Matt Birney

Altech Chemicals could sell up to 49% of its high purity alumina, or “HPA”, project for USD$100 million to Frankfurt Stock Exchange-listed company, Youbisheng Green Paper, following strong expressions of interest from European investors. The company will pay about €2.7 million in cash and shares to acquire a 29% interest in Youbisheng, which will then seek to raise up to €70 million in new equity to fund the acquisition.

The Madagascan Government has offered to fast-track development of BlackEarth Minerals’ flagship Maniry graphite project, after a positive meeting with the country’s Minister of Mine and Strategic Resources. A German specialist industrial mineral testing outfit has also begun a program for evaluating the company’s ore concentrates for battery testing, while a Chinese institute has independently confirmed the premium quality of the project’s ores.

Vonex’s core cloud-based PABX telephony business continues to go from strength to strength with the ASX-listed telco now counting a milestone 30,000 registered active users on its books, a 25% increase in the last 12 months. The company also recorded new customer sales value of more than $1.3 million in the June 2019 quarter, which represents a 44% increase from the previous quarter.

Lithium Australia has continued to intersect wide pegmatite intervals with lithium mineralisation from its first pass reverse circulation drilling program at the Youanmi project near Sandstone in WA’s Murchison region. Lepidolite mineralisation has been intersected in most holes drilled to date in the program, which will be used to assess the resource potential and geometry of the pegmatites.

Calidus Resources’ PFS for its flagship Warrawoona gold project located near Marble Bar, WA, will churn out $61m per annum in free, pre-tax cashflows over an initial mine life of six years. Based on an AUD$1,800 per ounce gold price and production of about 100,000 ounces per year through a conventional 2Mtpa plant, the project has an estimated pre-tax NPV of $151m and an IRR of 40%, with payback in two years.

Rox Resources has hit the ground running at its Mt Fisher gold project near Wiluna, WA, with encouraging new assay results returned from drilling at the Dam, Dirks and Damsel South prospects. The company believes that the potential for uncovering large gold zones at the project is high despite deep weathering that obscures the basement rocks and geological structures, which has resulted in sparse drilling below the oxidised profile.

Image Resources has received the green light to drill a 1.3 km section of the highly prospective 5.6km northern extension area, or “NEA”, within its high-grade, zircon-rich Boonanarring mineral sands project, 80km north of Perth, WA. Drilling and assessment of mineralisation in the NEA is aimed at verifying the presence of economic mineralisation to increase the project’s mine life.

Indonesia focussed gold developer, Nusantara Resources, has increased its confidence in the potential for a grade uplift to be realised once its Awak Mas gold project on the island of Sulawesi, Indonesia, is in production. Trenches dug across an exploration bench have demonstrated additional high-grade structures that were not captured by ore reserve drilling and related block models.

Spectrum Metals’ Phase II drilling campaign at the Penny West project near Youanmi, WA, has returned additional, deep high-grade gold intersections at the Penny North discovery, extending the mineralisation down-plunge. New drill intercepts included 5m @ 24.4g/t gold from 241m down-hole, 6m @ 14.8g/t gold from 268m down-hole and another hole that recorded 11m @ 3.9g/t from 221m down-hole and 3m @ 15.4g/t gold from 239m down-hole.

Intermin Resources’ ongoing regional drilling activities in the Goldfields region of WA, have delivered encouraging assays following up on historical drill results and testing of new prospect areas. At the Teal East prospect, an intersection of 12m @ 4.19g/t gold from 76m down-hole has extended the existing mineralisation and provided a good foundation for growing the current Teal mineral resource of nearly 290,000 ounces.

Anglo Australian Resources has confirmed that supergene gold mineralisation at the Think Big prospect within its flagship Feysville project near Kalgoorlie is largely continuous over 200m of strike and up to 80m wide. Infill drilling recorded a top result of 10 metres grading 10 grams per tonne gold from 23 metres down-hole, including a peak 1m intersection grading 76.1g/t gold.

Australian Potash has received recognition for the test work activities that will feed into the ongoing definitive feasibility study at its Lake Wells sulphate of potash, or “SOP”, project near Laverton, WA, with the receipt of a $1.3 million research and development tax rebate. Proceeds from the tax refund will be used to complete the work streams feeding into the study, which is scheduled to be completed before the end of this year.

Image Resources has confirmed the presence of a high-grade core of zircon-rich mineral sands, with a close-spaced drilling program over the eastern strand line of its Boonanarring project, located north of Perth in WA. The company said assay results from the infill program at Block C were encouraging and corroborate mining and processing results at the mine, which show higher ore grades than had initially been forecast.

PharmAust has received the key ethics approval from the New South Wales Department of Primary Industry to proceed with the Phase II clinical trials for its anti-cancer drug Monepantel in dogs with B-cell lymphoma, the most common form of canine cancer. The company will begin recruitment of dogs for the Phase II trial after it takes delivery of the tablets from the US in August or September.

Legend Mining has selected conductor D5 within its Area D prospect area in the Fraser Range region of WA, as the highest priority target for diamond drilling later this year. The company controls vast tenement holdings over 3,000 square kilometres in the area and a recent review of all existing drilling data, geophysical interpretations, ore mineralogy studies and encouraging geochemical signatures has led to the conclusion.

ClearVue Technologies has signed a memorandum of understanding with Taiwanese manufacturer BeyondPV to secure supplies of solar photovoltaic, or “PV”, strip modules. Under the agreement, BeyondPV will invest about USD$3.5 million to establish a dedicated production line to produce ClearVue’s solar PV strip modules, while carrying out research and development to improve ClearVue’s products and technology.

Lithium Australia’s ongoing lithium drilling at the prospective Youanmi project near Sandstone in WA’s Murchison region has had initial success, with many of the 22 holes drilled to date intersecting visible lepidolite mineralisation. The company has also dispatched samples from its completed four-hole vanadium drilling program at Youanmi for chemical analyses and metallurgical test work.

AVZ Minerals has appointed well-credentialled, Perth-based, GR Engineering Services to oversee delivery of the definitive feasibility study for its Manono lithium and tin project in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, by the June quarter of 2020. On-site, DFS work programs are continuing on schedule with metallurgical test work well underway and dewatering programs for the historical Roche Dure open pit having commenced.

St George Mining’s new Fish Hook prospect at its flagship Mt Alexander base metals project near Leonora, WA, has been identified as a high priority nickel-copper sulphide target. Soil sampling at the prospect returned highly anomalous values for nickel, copper and platinum group elements that exceeded assays at the Investigators Prospect where extensive high-grade nickel-copper sulphides were later intersected by drilling.

Bellevue Gold has generated an updated mineral resource estimate for its flagship Bellevue gold deposit near Leinster, WA, revealing a 17% increase in the contained metal to 5 million tonnes grading 11.1g/t gold for 1.8 million ounces. Next steps at the project include completing metallurgical and geotechnical studies, establishing water supply locations for the proposed mining operation and refining geological resource models by completing infill drilling.

ClearVue Technologies has signed a consultancy agreement with global engineering consultants Arup to further develop its Smart Façade panel concepts that incorporate the ASX-listed company’s clear glass solar panels. This work will develop four types of self-powered Smart Façades into concepts that can be supplied to selected manufacturers for prototyping and integration into mass production and assembly.

MGC Pharmaceuticals’ seed-to-pharmacy strategy is picking up significant momentum with the ASX-listed company reporting revenues of $763,000 in the fourth quarter ended 30 June 2019. The result is due in part to the receipt of $469,000 in revenue from private Canadian cannabis investment company CannaGlobal for cannabis-based cosmetic raw materials under their five-year supply agreement.

PolarX will shortly commence drilling at both its intriguing Saturn porphyry copper-gold target and Zackly copper-gold skarn deposit, located within its Alaska Range project in the US. The company has initiated geophysical surveys at Saturn to help determine the final drill hole positions and it is planning to start a resource extension drilling program at Zackly to grow the existing mineral resource.

Hawkstone Mining has received additional wide, high-grade lithium assays of up to 52m @ 2,042 ppm lithium, from its Big Sandy clay project in the US. The company is finalising its Phase 2 drilling campaign at the Northern Mineralised Zone and is completing a maiden mineral resource estimate for the deposit and definitive metallurgical test work programs for lithium extraction.

Legend Mining has raised $9.8m in a two-tranche subscription agreement with miner Independence Group to fund further exploration. The company has also entered into several joint venture agreements relating to its Rockford project in the Fraser Range, WA, with Legend to acquire a 70% interest in two exploration tenements from the Creasy Group, while Independence will gain a 60% interest in Legend’s Rockford North tenements.

Greenland Minerals’ optimisation study has successfully reduced the capital cost of its giant Kvanefjeld rare earth project in southern Greenland by almost 40% to USD$505 million. This is partly due to the development of an optimised flotation circuit that can produce a concentrate with grades of at least 22% REO, which allows the scale of refinery circuit and the size of processing equipment to be reduced.

St George Mining is poised to start drilling 42 new electromagnetic conductors that have been identified by downhole surveys at its flagship Mt Alexander base metals project near Leonora in the Goldfields region of WA. The highest priority targets are located away from defined zones of nickel-copper sulphides and could significantly extend the mineralised ore system in the Cathedrals Belt.

Adriatic Metals has intersected encouraging, wide intersections of base and precious metals mineralisation from drilling in its new Concession area at the northern end of the Rupice prospect in Bosnia. The company has also outlined a strong chargeable anomaly from a ground geophysical survey, located 200m west of the current program at Rupice, which contains no historical drilling.

Intermin Resources is selling its non-core Menzies and Goongarrie gold projects north of Kalgoorlie to gold explorer Kingwest Resources for a total consideration of $8 million in cash and shares. The sale supports Intermin’s goal of developing a standalone gold project in the Kalgoorlie and Coolgardie regions, while allowing it to retain exposure to any upside in the two projects through a substantial shareholding in Kingwest.

Big River Gold has now secured funds to optimise and complete a bankable feasibility study for its exciting Borborema gold project in north-eastern Brazil by the end of this year. The company recently divested its Juruena-Novo Astro gold projects for $3m in cash and scrip and has raised $4.11m in a rights issue, as it vectors towards the development of its flagship gold project.

Infinity Lithium has signed a binding letter of intent to sell its non-core Banio and Mamana potash projects in Gabon to an unnamed buyer for up to USD$3 million in cash or shares. The buyer has a 12-month option to pay the full amount in cash or pay USD$2 million in shares in a public or private entity with a further USD$1 million in shares to be paid on delivery of a JORC-compliant scoping study within three years.

Calidus Resources has purchased two prospective exploration licences located adjacent to its flagship Warrawoona gold project near Marble Bar, WA, in a strategy to build on its existing resource base of 1.25 million ounces. The company also completed its 70% earn-in on a joint venture agreement with Novo Resources over certain Warrawoona tenements, by spending $2m spend over three years to obtain the stake holding.