Matt Birney

AVZ Minerals has commenced environmental and social impact studies at its Manono lithium project, located in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, appointing in-country organisation, EmiAfrica, to conduct the work. The studies will form the bases of its later ESIA documentation for permitting the project. The company also met with stakeholders and dignitaries in the region affected by the future mining proposal for Manono.

Indonesia-focussed gold developer, Nusantara Resources, has secured the right to fully extinguish a third-party royalty arrangement over future gold production from its Awak Mas gold project on Sulawesi Island. The company can terminate the existing net smelter royalty deal with Vista Gold Corporation, by paying a small consideration of cash and shares and then two payment tranches up to USD$4.9m before 30th April 2021.

Strike Energy has kicked off a 3D seismic campaign at its Walyering conventional gas discovery in the southern Perth Basin, where it has previously defined prospective resources of up to 263 billion cubic feet of gas and 6.3 million barrels of associated liquids condensate. The discovery was made in 1971 at about 3,350m depth, where the Walyering-1 gas well flowed at 13.5 million standard cubic feet per day.

Calidus Resources has lengthened its successful list of drilling results whilst firming up the mining credentials of its rapidly developing Warrawoona gold project in WA’s East Pilbara region. The company is also continuing to de-risk its million ounce-plus ore resource with recent results including a tidy 12m grading 5.58g/t from 12m down-hole, 15m at 4.33g/t from 6m downhole and visible gold in diamond drill core.

Legend Mining has kicked off its next phase of exploration at its Rockford project in the Fraser Range of Western Australia. A two-hole, 1000 meter diamond program has now commenced that will test for nickel-copper sulphide mineralisation at the D1 and D5 prospects. These new prospects were identified by a low-frequency moving loop electromagnetic survey in some of the area’s most prospective nickel-copper ground.

Canning Basin focussed hydrocarbon explorer and producer, Buru Energy, has largely completed its lateral section drilling at the emerging Ungani 7H well within the productive Ungani oilfield in the Kimberley region of WA. The company also reported some $3m in revenue from other wells within the Ungani oilfield this week, with two further production wells in the field, Ungani 6H and 7H, expected to come on-line during December.

Venus Metals and Rox Resources have hit high grade gold in aircore drilling at their Venus JV project near Youanmi in WA. The drilling is located north of the old Penny West gold mine and Spectrum Metals’ recent much-heralded Penny North discovery. Best numbers came in at 4 meters grading just over 7 grams per tonne from 24m depth and 5m grading nearly 2.5 grams per tonne from 60m downhole.

ASX listed biotech, PharmAust, has put a call out for canine volunteers to join its anti-cancer drug treatment trials in partnership with veterinary practices across Australia. The trials will study the effectiveness of Pharmaust’s anti-cancer drug in dogs suffering from B cell lymphoma – the most common canine cancer. Preliminary findings from phase I trials were very positive, with a notable reduction in tumours and prolonged lifespan.

Blina Minerals will cash in its 11% stake in private New Zealand focused explorer, Condamie Resources and will pocket around $200,000 from the transaction. The company will use the funds to explore its recently acquired Barkly gold-copper project in the NT. The Bluebird prospect is arguably the most promising target at Barkly and historically threw up some lucrative drill intercepts like 20m @ 8.17g/t gold and 0.61% copper.

ASX-listed, cloud-based telecommunications pacesetter, Vonex, last week revealed it had generated quarterly contract revenues of $1.62m, a 25% jump over its June quarter results and an 18% hike over the same quarter last year. Vonex’s business received a shot in the arm this year after the telco upstart inked a partnership agreement with Qantas Business Rewards, with a noticeable upswing in numbers now starting to occur.

MGC Pharmaceuticals has expanded the number of patients prescribing for or being processed to receive prescriptions of its medical cannabis-based pharmaceutical products in Australia and the UK to around 500 with the company racking up its 1000th prescription this month. Management said that the key milestone readily demonstrates its strengthening position and momentum in those key markets, with its sales graph continuing to climb month by month.

Venus Metals has wasted no time in getting a drill rig on top of its four new electromagnetic, or “EM” targets that were thrown up just last week at the company's Vidure copper-nickel prospect in the Youanmi region of WA. The new EM targets represent potentially un-discovered massive sulphide occurrences that may be hiding beneath the surface. With Youanmi a hot area right now, the results should be interesting.

Blina Minerals is all set to kick off a maiden drilling program at its recently acquired Barkley project near Tennant Creek in the NT. The company will drill test extensions to high-grade copper-gold-bismuth mineralisation at the Bluebird prospect, where historical drilling hit numerous stellar intersections such as 20m going 8.17g/t gold, 0.61% copper and 0.22% bismuth from 157m down-hole.

TNG Limited has submitted a comprehensive Environmental Impact Statement for its Darwin TIVAN processing facility to the NT Government in support of its wholly-owned, integrated Mount Peake vanadium-titanium-iron mining project near Alice Springs in the NT. The company will establish a world-class integrated downstream minerals processing operation in Darwin, to treat magnetite concentrates sourced from the Mount Peake mine.

Altech Chemicals is inching closer to production of high-purity alumina after completing Stage 1 of construction at its HPA plant in Malaysia, both on time and budget. The company is now progressing Stage 2, which includes the development of an on-site electrical substation for the processing facility. Altech will produce 4,500 tonnes a year of HPA sourced from pure kaolin clays in WA.

Adriatic Metals has raised $25m via a two-tranche institutional placement to expedite an aggressive exploration program through to a BFS at its exciting, Vareš multi-metals project in Bosnia. The company is also seeking a secondary listing of its shares on the London Stock Exchange during the current quarter to capture further interest from UK and European investors that are looking to support the world-class, high-grade project.

Hot Chili’s drilling at the Cuerpo 3 deposit within its Cortadera porphyry discovery in Chile has hit a 264m long, near-surface intercept of copper and gold mineralisation from just 52m down-hole, opening up the potential for future open-pit extraction. Another hole 250m to the southwest recorded a strongly mineralised porphyry system from surface to at least 313m depth, confirming the zone is also situated in shallow up-dip positions.

Tyranna Resources has picked up a couple of interesting nickel tenements in WA in addition to a NSW nickel-cobalt laterite play. The company will acquire unlisted, Clean Power Resources', prime nickel ground across two states. The WA projects are located in good nickel country with a total prospective strike length of over 30km across structures that link directly to St George Mining’s successful nickel play at Mt Alexander.

St George Mining has discovered seven new downhole electromagnetic conductors believed to be reflective of an extensive, high-grade sulphide mineralised system at depth. More massive sulphide mineralisation has also been observed during ongoing diamond drilling at Investigators East with assays pending. The new conductors and sulphide mineralisation are located at the company’s Mt Alexander Project west of Leonora in WA.

Horizon Minerals has kicked off a major grade control drilling program at its Boorara project that neighbours Kalgoorlie's Super Pit. A 2016 trial pit delivered a reconciled mill gold grade of 1.73g/t against an initial resource modelled grade of 1g/t. This demonstrates the importance of the appropriately named ‘grade control drilling’ program ahead of mining to optimise the mining operation and potentially boost the head grade.

The board of Azumah Resources’ has successfully held out for more money as Ibaera Capital’s increased takeover offer of 3.3 cents a share finally gets the nod from Directors. The new offer represents a 136% premium to the company’s closing price before the original offer was made in September and an 18% premium to the 2.8c per share offer made by Ibaera at that time.

Norwest Energy has upgraded the prospective gas resources at its Lockyer Deep and North Erregulla Deep prospects to 1,122 billion cubic feet, just 10km north of Strike Energy’s exceptional West Erregulla-2 gas discovery in the Perth Basin. The company holds a 20% stake in the associated gas permit with operator Energy Resources and the JV partners will shortly decide on the location of a well at the project.

Great Southern Mining is set to launch its maiden drill program at the historical Cox’s Find gold project near Laverton in WA. The historical mine produced some 76,000 ounces of gold at an absurdly high 22.6 grams per tonne for WMC, close to 80 years ago. The program forms the first substantial exploration in 25 years and the first drilling below 60m depth.

Cloud-based telecommunications pacesetter, Vonex, this week banked $630,000 in rebates from the Australian Government’s Research and Development Tax Incentive Program for eligible R&D activities conducted during the 2018-19 financial year. The company’s retail business is expanding rapidly, with 34,000 users registered for its core, cloud-based, PABX telephony business as the company muscles its way in amongst the majors, courtesy of the market disruption caused by the NBN.

Strike Energy has produced some outstanding initial flow test results from the Kingia Formation within its exciting West Erregulla-2 gas discovery well in the Perth Basin of WA. The numbers are consistent with other high rate gas wells in the region. Strike recently provided an update and strategy to begin unlocking value from the surrounding gas field, with a schedule developed to begin producing gas by early 2022 and fast-track cash flows.

Kingwest Resources is rapidly making its newly acquired Menzies gold project its own with ounce plus hits rolling off the drill bit. Thirty six grams per tonne gold over a metre intersection is a good start to what is shaping up to be an action-packed drill program across this exciting project that is littered with historic workings and old shafts.

Adriatic Metals’ maiden high-grade resource of 9.4 million tonnes grading 5.1% zinc, 3.3% lead, 1.8g/t gold and 183g/t silver at the Rupice deposit and positive metallurgical test work results will flow into the company’s Vareš project scoping study, due to be tabled by 2020. The company has entered into a partnership with base metals miner, Sandfire Resources, who owns 12.8% of its stock and is entitled to representation on the board.

Middle Island Resources has completed a re-optimisation mining study at its Sandstone gold project in WA and with elevated gold prices and new pit wall parameters improving on the 2016 PFS results, the updated work now captures 75% of the global mineral resources in proposed pits. The company is also looking to recommission the Sandstone plant on a standalone basis after studies confirmed it could be refurbished over 16 weeks for only $10.3m.

Infinity Lithium has applied for EU funding from the European Battery Alliance’s private investment company, InnoEnergy, to support the development of a pilot plant for the production of lithium hydroxide that will then be tested and validated by lithium end-users in Europe. The funds would be utilised by Infinity and its partners to advance a pilot plant at Infinity’s San José Spanish lithium project.

St George Mining has raised $5.7m to underpin its comprehensive exploration programs at the emerging Mt Alexander nickel-copper-PGM project located near Leonora in WA. The company has unearthed more than 30 regional EM conductors for drill testing and several new high-priority targets from down-hole EM surveying in the Cathedrals Belt and many of these will feel the drill bit in 2020, with the new funding now confirmed.

Lithium Australia’s ongoing review and consolidation of its business into four operational divisions; raw materials, lithium chemicals, batteries and recycling is progressing well. The company is looking to create a separate and distinctive identity for each division with one eye on potentially listing each of them in the future or at the very least, attracting investment directly into each entity.

ASX-listed Volt Resources is in the final stages of securing approval from the Stock Exchange of Mauritius for a USD$40m note issue that will underpin the stage 1 development of its Bunyu graphite project in Tanzania. The note will support the Stage 1 development of the project that has an ore reserve of 127 million tonnes grading 4.4% TGC, most of which is in the Super Jumbo and Jumbo flake categories.