James Pearson

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.

In a masterclass of timing, Octava Minerals will start a 3000m drill program next week at its Yallalong antimony project, 220km from Geraldton, WA, just as the metal price hits an all-time high of $30,000/t. The campaign will initially target the Discovery and Central zones which have already secured heritage clearance, while the company also completes a geophysical survey.

In a well-timed deal, US-listed Uranium American Resources is set to snap up three U.S. uranium projects with existing resources for US$8.5m in cash and scrip, providing a potentially quick pathway to production. With demand for uranium as a clean energy source increasing and the price trading around US$85 a pound, Uranium American’s pivot looks to be well timed.

Strickland Metals has nailed a third new gold and base metals discovery in four years after unearthing a new discovery from wildcat drilling at its Kotlovi prospect, just 350m west of the Medanovac deposit at the company’s Rogozna project in Serbia. The best number of the new batch of wildcat drilling results is 40m at 2.6 g/t gold from 558m.

Great Southern Mining and Gold Fields Ltd have found a huge, 2km-wide induced polarisation target, potentially a big porphyry gold-copper system, lurking at their Edinburgh Park project in Queensland. The buried structural geological feature is coincident with a grab bag of other exciting geological indicators including positive soil samples, rock chips going over 10 g/t gold and sulphides outcropping at surface.

Surefire Resources has kicked off a new, two-phase drill campaign, starting at its Yidby gold prospect in WA’s mid-west region, followed by a maiden drill program at the company’s nearby Phat Boy copper project. The 2500m, 12-hole reverse circulation program will test nine newly identified targets recently revealed after a review old geophysical data, along with structural interpretations from available diamond-core and drill-chip relogging.

Aguia Resources will lease, rather than build, a 100,000tpa phosphate processing plant in Southern Brazil, fast-tracking expected production to mid-2025 and sidestepping a multi-million-dollar capex bill. With an up-front cost of A$1.3 million, the 10-year lease will incur a A$43,000 monthly rental, equating to just A$5.13 a tonne.

Triangle Energy Global has locked in Silver City Drilling’s Rig 24 for a March spud of its Becos-1 wildcat well in West Australia’s Perth Basin targeting up to 21 million barrels of oil. The well will reach its main targets, at a depth of between 700- 800m with a chance to hit an additional reservoir on its way to an eventual depth of 1140m.

Strickland Metals has launched phase two metallurgical testing to test metal recoveries before locking down processing flowsheets from its Shanac deposit, part of the company’s Rogozna gold and base metals project in Serbia, after bulk samples arrived at ALS Laboratory in Perth. The 400kg sample, made up of core from Shanac is now under the supervision of Macromet, a specialist mineral processing consultant.

Octava Minerals is preparing to kick off a gravity and seismic program ahead of a drilling campaign at its Yallalong project 220km northeast of Geraldton in Western Australia in the hunt for antimony. Following earlier mapping and rock-chip sampling, the company will conduct detailed geophysical surveys aimed at identifying shear zones and rock boundaries, key indicators for unearthing mineralised fluid pathways.

88 Energy has wrapped up a successful 2D seismic program across its petroleum exploration licence in Namibia’s Owambo Basin with initial analysis picking up significant subsurface structures. The company will soon begin crunching the processed data in collaboration with joint venture partner Monitor Exploration and look to produce an independent prospective resource estimate by April next year.