Matt Birney

Troy Resources is back on track at its Karouni gold mining operation in Guyana, South America, with mining now in full swing again after a death on-site last year closed the operation down. The company is also experiencing considerable and sustained success with the drill bit and expects ore processing to re-commence in late January as ore stocks are built up. Gold sales will commence soon after in February.

Novo Resources has picked up 10 million shares in ASX listed Kalamazoo Resources at $0.40 cents per share. Novo Director, Eric Sprott, has also personally taken up 10 million shares in the placement that raised a total of $8 million for Kalamazoo. Novo now holds a strategic 8.17% stake in the Victorian explorer. Kalamazoo recently tabled an exceptional grade result from its Castlemaine prospect of 1.42m @ 261.3g/t gold.

Middle Island Resources has started a major, multi-phase drilling campaign at its 100%-owned Sandstone gold project in central WA. The company says the campaign, slated for completion by the end of the March quarter, has the potential to add significant open pit mineral resources to the gold project and take it a step closer to the recommissioning of the old mothballed mill on-site.

AVZ Minerals’ has inked a deal with the DRC Government to probe a potential refurbishment of a hydro-electric power station near its giant Manono lithium project. The old power station has been mothballed for years but potentially presents as a future power source for AVZ’s rapidly advancing lithium project that boasts possibly the largest undeveloped lithium resource in the world today.

ASX-listed ag player Alterra, says that its investment in and association with carbon credit forestry business, Carbon Conscious, has been generating solid income streams that are set to continue into the future on the back of long term tree planting and management contracts with energy titans, BP and Origin. Alterra took over $1.1m off the table at Carbon Conscious last year by way of dividends, management fees, interest and a $400k early loan repayment.

Lindian Resources looks to be onto a lucrative, high grade bauxite deposit in Africa that has now been confirmed by the company as a rare “conglomerate” style deposit. Initial unconfirmed XRF results at the Bouba Plateau at Lindian’s Gaoual Bauxite Project in Guinea, show extraordinarily high aluminium oxide numbers of around 61% with only 4.6% of the nuisance mineral silica present.

After years of dogged determination, plugging away in the Fraser Range in search of a Nova-Bollinger look-a-like nickel-copper discovery, Legend Mining looks like it is onto something now with drill core showing over 70 meters of sulphide mineralisation, including 14.9 meters containing solid nickel-copper-cobalt mineralisation. The new find is part of Legend’s Mawson Discovery, 280km east of Kalgoorlie where the mineralisation commences at a relatively shallow depth of 76 meters.

Spectrum Metals has encountered its highest gold grades yet outside of the historical Penny North deposit located 25km south of the Youanmi mining centre in Western Australia. Recent exploration drilling has snagged a 4 metre wide zone grading at 11.1 grams per tonne gold from 195m downhole, including a metre grading 41g/t gold at the Magenta prospect, 1.5km north of Penny North.

Altech Chemicals will update the resource estimate at its promising Kerrigan kaolin project near Hyden in the WA Wheatbelt after successfully completing a drilling program. Whilst the Meckering kaolin deposit will provide feedstock for Altech’s soon-to-be-built HPA plant in Malaysia, Kerrigan also appears to host a high-purity kaolin deposit . Altech is partly financing its HPA plant with a loan that is guaranteed by the German Government.

ASX-listed PharmAust’s innovative biotechnology work via its wholly owned subsidiaries Epichem and Pitney Pharmaceuticals has been recognised by the Australian Tax Office with the company receiving more than $700,000 in a research and development tax rebate. The funds will be used to advance its clinical trial programs in dogs and humans with the company now on a fast tracked pathway to prove up the cancer fighting abilities of its “re-purposed” Monepantel drug.

Horizon Minerals isn’t leaving anything to chance after getting its hands on MacPhersons Resources’ Boorara Gold project just east of Kalgoorlie post its merger with MacPhersons. The ASX listed company is headlong into an infill drilling campaign at Boorara ahead of the expected commencement of mining in the June quarter with drill spacings now down to a minimum of just 4m x 10m – and the numbers haven’t disappointed.

ASX-listed Lithium Australia has taken a major step forward in its mission to obtain patents for the recovery of lithium phosphate from lithium bearing silicates and solutions after the International Bureau of the World Intellectual Property Organisation published two of the company’s patent applications. It is the fourth step on the road to the granting of the patents, which can take some time to achieve.

Canning Basin focussed hydrocarbon explorer and producer, Buru Energy, has reported $3.5 million in revenues from its flagship Ungani oilfield near Broome in WA. Buru is sitting on 5.5 million acres of development and exploration permits in the Canning and it is already turning out about 1,400 barrels of oil per day at its flagship oilfield.

King River Resources has received all assay results following a drilling campaign at its Mt Remarkable project in WA. A new mineralised zone 150 metres east of the main Trudi deposit with notable gold grades up to 2.42 grams per tonne has been identified. The best result to date from the Trudi Main vein is 6 meters grading 5.95 grams per tonne gold from a shallow depth of just 20 meters downhole.

ASX-listed rare earth’s producer, Northern Minerals, looks to be potentially onto something in the East Kimberly with some solid results from rock chip sampling, grading up to 2.92% copper at its John Galt Project, located 200 kilometres south of Kununurra in WA. The rock chip sampling program covered an area of 2 kilometres by 500 metres with half of all samples returning high copper grades of 1% or greater.

ASX-listed Australian Potash has hit a major milestone at its Lake Wells gold project in WA, with the Perth-based company announcing the completion by St Barbara, of its expenditure commitments under the first earn-in stage of a joint venture between the two companies. St Barbara will now proceed to the second earn-in stage which requires a further $3.5 million spend.

ASX-listed mineral sands miner, Image Resources, has capped a successful first year of operations at its zircon-rich, Boonanarring mineral sands mine in WA, with the company reporting that it has easily met its 2019 production and sales targets and is now upwardly revising its heavy mineral concentrate production estimates for 2020. Image’s commissioning of its mineral sands mine in WA was almost text book perfect last year, coming in on time and on budget with no major setbacks.

Podium Minerals has just revealed a suite of base metal results to add to its impressive platinum, palladium plus gold intercepts at its Parks Reef project, near Cue in WA. With mineralised strike extending up to 15 kilometres, the latest results have provided a shot in the arm for Podium’s impending resource update. The latest encouraging assays include include 11 meters grading 3.13 grams per tonne platinum, palladium plus gold and 0.26% copper from just 20m downhole.

ASX listed biotech, PharmAust, has been awarded a one-year extension to its contract with not for profit organization, the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative, which commemorates the 12th-year of association between the two parties. Under the contract, which is expected to bring in $1.24m in revenue, PharmAust’s subsidiary, Epichem, will provide synthetic and medicinal chemistry services focused on developing new treatments for neglected diseases.

ASX-listed tech company, K2fly, has more than doubled its accounts tally for the December 2019 financial quarter compared to the same quarter last year, with a record $1.67 million worth of invoices raised. Importantly, the crucial “annual recurring revenue” metric which is pretty much the closest thing to an annuity income stream that generally underpins software companies, was up 40% year on year for K2fly.

Medicinal cannabis player, MGC Pharmaceuticals, has unveiled a new medicinal cannabis-based line for Australian and New Zealand markets to be called “Mercury Pharma” with its first product, Mercury Pharma 100, a prescription-only 100mg/mL cannabidiol product. The company has received purchase orders for over 2,000 product units already, which will see revenues of around $270,000 realised.

Horizon Minerals’ Boorara gold project east of Kalgoorlie is nearing its moment of truth as the aspiring developer aims to commence production on three ‘starter’ pits later this year. A major grade control drilling program has recently been completed that will underpin an updated suite of mine optimisations and designs at the project. The geological model to follow from the drilling will provide a significant amount of confidence and potential grade upside.

Lithium Australia, through one of its wholly-owned subsidiaries, VSPC, has signed a potentially lucrative agreement with major Chinese chemical manufacturer, Beijing Saideli Technology, that will see the Perth based company progress the commercialisation of its battery cathode technology. The plan is to hit the downstream lithium-ion supply chain, collaborating on an international scale to commercialise VSPC’s cathode technology.

Ardiden Limited has more than doubled the size of its Canadian exploration play by sweeping up a swathe of new claims, forming a contiguous ground package over a very prospective greenstone belt that historically produced some three million ounces of gold. The claims, known as the New Patricia gold prospect, now gives the ASX-listed explorer a dominant ground position spanning over 90 kilometres across the Pickle Lake gold camp.

Alterra has appointed John McGlue to its advisory board as it gears up to enter the potentially lucrative agricultural sector with an initial focus on the avocado market. McGlue brings over 30 years of experience in corporate communications and financial markets to Alterra and he is the founder and Principal of corporate advisory firm, Castle Gates Australia. Alterra provides a co-investment model as a potential vehicle for farmers to diversify their conventional bank funding models.

Africa-focused lithium developer, AVZ Minerals appears on track to deliver its definitive feasibility study in the first few months of 2020 at its massive Manono lithium and tin project in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Phase two metallurgical test work continues to deliver encouraging results in support of the ongoing DFS. Testing previously generated a spodumene concentrate that exceeds 6% lithium oxide and the company says that phase two met results are lining up well.

Metallurgist and mining executive, Marc Ducler, has taken the helm at Anglo Australian Resources whilst experienced mining lawman, Leigh Warnick, has been appointed Chairman. John Jones, Peter Stern and David Varcoe will remain on the board as part of a pre-Xmas peace deal that saw the warring parties place their batton’s back in their knapsacks and appoint the largely independent team of Ducler and Warnick to spearhead the company.

It’s raining gold for Rox Resources and Venus Metals at their Youanmi South project after the partners made a spectacular 14m drill intersection going an ounce to the tonne gold from just 1m deep. The new drill hit also included 5m grading 77.03g/t gold and 3m grading an exceptional 123.66g/t gold. Youanmi has been the gift that keeps on giving this year for multiple parties.

The Davyhurst gold project has gifted Ora Banda Mining a grab bag of impressive drill results for Xmas with the first being a stunning 19-metre intersection grading 24.5 grams per tonne gold from 63 metres downhole. The new intersection includes a 6.4-metre zone grading well over 2 ounces to the tonne at 71.6 g/t. Davyhurst looks well set to ride again under a reconstituted Ora Banda Mining.

Lithium Australia and partner, Envirostream Australia, look like getting into cashflow after shipping their first batch of recycled lithium, cobalt, nickel and graphite that was extracted from old lithium-ion batteries that otherwise would have been sent to landfill. Lithium Australia know owns 84% of Envirostream and is aiming to get to 90 per cent in time.

Hammer Metals has ploughed in 123 first-pass aircore holes at its Bronzewing South gold project and the company appears to have hit on what looks to be something quite interesting. Hammer recently reported composited sample assays from across Target 1 and it has since split the samples down to one-metre intervals. Best numbers include 14 metres at 1.80 g/t gold from 12 metres including 3 metres at 5.57 g/t.

Troy Resources has re-stocked its financial armoury with a placement raising $4 million and an $11 million loan facility supporting the restart of operations at its Karouni gold mine that went onto care and maintenance in October after a fatality on site. Since then, exploration has outlined a new style of mineralisation near the Hicks 1 pit with an impressive 17m hit grading 5 ounces to the tonne gold.