Lisa Wells

Octava Minerals and Future Metals are set to gallop onto their Palomino prospect in a bid to define the mineralised footprint at their East Kimberley JV sitting along strike from WA’s historic Copernicus mine. The JV plans to kick off the new field season with structural and geological mapping and soil sampling in the highly-prospective nickel sulphide and PGM setting of the Halls Creek Orogen.

Xanadu Mines has hit paydirt with results from its most recent drilling at the Kharmagtai project in Mongolia it shares with China’s Zijin Mining Group. The company says it has expanded the new, higher-grade copper-gold mineralised zone at its White Hill deposit and doubled the mineral resource grade at its Golden Eagle prospect – and now believes it may be onto a significant copper-gold system.

Terrain Minerals has identified traces of sulphides and alteration in samples in a maiden drilling program at the company’s Larin’s Lane deposit in Western Australia’s Mid West region after plunging 101 drill holes for 6611m. The company says the campaign within its 100 per cent-owned Smokebush project was aimed at testing the bedrock under previously-defined copper, nickel and gold anomalies at the prospect.

Meeka Metals has bolstered the 685,000-ounce resource at 2 grams per tonne gold at its Turnberry deposit in Western Australia’s Murchison region after delivering another round of high-grade oxide gold from 18 holes of infill drilling. The company is now pushing hard to finalise its development-ready status for next year in order to kick off mining.

Auric Mining’s Jeffreys Find gold project near Norseman in Western Australia has kept the company’s till ringing with another $1.65 million banked after it sold 1448 ounces to take its stage-one share to a more-than-expected $3.85 million. The Jeffreys Find “pot of gold”, which is expected to keep pouring out next year, will fund Auric’s development of its bigger-play Munda gold project.

A technical review of Octava Minerals’ Talga project in Western Australia’s Pilbara region has revealed fractionation typical of LCT pegmatites and stellar gold grades in soil samples of up to 5.45 grams per tonne. The company says the study, conducted by CSA Global, has uncovered a previously unrecognised target zone for pegmatites of more than 100 square kilometres.

Infinity Mining has picked up more ground right next to its Hillside Project in the East Pilbara, bolstering its total landholdings in the broader region to 975 square kilometres. According to the company, the new tenement has potential for shear-hosted gold and VHMS prospects given its ideal location within strongly structurally deformed greenstones. Exploration is expected to kick off in the next few weeks.