Matt Birney

Lindian Resources is set to embark on a 12,500m resource definition drilling program at the company’s brand new Kangankunde rare earths project in Malawi after enlisting a rig to roll in later this month. The drilling is designed to probe the project’s historic resource and an extensive area of surface mineralisation measuring 650m-long by 400m-wide.

ASX-listed Empire Energy has commenced drilling of its highly anticipated Carpentaria-3H well in the Northern Territory's revered Beetaloo Sub-basin. Recent figures suggest the region could contain up to a staggering 500 trillion cubic feet of gas and the company is planning to target the onshore resource through a 2000m horizontal probe.

Kairos Minerals has uncovered several lithium targets and a new gold target from a swag of soil samples collected from its Pilbara tenements that have fuelled the company’s appetite for an immediate follow-up. The gold target is 2.5km long, but it is lithium targets, based on elevated lithium and pathfinder elements and geology, that have Kairos eager for more exploratory work.

Okapi Resources has wrapped up its maiden field exploration program at its Newnham Lake and Perch projects in Canada, returning anomalous uranium in over half its 69-piece rock chip samples and highlighting several compelling drill targets. According to the company, the best result graded 265 parts per million triuranium octoxide prompting the explorer to up the ante with a pair of new year drill campaigns.

Coincident copper, lead and zinc soil anomalies have defined a new set of targets for mineral explorer Strickland Metals at the company’s Iroquois zinc-lead project in WA’s Earaheedy Basin 100km north-west of Wiluna. The new targets lie west of the company’s 2021 Iroquois discovery and Malecite prospect and come from a large soil geochemical program of 2510 samples.

Diversified metals company ABx Group is again spinning the drill bit in a 6.5km corridor between two deposits of rare earth elements in northern Tasmania, aiming to merge and expand the mineralised areas. This latest campaign is the third to test the mineralised corridor between the company’s Deep Leads and Rubble Mound deposits in the north of the Apple Isle.

ASX-listed explorer Infinity Mining has launched an air-core and auger drilling program within shouting distance of several historical mines at its Craig’s Rest project near Leonora in WA. Legacy drilling in the zone threw up a suite of dazzling intercepts, including 5 m at 57.9 grams per tonne gold from 16m and 2 m going 26.6 g/t from 58m.

St George Mining’s share price leapt over 50 per cent in intraday trading today following news the typically nickel explorer had snared a raft of high-grade lithium bearing rock chips at its Mt Alexander project near Leonora in WA. Analysis of its first batch of 10 samples returned grades as high as 2.72 per cent lithium oxide and the boundary of the site’s outcropping pegmatites has now grown by up to 1.7km.

Javelin Minerals is gearing up to pursue the lithium and rare earths potential at its Mt Ida-Ida Valley project 60km west of Leonora in WA with 48 priority targets identified. Exploration activities are slated to commence in mid-November, with drilling also on the agenda for the first half of 2023. The company’s haul of targets was identified from recently acquired aeromagnetic and radiometric data.

ASX-listed Triangle Energy could soon have $6.72 million to inject into its portfolio of WA-based oil and gas operations after selling off a slice of its interests in NSW oil and gas developer State Gas. Despite offloading 24 million shares, Triangle retains a strategic holding in State Gas of more than 10 per cent and says it is now well positioned to navigate an increasingly evolving energy sector.

Mineral explorer Godolphin Resources is knee deep in a diamond drilling program at its Narraburra rare earths project near Temora in central-west New South Wales after completing 15 of a proposed 25 holes at the site. The company plans to use data from the 1500m campaign to scrub up the project’s historical JORC 2004 resource and align it with contemporary 2012 standards.

Askari Metals has unveiled further multi-element potential at the company’s Callawa copper project in WA’s Pilbara region after a recent magnetic survey lit up an area coinciding with samples reading highly anomalous for three additional elements. The high definition drone survey identified magnetic structures correlating well with the company’s previously collected samples going 1610ppm nickel, 119ppm cobalt and 1820ppm chromium.

Allup Silica’s Sparkler project in WA’s Great Southern has delivered high-grade silica sand samples pure enough for the solar panels market ¬– an industry tipped to be worth hundreds of billions of dollars worldwide in the next few years. Improvements in processing for Allup have resulted in test samples attaining the holy grail for silica sand producers of iron oxide impurities below 100 parts per million.

In a pilot run of its innovative “Gekko” gold processing plant, Classic Minerals has achieved an average grade of 6.06 grams per tonne gold using its first bulk sample of ore from the company’s Kat Gap gold resource that averages 2.96 g/t gold. Encouragingly, the pilot head grade was much higher than the average inferred resource grade calculated in April 2020.

Venus Metals has received positive assay results for a raft of minerals from an RC drill campaign across its Pincher Well zinc-lead-copper-gold prospect including a 3m hit at a whopping 35.2 grams per tonne gold. The outstanding gold intercept was contained in a 9m section going 15.6 g/t gold from surface at Pincher Well that forms part of the company’s Youanmi base metals project about 500km north-east of Perth in WA.

Northern Minerals has tabled a 47 per cent increase to its Wolverine deposit mineral resource near Halls Creek in WA that now sits at 6.44 million tonnes at 0.96 per cent total rare earth oxide for 61,492 tonnes of TREO. The update follows an independent review by mining consultancy group CSA Global

ASX-listed Zuleika Gold is expanding its presence in the highly prospective Goongarrie district of the WA Goldfields, inking a farm-in agreement with fellow WA explorer Olympio Metals. Zuleika must spend $400,000 within three and a half years to earn up to 80 per cent of a tenement adjacent to its own Goongarrie project, 90km north of Kalgoorlie.

Aruma Resources has unleashed its drill rig for a maiden 26-hole RC program at the company’s Melrose gold project in WA’s Pilbara region as it looks to probe coincident geochemical and structural targets backed by historical gold hits. The first pass drill test will consist of about 3000m of drilling across the project’s Gossan Hill prospect and is expected to take two weeks to complete.

Kairos Minerals has hit pegmatites in the first hole drilled at its Lucky Sump prospect where the company is hunting lithium with a 16-hole RC campaign near its Mt York gold project in the Pilbara region of WA. The initial hole intercepted a 5m pegmatite hit whilst an additional two holes also recorded pegmatite intervals between 2m and 3m.

Cyclone Metals is poised to drill into its Nickol River project in WA after pulling some exquisite gold nuggets from test pits it says confirms the presence of a gold-bearing quartz reef system at the site. The work extends a solid run of form that has seen the explorer unearth specimens grading up to 712 grams per sample setting the stage for a highly anticipated drill program.

Surefire Resources has completed a little over 5km of infill drilling at its Victory Bore project with all the early signs suggesting the company could be set to add to what is already a monster vanadium resource in WA’s Mid West region. The RC infill drilling covering 1.4km of strike was designed to upgrade confidence in the resource and provide samples for metallurgical test work to feed into the company’s ongoing pre-feasibility study.

Mineral developer Adriatic Metals is ramping up construction at its Vares high-grade silver project in Bosnia and Herzegovina as it moves towards opening its namesake underground mine and processing plant next year. The company says the project is now 45 per cent complete and has used the European summer to accelerate the development of the site’s surface infrastructure, process plant and haul road.

ASX-listed Emu NL is expanding its search for rare earths with exploration applications for projects in WA at Condingup and another near Merredin to add to its recent Georgetown project pick up in Queensland. A single Geoscience WA sample from one of the two tenements at Condingup, near Esperance, returned elevated levels of total rare earth oxides of 1047 parts-per-million whilst two GSWA samples from Merredin showed rare earth element levels of 1381 ppm and total rare earth oxides of 1000 ppm.

Recent RC drilling by Brightstar Resources at the company’s Cork Tree Well gold project 30km north of Laverton in WA has delivered high-grade extensions along strike from the project’s existing 252,000-ounce gold resource. Among an array of significant strikes a single hole returned standout intercepts of 5m going 9.46 g/t from 103m and 4m running 2.56 g/t from 168m.

Mineral explorer Valor Resources has appointed highly experienced exploration executive Robin Wilson to the role of Technical Director as it looks to beef up the company’s core skills. Wilson brings over 30 years of global exploration experience in many critical mineral commodities with a particular focus on uranium.

WA oil producer Triangle Energy has formalised a deal to reduce its stake in the Cliff Head Joint Venture partnership shared with ASX-listed Pilot Energy. The company currently owns 80 per cent of the project but has agreed to sell off half its rights for $1 million – a sum projected to hit its coffers by the second quarter of next year, pending a government review of the duo’s proposed carbon capture and sequestration plan for the site.

Tambourah Metals is set to test nickel targets with an airborne survey across its greater Julimar North project after the company identified anomalies at its Bolgart and Tolarno prospects. The survey will also investigate multiple magnetic targets identified at its Wongan Hill South prospect across a strike length of about 80km that stretches from the town of Wongan Hills to south of Goomalling.

ASX-listed Aurumin has embarked on a mapping and soil sampling campaign across the company’s Greater Sandstone gold project in WA’s Mid West region as it looks to generate targets for further exploration work. Aurumin’s program aims to cover the majority of its tenement package and has kicked off at the explorer’s newly acquired ground that was purchased from private outfit Mining Equities for 500,000 Aurumin shares and a one per cent net smelter royalty.

White Cliff Minerals is closing on a maiden 100-hole, 3000m air core campaign at its Hines Hill rare earths project about 200km east of Perth in WA after submitting a program of work to the Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety. The proposal follows the recent acquisition of a land access agreement and a reconnaissance soil sampling program that returned grades as high as 550 parts per million total rare earth oxides.

Results from deep diamond drill holes at Podium Minerals’ Parks Reef project have provided strong evidence that grades and widths of the 15km long reef could continue down to a vertical depth of at least 500m. The company says the latest result provides confidence further drilling of the reef below a vertical depth of 250m may result in additions to the recently released mineral resource estimate of 52.2 million tonnes at 1.64 grams per tonne for three million ounces of 5E PGM.

Askari Metals has received a second tranche of high-grade gold results from a third phase of RC drilling at the company’s Burracoppin gold project in WA’s Wheatbelt region. In June a total of 40 RC holes were drilled for 3639m and now the company has received assays from a further 19 holes with significant results including a 1m hit going 9.54 g/t gold from 31m within a broader 6m strike running 2.37 g/t from 31m.

Horizon Minerals has sold its Kangaroo Hill and Phoenix gold projects to Greenstone Resources as the company focuses on its Boorara, Yarmany, Lakewood, Binduli project areas and underground development plans. The $300,000 deal involved two mining leases and two prospecting licences near Coolgardie in WA’s Goldfields region, with Greenstone paying Horizon $150,000 in cash and $150,000 in shares for the projects.