Mark Irving

Surefire Resources is eyeing a November delivery of the prefeasibility study for its Victory Bore vanadium play, clearing the way for the next step in commercialising the project’s massive deposit in Western Australia’s Mid West region. Surefire is also making preliminary plans for further drilling to enable its measured resources to be converted into a JORC-compliant reserve.

Cell therapy cancer-fighter Chimeric Therapeutics is wasting no time on its mission to commercialise its novel potential treatment for glioblastoma. The ASX-listed company was given approval in April for a phase-1B clinical trial of the treatment, which employs the venom of the deathstalker scorpion. The first of multiple sites to enrol patients in the trial has now been revealed in the United States.

WA-based mineral explorer Lindian Resources has released the highest assay grades to date from its Kangankunde rare earths project in Malawi, with headline figures including 293.4m at 3.66 per cent TREO from 4m to end of hole. The company says the “spectacular” results mean Kangankunde is emerging “as one of the world’s greatest rare earths assets”.

Godolphin Resources is planning a drilling program to follow up fieldwork at its Yeoval East prospect and further expand its resource footprint in NSW’s rich Lachlan Fold Belt. Soil and rock-chip program results identified a 150ppm copper zone about 600m long and 200m wide. Copper results ran up to 0.14 per cent from soil samples and 0.28 per cent copper from rock chips.

Diversified metals explorer Venture Minerals has wasted no time in kick-starting its new JV project in Western Australia’s Mid West region, signing a contract with drillers for a maiden drill program to test the extent of the clay-hosted rare earths mineralisation at its Iron Duke deposit. The program will complement a drill program organised for another recent rare earths acquisition, Brothers.

Western Australian-based minerals explorer Terrain Minerals is priming its drills at its Smokebush project in the State’s Mid West region after gold and copper-nickel anomalies were discovered in a “highly-successful” field program. The discoveries were made at the company’s Larin’s Lane target where a maiden exploration program unearthed a new 700m-by-250m gold anomaly that management says is ready for air-core drilling.

The third and final batch of assay results from ChemX Materials’ 2023 drilling campaign at its Jamieson Tank manganese deposit on South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula have landed, including a headline 16m hit going 17.9 per cent manganese from 17m. The results will help bolster a maiden mineral resource estimate for the Perth-based high-purity critical materials company.

Venture Minerals has continued its recent splurge on rare earths by signing a joint venture agreement designed to deliver the diversified metals explorer a majority stake in Sentinel Exploration’s Iron Duke project. Iron Duke is Venture’s third acquisition in Western Australia’s Mid West region in the past month. The company says it will get the drill bits spinning later this month.

Octava Minerals is putting boots on the ground at its Yallalong nickel-gold project, 220km north-east of Geraldton – and the CSIRO has jumped in with funding to help lessen the impact of the imprint. The “green energy” metals explorer has snared exploration funding from the CSIRO’s Kick-Start program and will employ the agency’s leading-edge technology to optimise sample collection, while simultaneously reducing on-ground activity.