Matt Birney

K2fly has added another global miner to its stellar list of customers for its extraordinarily successful “RCubed” resource governance mining software. Mining giant Newmont has signed a three-year software provision deal with K2fly with a total contract value in excess of A$900,000. K2fly said customer interest was strong in Toronto recently at the world’s premier mineral exploration and mining convention, PDAC 2020 where the ASX-listed technology player showcased its software.

Novo Resources has acquired the joint venture interests of Artemis Resources to take control of 100 per cent of the Purdy’s Reward and 47K gold leases south of Karratha in WA’s East Pilbara. The two leases are located near the eastern end of Novo’s extensive North Pilbara conglomerate gold fairway and adjacent to Novo’s Comet well JV where it owns 80 per cent of the mineral rights.

Middle Island Resources has set upon an aggressive exploration and development program at its Sandstone gold project, with ongoing drilling identifying the first new significant gold anomaly within a stone’s throw of the existing processing plant. First pass air core drilling has found two separate, near-linear, gold zones that extend over some 600 metres and 300 metres, respectively.

St George Mining is gearing up to drill out a number of compelling new nickel targets at its Mt Alexander project in the Goldfields, some for the first time. A number of undrilled but compelling EM anomalies at the West End and Fish Hook prospects have been screaming to be drilled and have the potential to deliver greenfields discoveries according to St George.

AVZ Minerals is moving to lock in a binding offtake agreement with Yibin Tianyi after the Chinese lithium chemical player tipped an initial $1m into AVZ whilst the Foreign Investment Review Board runs the ruler over Yibin Tianyi’s intention to plough over $14m into AVZ. Tibin Tianyi is a star-studded Chinese partnership that involves some of the biggest industrial names in China.

Blackstone Minerals has racked up more long nickel sulphide intercepts at its King Cobra discovery in Vietnam with two near surface results returning 39m at 1.1per cent nickel and 28m grading 1.2 per cent nickel from its Ta Khoa Nickel-PGE project. One drill hole at King Cobra also intersected a 0.55m thick massive sulphide vein within a broader 58m intersection of disseminated nickel sulphide mineralisation.

After dusting off old maps and records from the Mines Department, Kingwest Resources has put together a lucrative looking exploration target at its Menzies gold project in WA that will be backed up with around 8,300 metres worth of drilling. Kingwest’s exploration targets have been developed at the Princess May, Lady Shenton and First Hit deposits and extrapolate out to a range of between 930K and 1.03M ounces of gold.

In what looks like a herculean effort, Anglo Australian has locked in $5.5m from investors in the worst market conditions for years. Investors shook off Monday’s “flash crash” this week to back Anglo’s vision of developing its Mandilla gold project near Kalgoorlie, underscoring the project’s potential prospectivity. Putting his money where his mouth is, new Anglo MD, Marc Ducler, led the way with a $250k personal commitment to the raise.

Heavy rare earths developer, Northern Minerals has hit more solid heavy rare earths intersections at its Dazzler deposit in WA, with one hole returning 15m grading 2.72 per cent TREO from 20m at its Browns Range Project in the East Kimberley region. The ASX listed company continues to build the case for a full-scale plant with its ongoing success with the drill bit.

Norwest Energy has stripped down and is fit to fight without the burden of debt as it looks to drill out its Lockyer Deep-1 exploration well that is only 15kms north of Strike Resources’ huge West Erregulla gas discovery. Norwest said it has discharged a $1m convertible note facility by repaying $750,000 and issuing 100m shares to noteholder Sundowner International after receiving shareholder approval.

Calidus Resources said it remains on track to deliver a definitive feasibility study for its 1.25Moz Warrawoona gold project near Marble Bar in the Pilbara during the December quarter of this year. The company said it is targeting the commencement of development in the first half of 2021 after its pre-feasibility study demonstrated a robust project based on 100,000oz per annum of gold production.

Buru Energy said it remains on track for its March oil delivery despite having to shut in its Ungani oil field for several days due to seasonal flooding in the region. Buru said production has now resumed at a rate of 1,500 barrels of oil per day after the passing of a deep tropical low and the next delivery from the port of Wyndham was due shortly.

ASX-listed MGC Pharmaceuticals has teamed up with the University of Notre Dame in Perth to undertake a new clinical trial for its “CogniCann” phytocannabinoid-derived medicine, after the first bulk shipment of the medicine arrived in Australia. Management said CogniCann was developed with the specific aim to treat symptoms associated with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease and it is already available under prescription in Australia.

Altech Chemicals is close to enlisting financial heavyweight, Macquarie, to provide USD$90m worth of mezzanine debt for its Malaysian HPA plant, potentially avoiding issuing a large slab of stock to get its project into production. In a London meeting held recently, Macquarie re-affirmed its interest in potentially providing the mezzanine debt for Altech’s project that could spit out over AUD$100m a year in free cash, according to the company.

Ardiden Limited has pegged a large number of new land claims along a 100km stretch of the gold-rich greenstone belt that hosts its Pickle Lake gold project and other historical mines in Ontario, Canada. The freshly staked claims take Ardiden’s total land holdings in the region to more than 500 square kilometres and add exploration targets to its existing inferred resource of 110,000 ounces of gold at Pickle Lake.

ASX-listed oiler 88 Energy has successfully commenced drilling at its Charlie-1 appraisal well on Alaska’s prospective Central North Slope. The company is aiming to intersect several prospective targets that it says could hold up to a staggering 1.6 billion barrels of gross mean prospective resources. The Perth-based company is partnering with UK oil outfit, Premier Oil on the promising looking project, who is funding the cost of the well up to US $23 million.

ASX-listed smart home technology provider, Quantify Technology, has taken its “smart” light switches, power points and related hardware to market after securing international patents, global certification, a world-class manufacturer and distribution by one of Australia’s largest commercial appliance suppliers. Quantify’s patented products can be integrated with Amazon and Google’s voice control technology allowing householders to control everything from the blinds to the TV to the lights using their voice.

Venus Metals has commissioned a detailed heliborne EM survey over its Bellchambers gold project east of Sandstone in WA. The project already boasts a resource of 340,000 tonnes @ 1.5 grams per tonne gold with the company now seeking repetitions along the ‘Western Ridge Gold Trend’. Venus has also commenced negotiations with nearby producer, Adaman Resources, in relation to the potential development and processing of the Bellchambers deposit.

Lindian Resources’ exploration program in northern Guinea continues to meet with outstanding success. Field work has identified two additional high-grade conglomerate bauxite targets adjacent to and along strike from the main prospect area at Bouba. Sampling at Bouba South has returned samples consistent with the main target area including 62.6% alumina with the strike length now blowing out by a further 3.5km.

Perth-based Kairos Minerals appears to be marching towards a 1Moz global gold resource at its Pilbara Gold Project after booking a resource upgrade to 873,500 ounces of gold from 643,000 ounces previously. The resource includes its Mt York, Iron Stirrup and Old Faithful deposits and now sits at 20.9Mt grading 1.3g/t gold, with the bulk of it in the Mt York deposit.

Perth-based gold explorer, Great Southern Mining is back in the field at its Cox’s find project for a tenement-wide air-core geochemical drilling campaign to target further Cox’s Find-style mineralised systems. The company will grid-drill the entire area with a 100m x 50m spacing to deliver around 500 shallow holes down to just 1-6m below surface. Geochem samples will be recovered from the base of each hole for assaying.

Ora Banda Mining’s ongoing development program at its Callion deposit in the Goldfields has continued to intersect high-grade gold in drilling of both open pit and underground targets. The company is presently working on upgrading the resource at Callion and has proposed a conceptual development program to access high-grade ore within the upper levels of the historic underground mine in addition to the extraction of high-grade lodes at depth.

Terrain Minerals has recently completed a first pass program of exploration over its Smokebush project in the South Murchison mineral field of Western Australia. Initial reconnaissance and sampling over three priority targets returned impressive assays in excess of 17 grams per tonne gold. A site visit has also thrown up more targets for follow up drill testing by the Perth-based, ASX-listed company.

TSX-listed, Pilbara-focused gold player, Novo Resources, has acquired 15.97 per cent of Canadian explorer, New Found Gold Corp via a scrip-for-scrip deal that gives Novo access to New Found’s stellar gold prospect on the east coast of Canada. A recent drill intercept at New Found’s Queensway project returned 19m at 3 ounces to the tonne from 98m with 6m at a staggering 9oz/tonne gold.

ASX-listed biotech, PharmAust, has added a fifth site to its expanding network of anti-cancer trial sites for canines, securing the Brisbane Animal Hospital as the latest location for its Phase II anti-cancer trial in dogs with B cell lymphoma. The addition of the site in Brisbane expands the trial that is already underway in Perth, Melbourne and two centres in Sydney.

Medicinal cannabis player MGC Pharmaceuticals has inked a seven-year supply deal with Brazilian medical cannabis company Onix, with an estimated value of at least $1.65 million in the first year. From year two, the deal, which will see Onix purchase a bulk order of MGC Pharma’s pharmaceutical grade products, has an estimated value of at least $4.1 million per year.

Troy Resources has been out in the field surrounding its Karouni gold mining operations in South America, scouting for potential new gold discoveries off the back of the highest-grade drill intercept ever recorded in the region. Activities at the Upper Itaki, Kaburi Hills and Potaro–Kuribrong prospect areas, all within cooee of Troy’s existing Karouni Mill, are now hitting high gear.

Novo Resources has achieved some outstanding gold recovery rates on the latest set of mechanical ore sorting tests for multi-tonne bulk samples of crushed ore from its Egina and Beatons Creek gold deposits in the Pilbara. Tests done at laboratories in Sydney and Germany have recovered between 92 and 100 per cent of gold in three size fractions from the Egina sample and the Beatons Creek fractions returned between 82 and 94 per cent of the gold.

Altech Chemicals’ green credentials for its disruptive new kaolin clay-based high purity alumina production processes appear to stack up well against the industry standard alkoxide process that uses high-grade aluminium metal as a feedstock, according to the Perth based company. Altech says its numbers show that its HPA process produces substantially fewer greenhouse gas emissions and consumes much less energy per tonne of HPA produced.

Classic Minerals has hit some solid gold drill numbers only 1.2km south and along strike from the main drilling area at its Kat Gap gold prospect where gold-filled quartz veins extend at depth into the granite host rock. The best RC drill result to date returned 8m grading 7.91g/t gold from 60m, including 4m at 13.56/t gold from 60m.

ASX-listed MGC Pharma has secured a key market in Europe after signing an exclusive, commercial wholesale supply agreement with Polish NGO, Cannabis House Association and the University of Lodz to supply a large-scale research project in Poland. Under the deal, MGC Pharma will supply its medicinal cannabis-based, cannabinoid medicine products to up to 250 pharmacies and provide scientific support to the commercial research study whilst gathering participant data.

Well known technology man, Terry Stinson, has joined the board of ASX-listed Aurora Labs to support the company’s commercialisation strategy. Aurora considers his appointment key to delivering its 3D metal printing technology to market as it pulls out of the research and development phase. Mr Stinson will no doubt help the company to focus on large-scale commercial applications for its printing technology.