Matt Birney

Great Southern Mining has signed an agreement to acquire the historical high-grade Cox’s Find gold mine near Laverton, WA, that produced about 77,000 ounces of gold at an average grade of 21.94g/t gold between 1935 and 1942. The company plans to apply modern exploration techniques to the project with a focus on step-out drilling from the open pit and underground workings.

Legend Mining has recorded encouraging multi-element geochemical assays from its latest infill aircore drilling of an EM anomaly at the Worsley prospect in the Fraser Range, WA. Best results included 28m @ 0.17% zinc and 1.37g/t silver from 40m down-hole, which incorporated a higher-grade section of 4m @ 0.71% zinc and 1.71g/t silver from 52m and may indicate proximity to a volcanogenic massive sulphide ore system.

Drilling has indicated that Hot Chili’s Cortadera copper-gold deposit in Chile may have greater growth potential than anticipated after confirming a large northern extension to the main porphyry centre, Cuerpo 3. The company is completing a second diamond hole to test the extent of a potential higher-grade core at Cuerpo 3 and plans to drill two further holes to determine the potential for an increasing grade profile with depth.

Spectrum Metals’ Phase II drilling campaign at the Penny West project near Youanmi, WA, has returned top results of 1m @ 180.3 g/t gold from 206m down-hole and 11m @ 11.7g/t gold from 229m from the first holes drilled at the Penny North prospect. The results have already doubled the down-dip extent of the Penny North lode on this section while results are pending for two up-dip holes on the same drill section.

Neometals has completed a scoping study for its proposed lithium-ion battery recycling and processing initiative, with results showing encouraging economic outcomes for an initial 10-year plant life. The company will process about 18,000 tonnes of exhausted LIBs per annum and churn out a pre-tax NPV of $308m and IRR of 72%, with a CAPEX cost of $92m and payback in less than two years.

St George Mining has delineated five new, high priority exploratory drilling targets for base metal mineralisation along the Cathedrals Belt at its Mt Alexander project located near Leonora in the Goldfields region of WA. The new targets include three virtually unexplored regions at the West End and Bullets prospects and two strong responses located down-dip and along strike of the existing Investigators mineralisation.

Calidus Resources has generated high-grade gold assays from a regional aircore drilling campaign over conceptual exploratory targets on prospective shear zones at its Warrawoona gold project near Marble Bar, WA. Best results included 12m @ 2.37g/t gold from 52m down-hole and 4m @ 8.87g/t gold from 48m down-hole on the Klondyke-St George shear system, 5km west of the main Klondyke gold deposit.

BlackEarth Minerals’ encouraging preliminary test work results have revealed that nearly half of the ore concentrate for its Maniry graphite project reports to the Super Jumbo, Jumbo and Large flake categories at high grades of 96% TGC. The results will now be used in offtake discussions and potential agreements and help broaden funding initiatives and product development for the project.

MGC Pharmaceuticals has received a purchase order of about $700,000 from the first full bulk order of cannabis-based cosmetic raw materials from private Canadian cannabis investment company CannaGlobal. It has also received a $173,000 payment for the delivery of cannabidiol raw material to lifestyle & medical cannabis product manufacturer Mabsut Life under their multi-year supply agreement.

PharmAust has given US-based manufacturer Catalent the green light to start producing more Good Manufacturing Practice-grade Monepantel tablets for its upcoming Phase 2 anti-cancer clinical trials in dogs. The company plans to start recruiting dogs with B cell lymphoma in August or September this year for the Phase 2 trials, which will initially follow a 28-day treatment regimen.

Crusader Resources is securing funds to facilitate the optimisation and completion of a DFS and BFS for its 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 is raising up to $4.1m in a rights issue, as it vectors towards the development of its flagship gold project.

Troy Resources’ infill RC drilling at the Ohio Creek prospect of its Karouni project in Guyana has returned high-grade hits of up to 3m @ 41.7g/t gold from 29m down-hole and indicated a coherent mineralised footprint across a strike length of about 100m and depth of at least 125m. Recent diamond drilling has also confirmed that gold mineralisation may extend to depths of at least 250m.

Volt Resources is close to securing approval for a USD$40m note issue on the Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange that will underpin the Stage 1 development of its Bunyu graphite project in Tanzania. The company has also made progress regarding a proposed bond issue on the Stock Exchange of Mauritius and has received strong interest from North America and Asia-based institutions to fund the project.

Spectrum Metals will commence a detailed, ground-based geophysical SAM survey program over the Penny West shear corridor next month, which hosts the high-grade gold mineralisation at its namesake project located near Youanmi, WA. The surveying covers a gap between the recently identified Penny North mineralisation and the Columbia-Magenta targets to the north and will assist in the delineation of geological structures.

Great Southern Mining has secured up to $150,000 of co-funding support from the WA Government for RC drilling on the various nickel-cobalt-scandium targets at its Mt Weld project near Laverton. This is timely given the ongoing trade war between China and the US that has sent shares in Lynas Corporation, who operates the neighbouring Mt Weld rare earth mine, sky-rocketing more than 80% since late March.

Novo Resources has compiled a mineralisation report for its Karratha gold project in the Pilbara region of WA and outlined future work programs that include comprehensive, bulk sampling of up to 100,000 tonnes across the region. The company will undertake innovative mechanical ore sorting and scanning techniques on the samples addressing the unique, coarse nuggety gold distribution of the Karratha deposits to more accurately predict gold grades.

Strike Energy has signed a gas offtake option agreement with major chemical manufacturer CSBP for the supply of up to 100 petajoules of gas from the upcoming West Erregulla-2 well in the Perth Basin, WA. CSBP will pay a $5 million option fee to help fund the cost of drilling the well, which targets up to 1.16 trillion cubic feet of gas in the Kingia High Cliff sands and 7.2 million barrels of oil in the Jurassic Cattamarra Coal Measures.

MGC Pharmaceuticals and its research partner RMIT have been awarded a cannabis cultivation research licence from the Australian Office of Drug Control. This allows the partners to advance research on the optimisation of breeding and cultivating processes and the extraction of material to conduct pre-clinical research assessing the efficacy of medical cannabis on prostate, melanoma and other cancer cells.

Tyranna Resources has secured a mandate to progress with its plan to unlock early cash flow from its Eureka gold project near Kalgoorlie after defeating an attempt by major shareholder Central Iron Ore to replace the current management. The early mining opportunity is expected to generate a positive cash flow of about $2.6 million that the company will use to accelerate exploration at the project.

Venus Metals and Rox Resources have kicked off a 1200 metre RC drilling program targeting shallow high-grade gold mineralisation at the Currans North and Red White and Blue Middle Workings prospects of their Currans Find JV mining lease south of Youanmi, WA. The partners are also planning to carry out shallow RC drilling at the Taylor’s Reef discovery where recent work uncovered strongly gold-mineralised vein quartz.

Calidus Resources’ recent IP survey has identified a strong chargeability anomaly similar to and located immediately to the south of the 1.15 million ounce Klondyke deposit at its Warrawoona gold project in the eastern Pilbara, WA. The company said the new parallel shear highlights the potential for further growth at the project and will be drill tested in the second half of this year.

Aspire Mining’s DFS for its high-quality coking coal project has moved forward, with the Mongolian Government endorsing the company’s ore reserves for the Ovoot Early Stage Development project and approval of the Feasibility Study results expected shortly. These milestones enable Aspire to commence the relevant environmental studies, social impact studies and project management plans for the project.

Image Resources has signed sales agreements for 70,000 tonnes of zircon-rich HMC from its Boonanarring project north of Perth for three bulk shipments with Chinese offtake partner Shantou Natfort Zirconium and Titanium. The company has also received significant interest from other potential buyers for its HMC, which could indicate rising demand for the product in China.

Tyranna Resources has completed a review of a restart study that confirms the potential to generate $2.6m in positive cash flow through an early mining opportunity at its Eureka gold project near Kalgoorlie. The project is expected to have capital costs of between $600,000 and $700,000 and will mine 60,500 tonnes of ore to produce 4057 ounces of gold at a diluted grade of 2.1g/t over two months.

Coziron Resources is looking to breathe life back into its unique, high-quality, Ashburton magnetite project, with drilling planned to deliver a maiden JORC compliant resource, just 40km from CITIC’s massive Sino project. The company has identified extensive magnetite deposits at least 6km long and 1km wide at Ashburton, with encouraging analytical work that showed mass yields of magnetic iron content up to 42% and concentrate grades exceeding 67% iron.

88 Energy Alaska-focused 88 Energy is closing in on a potential farm-out of the conventional rights at its Project Icewine in Alaska’s North Slope, with its preferred bidder scheduled to make a final decision in June. Final analysis of the HRZ shale at the same project has indicated that more than half of its large lease holding of about 528,000 acres remains prospective for unconventional oil.

Hawkstone Mining has outlined more high-grade lithium assays from the Big Sandy clay project in the US, including 39m @ 2,015 ppm lithium from 23m down-hole. The company is poised to accelerate its exploration and development activities at the project, following a recent oversubscribed placement for $2.4m, which will facilitate the estimation of a mineral resource and the completion of definitive metallurgical test work programs.

Petra Capital has produced a research report comparing the value of recent M&A transactions in the junior gold sector with Perth based, ASX-listed PNG gold explorer and developer, Geopacific Resources. Geopacific is sitting on nearly 1.6 million gold ounces in PNG and has access to a wider goldfield on the Pacific island that looks to be highly prospective for the elusive yellow metal.

Novo Resources has installed a new exploration camp and has awarded an earthmoving contract for its upcoming bulk sampling and processing activities at the emerging Egina gold project located near Port Hedland, WA. The company recently undertook ground surveys and field investigations that outlined potential conglomerate-hosted and alluvial gold sites suitable for the bulk sampling operations.

Lithium Australia has outlined a maiden vanadium mineral resource for a portion of the Youanmi Complex near Sandstone, WA, that it has the option to purchase from Diversity Resources. The inferred resource of 185 million tonnes grading 0.33% vanadium pentoxide is near Venus Metals’ Youanmi vanadium project and was estimated using historical drilling completed by Australian Gold Resources back in 1999.

Neometals has released an updated DFS confirming that the production of vanadium pentoxide and ferrovanadium from its Barrambie project near Sandstone, WA, is both technically feasible and economically viable. The company will now focus on a pilot-scale evaluation of hydrometallurgical processing to recover titanium, vanadium and iron products rather than just the vanadium contained within the project’s ores.

Bellevue Gold’s deep hole drilled with the assistance of the WA Government’s exploration incentive scheme at its namesake project near Leinster, WA, has intersected visible gold below the historical Bellevue mine. The company’s own ongoing exploration program also discovered a new Viago look-alike target immediately west of the high-grade Tribune Lode.