Matt Birney

Kairos Minerals is off and racing with a drill rig now churning away on a 1,500m RC program at the Iron Stirrup prospect, part of its flagship Pilbara Mt York gold project in WA. Iron Stirrup has a current resource of 1.07 million tonnes grading 1.94 grams per tonne for 67,000 ounces of gold and the drilling will target high grade shoots within the deposit.

Neometals lithium-ion battery recycling arm has successfully extracted a nickel sulphate solution with more than 99.9% purity in testwork that has far exceeded its scoping study assumptions. The company’s hydrometallurgical, patent-pending, battery metals recycling technology extracted a nickel product at a recovery rate of 98%. The work brings Neometals a step closer to a commercial-scale lithium battery recycling operation with a pilot plant due by the end of the year.

Perth-based South American gold miner, Troy Resources’ decision to closely focus on its exploration assets appears to be paying off with the recent discovery of a new style of mineralisation along strike from the Hicks 1 pit at its Karouni gold project in Guyana. The Hicks NW prospect has contributed around 19,000 additional reserve ounces and ongoing exploration continues to identify broad, shallow gold zones.

88 Energy is still on track to spud its 30%-owned Charlie-1 appraisal well at its Project Icewine on Alaska’s prospective Central North Slope by next February after successfully finalising a three way farm out agreement signed in August. The total gross mean prospective resource across the seven stacked targets to be intersected by Charlie-1 is 1.6 billion barrels of oil, with 480 million barrels attributable to 88 Energy, according to the company.

Lithium battery supply chain disrupter, Lithium Australia, is making significant inroads into the lucrative Chinese and Japanese battery markets following the successful first stage testing of its “lithium-ferro phosphate” battery cathode material. The company, through its wholly-owned subsidiary VSPC, is now looking to set up a supply chain in China during 2021 and another in Japan by 2022 as it meets growing demand from the energy storage and transportation sectors.

TSX listed Novo Resources is deciding what processing route to use for its Beatons Creek and Egina “nuggety” gold projects in WA’s East Pilbara by subjecting 10 tonnes of their combined ores to mechanical ore sorting. Around 5t of Beatons Creek’s and another 5t of Egina’s gravels have been shipped to a test facility in Perth, where they will be put through sorting trials during December.

King River Resources has wrapped up a drilling campaign at its high grade, Mt Remarkable project in WA and is now poised to provide more enticing assay results as the year draws to a close. The Trudi Main vein has again provided the goods for King River with 6 meters grading 5.95 grams per tonne gold from a very shallow depth of 20 meters downhole.

Kingwest Resources recent Menzies acquisition looks like it might provide a payday for the ASX listed junior with ounce plus hits spinning off the drill bit. Latest results include 0.3m grading 71.3g/t within a broader zone of 1.5m grading 14.33g/t. This gold hit is located an impressive 100m below the known mineralisation at the historic Lady Shenton mine, potentially extending the length by at least 100m.

Industrial technologist, Aurora Labs, is finding there is plenty of global market interest in its ground breaking, uber-fast RMP-1 metal 3D printer, with the company now in early negotiations with a number of industrial players wanting to know more about its printer’s capabilities. The WA outfit recently touched base with potential new clients at Formnext, the world’s leading additive manufacturing exhibition in Germany.

Two lengthy diamond drill intercepts at the Cortadera coastal range copper-gold discovery in Chile continue to reaffirm Hot Chili’s suspicions that it is sitting on a globally significant underground bulk tonnage copper gold operation. New results include 168 metres at 0.4% copper and 0.1 grams/tonne gold from 44m and a massive 334.1m at 0.5% copper and 0.2g/t gold from 654m.

High purity alumina pioneer, Altech Chemicals, could take the global electronics sector by storm once its HPA product starts being used to help dissipate heat in semi-conductors. The enterprising ASX listed outfit, which plans to mine aluminous clays in WA before sending it to Malaysia for processing, could see its niche mineral used in the production of epoxy moulding compounds employed by the semi-conductor industry to improve heat dissipation.

King River Resources’ plans for the development of its giant Speewah vanadium, titanium and iron deposit in the East Kimberley have received another economic boost in the form of positive metallurgical findings as the company continues to optimise its flowsheet ahead of a pre-feasibility study. King River is on a metallurgical mission to the recover high purity alumina, with an updated process showing impressive extraction rates in excess of 90%.

Great Southern Mining has kicked off its maiden exploration drill program at the prospective looking northern Goldfields based Cox’s Find project, with high grade gold hits close to surface starting to roll in. Initial results include 2 metres grading 9 grams per tonne gold from 76 meters downhole and 3 meters grading 16 grams per tonne gold from 74 meters downhole.

Infinity Lithium has received strong support for its Spanish lithium project from the EU Commission and has been invited to present its investment case to the European Battery Alliance’s recently launched, Business Investment Platform, where funding opportunities will be made available for select projects. The EU is keen to capture some of the forecast €250b lithium market value and said that €20b would be made available for European developments.

Lithium Australia has increased its equity in strategic partner, Envirostream Australia, from 23.9% to 73.7%. Envirostream is on its way towards becoming potentially the largest recycler of lithium battery minerals in Australia. It is looking to develop a national lithium battery recycling program from spent lithium-ion batteries that would ordinarily have been sent to landfill, providing a further market-leading niche for Lithium Australia.

ASX-listed Tyranna Resources has conducted a full review of its Knight nickel project in WA, which the company says may have significant exploration upside that requires further investigation. Tyranna has teamed up with independent geological consultant, Xplore Resources to conduct a full review of the project that sits on geological structures linking directly along strike to St George Mining’s successful nickel play next door at Mt Alexander.

A giant Japanese resources house has thrown its weight behind ASX-listed Hammer Metals in a $6 million joint venture which seeks to unlock further mineral wealth in Queensland’s highly prospective Mt Isa region. JOGMEC is looking to earn 60% of a 290 square kilometre portion of Hammer’s 2,200sqkm Mount Isa project, where the targets are massive IOCG ore bodies similar in style to the giant Ernest Henry deposit.

A robust RC drilling program has seen Calidus Resources continue its rapid transition from explorer to producer as it underpins the open pit resource upgrade for its million-plus ounce Warrawoona gold project in WA’s East Pilbara. RC drilling inside the planned Klondike pit has returned a number of scintillating intersections, including 15 metres at 3.7 grams/tonne gold from 30m and 12m at 3.93g/t gold from 19m.

Coziron is on the hunt for rare and critical metals at its Shepherds Well project near Karratha, with four multi-commodity prospects demarcated for follow up work and drilling. The project is located about 60km south-west of Karratha and the Perth-based ASX listed company has collected some 325 soil samples to firm up targets across a one to two-km-wide shear zone. The shear zone is prospective for rare earths, nickel, zinc, base metals and even detrital gold.

MGC Pharmaceuticals has taken a major step towards capturing the growing Latin American medicinal cannabis market by joining forces with Brazil’s leading merchant bank in a ground breaking sales and distribution deal. The joint venture will see MGC and BrasilInvest not only sell and distribute MGC’s phytocannabinoid-derived medicines in Brazil, but also in neighbouring countries where the use of medical marijuana has been approved.

Impact Minerals has worked up a number of interesting looking copper-gold targets just south of Alkane’s serious Boda copper-gold find in NSW. The company has four multi-minerals projects across Australia, ranging from the grassroots exploration stage to advanced trial mining. At the Commonwealth project in NSW, company Geologists stumbled across surface rocks containing copper sulphides just 20km south of Alkane’s Boda.

Strategic minerals developer, Neometals, has hit the hydrometallurgical jackpot at its Barrambie project in WA, with recent test work recovering a whopping plus-99% titanium from its current processing flowsheet. The uber-successful WA minerals developer has now confirmed that it can successfully recover high purity hydrated titanium dioxide, or titanium hydrolysate, from Barrambie’s ores, potentially exposing it to both the titanium pigment and metals markets.

Venus Metals and Rox Resources have struck gold again at their Currans Find JV project in the Youanmi region of WA. Headline results from an RC drilling campaign at the Red White and Blue prospect include 9 meters grading 3.27 grams per tonne gold from 35m that also contains a higher grade 8g/t intercept over 2m. Gold numbers from the Currans North prospect continue to impress with 2m grading 5.6g/t from 163m downhole.

Heavy rare earths developer and miner, Northern Minerals, has been making good headway with a scoping study into the commercial properties of its rare earths deposit at the Brown’s Range project in the East Kimberly region of WA. Consistent with recent radical advancements in science, rare earth’s are becoming increasingly valuable sources of materials that are used in electronic, optical, magnetic and catalytic technologies.

Aurora Labs is bringing its futuristic 3D printing technology to the fore through the development of its market-leading “Rapid Manufacturing Printer One”, or “RMP1”. The RMP1 3D printer uses a process called “direct metal laser melting”, that can print more than a single layer at a time, which the company has trademarked as “Multi-layer Concurrent Printing”. This printer is the stuff of the future – it literally melts metal powder and builds a product or part from the ground up.

Around-the-clock diamond drilling by St George Mining at its evolving Mt Alexander base metals project in WA’s north-eastern Goldfields is starting to pay off, with recent results confirming deeper massive nickel and copper sulphide mineralisation at its exciting Investigators prospect. Two large step out holes, which were completed to test deep electro-magnetic conductors, intersected a range of sulphides at previously unexplored depths.

Legend Mining has revealed that massive sulphide mineralisation has been intersected during diamond drilling at its D5 conductor, located at the Rockford project in the Fraser Range of WA. The company intersected an almost 10m wide zone of significant nickel-copper sulphides from 110.3m down-hole and the diamond rig will now move onto the D1 conductor. The company says that D1 is a very strong, discrete geophysical feature.

PolarX’s suspicions that it might be sitting on a significant porphyry-style copper-gold-molybdenum mineralised system at its Alaska Range project in the US appear to have been confirmed by the first diamond assays returned from the Mars prospect. Whilst still early days, if this proves to be the case, the Perth-based company may one day find itself rubbing shoulders with some of the world’s largest copper miners.

A furious diamond drilling campaign at its namesake gold project near Leinster in WA, could see Bellevue Gold become the newest member of the exclusive two million gold ounce club. At the Tribune prospect, impressive assays include 9.6m at 14.1 g/t gold from 107.9m, 3m at 33g/t from 162m, 1.9m at 29.3g/t from 58m, 5.2m at 5.4g/t from 203m and 0.6m at 273.5g/t gold.

Youanmi Gold Project joint venture partners, Rox Resources and Venus Metals, have hit the ball out of the park with their latest RC drilling results, returning some stunning, near-surface hits – including 5 metres at an amazing 4 ounces to the tonne gold from surface, 1m at an extraordinary 591.89g/t gold from just 3m and 0.5m at a whopping 1058.49g/t , all in the same bonanza hole.

Emerging tech player, K2fly, has inked a lucrative $1.45 million contract with mining heavyweight, Rio Tinto, for its innovative software technology. The small cap listed company will now roll out its specialist “RCubed” mineral resource governance software across 20 Rio sites around the globe. K2Fly’s RCubed software is an innovative peice of mining technology that manages the most valuable of a client’s primary assets – its mineral resources.

Adriatic Metals has tabled a lovely set of numbers for its poly-metallic Vareš project in Bosnia with the ASX-listed company saying that its new scoping study shows a stunning, AUD$1.37b net present value for the zinc-silver-lead-gold-barite project. Amazingly, payback of the AUD$260m CAPEX is expected to be just eight months after commencement of processing with the project showing a very respectable post-tax internal rate of return of 107.4%.