that is littered with evidence of historical mining. The two-part move involves pegging six new tenements together with securing an option on a 70 per cent interest in the nearby Cane River project held by a private company.

88 Energy has pinpointed no less than 10 independent hydrocarbon leads after doing the initial interpretation of newly acquired 2D seismic data across its PEL93 exploration licence in the Owambo Basin, Namibia. The findings, conducted by exploration program operator Monitor Exploration has reconfirmed substantial closed-in structures right across the southern area of the lease, previously picked up in geophysical survey.

Strickland Metals’ Gradina prospect in Serbia is showing all the hallmarks of a company maker. One lode is now within 150m of surface where it is still open and mineralised to at least 603m. Single drill holes have intersected three separate lodes with seriously big widths and impressive grades and it looks like it still has more to give.

Latitude 66 will sell its Sylvania gold project in WA’s Pilbara region to gold producer Capricorn Metals for $1.5m worth of Capricorn shares, potentially two or more $750,000-milestone payments and a 1% royalty. The deal is designed to help Latitude 66 fund its promising Finnish gold-cobalt project by unlocking value from what it says is a “non-core” asset.

Kalgoorlie Gold Mining has picked up a key tenement that joins its western landholdings at its Pinjin gold project near Kalgoorlie with its eastern tenements, creating one contiguous holding. It will pay fellow ASX-listed company Solstice Minerals 2.8 million of its shares, with a deemed value of $70,000 for the tenement and Solstice will also pick up a 1 per cent royalty.

Novo Resources surged 60% to touch 14.5c in intraday trading after the market got a good look at the value of its shareholding in unlisted Canadian miner San Cristobal. Novo offloaded 38% of its holding in San Cristobal for $11.5m, valuing the remainder of its shareholding in the private company at $19m. Novo now has $16.7m in the bank.

Lithium Universe has inked a strategic chemical supply deal with Quebec-based logistics company Servitank which the company believes will improve the operational efficiency of its proposed Canadian Bécancour lithium refinery project. The partnership will bring much needed expertise in chemical logistics and supply chain optimisation to the project, positioning Servitank as a key partner of the company.

After months of preparation, Lycaon Resources has kicked off a highly anticipated maiden drilling campaign at the Stansmore prospect within its West Arunta project in WA. The program will target a high-priority magnetic anomaly, which the company says could be a niobium-rare earths carbonatite, an iron oxide copper-gold orebody or an intrusion-related gold deposit.

Larvotto Resources has unveiled some stunning drill results from the Clarks Gully deposit, part of its Hillgrove gold and antimony mine in New South Wales, including 20m grading 8.2 grams per tonne (g/t) gold equivalent and 6m at 17.2 g/t gold equivalent. The expanding deposit, which is rich in antimony, is rapidly promoting itself as a candidate for near-term feed to frontload early cash flows.

Larvotto has consummated an offtake deal with Wogen Resources for antimony from its NSW Hillgrove mine with a $6.1m prepayment that comes on the back of $8m worth of options being exercised to fast-track exploration and complete the project's DFS. Larvotto has been a market darling this year with its stock peaking during the year at a 1218 per cent premium to its low in February.

After a stellar run with the drill bit Latitude 66 is set to wrap some updated financials around its exciting KSB gold-cobalt project in Finland where it is aiming for a standalone development with scalable options. The company has appointed Como Engineers to run a scoping study based on the existing resource that will also allow it to scale easily if the resource can be grown.

Gold Fields Ltd and a number of financial institutions in addition to management and directors of Great Southern Mining have all piled into a $2.5m capital raise that will see Great Southern fire up its WA gold search. $153,000 was committed to by Great Southern directors and management subject to shareholder approval at a general meeting early next year, in the placement priced at 1.7c.

Latitude 66’s Kuusamo Schist Belt gold-cobalt project in Finland will participate in a EUR €5 million (A$8 million) geophysics research scheme funded by the European Union that will focus on deep mineralisation. The initiative aims to focus efforts on three key regions that include Lattitude’s project area, together with areas of the Iberian Pyrite Belt in Portugal and the Kalahari Copper Belt in Namibia.

Javelin Minerals has kicked off maiden drilling at its brownfields Coogee gold-copper project near Kambalda where it is looking to drill test a curious magnetic anomaly discovered near an old open pit. The drilling contractor, Topdrill, will accept shares in Javelin instead of cash for its drilling work that involves a two-phase reverse circulation program.

Estrella Resources’ trial of induced polarisation technology at its manganese project in Timor-Leste has proved highly responsive and will be a critical tool for identifying supergene mineralisation. The trial was designed to run a survey line across ground Estrella could see was likely to host supergene mineralisation and then, by pairing up the results with visual observations, confirm the exploration method as valid.

Altech has locked in a second offtake agreement, this time with Reflau, a renewable energy project in Germany, to supply it with 158MWh of storage energy capacity over 5 years from its salt powered batteries. Only a few days ago Altech revealed it has received interest to fund its manufacturing facility in Germany.

Aurum Resources has hit some of its best exploration numbers yet, jagging an impressive 17.31m hit grading 5.9g/t gold including 6m at 16.07g/t gold from diamond drilling at its Boundiali gold project in Côte d'Ivoire. The new hit has increased the depth of mineralisation by a further 100m below the previously deepest hit of 11.46m grading 6.67g/t gold from 162m.

Altech Batteries has received interest from debt funders for its cutting-edge proposed sodium chloride battery project that it plans to build using a mix of debt, equity, government grants and offtake agreements. The company is planning to produce its “Cerenergy GridPack” batteries courtesy of a 120MWh manufacturing facility in Germany. Remarkably, the active ingredient in the batteries is plain table salt.

Aguia Resources will shortly kick its uber high-grade Santa Barbara gold project into production. The Columbian project was worked by previous operators years ago and is now only weeks away from a restart. Previous bulk samples from Santa-Barbara went through the pilot plant at an impressive 20 grams per tonne gold and some veins are grading an ounce to the tonne gold.

A project-scale geophysical survey at White Cliff Minerals’ Rae project in Nunavut, northern Canada, has lit up a massive vein hosted conductive anomaly stretching 14km long by 2.2km wide. A second conductor was also picked up next to an existing prospect, pushing the total extent of that target to 10.5km by 23km.

Xanadu Mines has unearthed four new copper targets from geological mapping, rock-chips and geophysics fieldwork at its Sant Tolgoi copper project in Western Mongolia with assays of up to 2.1 per cent copper. The new key drill targets stretch across a four kilometre east-west shear on a western extension of the controlling Khangai Fault system with all tests pointing to mineralised intrusions.

Javelin Minerals has wasted no time working up multiple drill-ready targets at its newly acquired Eureka gold project near Kalgoorlie. The project was purchased in October for $3 million in cash and shares and comes with an historic open pit and a 112,000-ounce gold resource grading 1.42 grams a tonne, valuing the deal at less than $30 per discovery ounce.

Radiopharm Theranostics revealed the results of a clinical study of its cutting-edge imaging agent, 68Ga-RAD 301 on 44 pancreatic cancer patients – using its the biggest cohort yet – which delivered strong results. Importantly, the visual response was excellent with a high tumour-to-background ratio and no adverse events were recorded, which, according to the company, suggests RAD301 is a suitable and safe diagnostic agent for imaging αvβ6-protein expression in pancreatic cancer.

Empire Energy Group is a step closer to launching a nine-hole drill program at its Carpentaria pilot project in the Northern Territory, having secured key environmental approvals and a production licence for up to 12 wells. The Ensign #965 rig is onsite and ready to start drilling the Carpentaria-5H well imminently, with Halliburton contracted for hydraulic fracture stimulation.

Larvotto Resources has gained membership of a consortium that provides a gateway to seek funding from and supply products to organizations associated with the US Defence Department. Larvotto says its Hillgrove project in NSW is capable of supplying 7 per cent of the world’s antimony needs, a highly sort after metal that is used in the manufacturing of ammunition.