Matt Birney

Calima Energy has kicked off its three well drilling campaign in the revered Montney formation in British Columbia, Canada, with the spudding of the Calima-1 vertical well. This will be followed immediately by the drilling of the two horizontal wells, which will be fracture stimulated and put on an extended production test over a period of 4-6 weeks.

88 Energy is just weeks away from spudding its high impact Winx-1 exploration well in Alaska’s North Slope oil province, which targets a gross, best estimate, prospective resource of about 400 million barrels of oil. The company submitted the key drilling permit application before the end of 2018 and has started construction of the ice road to the well site.

Caravel Minerals has the wind in its sails now after its recent diamond drilling program at its copper project in the Wheatbelt confirmed the presence of thick, higher grade zones at the Bindi Hinge zone with assays of up to 26m @ 0.69% copper from 182m down-hole. The new results have increased support for an alternative development model based on the initial mining of higher grade zones at its namesake copper project.

Coolgardie Minerals has received its first revenue cheque of $1.68 million from the sale of high grade oxide ore to Northern Star Resources from its Geko pit near Bullabulling in WA. The company is carrying out further grade control drilling to determine the extent of the remaining supergene zone in the western part of the pit and to define the Stage 2 oxide ore zones for mining this month.

Australian Potash has successfully transported its first raw salt products from the pilot pond network at the Lake Wells sulphate of potash project near Laverton in WA, for the processing and production of trade samples for its Chinese off-take partners. This processing work will commence immediately in the lead up to the company’s DFS for Lake Wells, which is expected in the latter half of 2019.

BlackEarth Minerals has delivered a maiden resource estimate of 9 million tonnes grading 5.8% total graphitic carbon at its Haja graphite prospect in southern Madagascar. The new estimate complements the nearby Razafy graphite mineral resource of 11.2 million tonnes grading 7.1% TGC, which is presently undergoing an internal scoping study due for completion early next quarter.

Northern Minerals has produced its first heavy rare earth carbonate product for export from its Browns Range pilot plant project, located near Halls Creek in the East Kimberley region of WA. The near 2.6 tonne ore parcel is being sent to Darwin Port for shipment to customers in China. According to the company, the first product shipment meets the high-quality specifications required by its offtake partners.

Neometals will bank another $104m from the final equity sell down of its founding stake in the Mt Marion lithium mine near Coolgardie. The sale takes Neometals’ total equity and dividend return from the project to an incredible $200m from an original investment of just $3m. The company’s co-shareholders in the project, Mineral Resources and Chinese company Ganfeng Lithium will pay about $51.9m each to become 50/50 co-owners.

ASX listed heavy rare earths producer Northern Minerals has now reached practical completion at its Browns Range pilot plant project, located near Halls Creek in the East Kimberley region of WA. The company said that commissioning of the plant was progressing well and that rare earth carbonate product from ore processing is being stockpiled ahead of the first shipment, which is expected by the end of the year.

Artemis Resources has delineated a new shallow, indicated mineral resource of 1.15Mt @ 0.52% nickel, 0.73% copper and 277ppm cobalt at its Radio Hill nickel mine near Karratha in WA. Management said more work is required in 2019 to determine the best way to monetise the project, which is located just 400m from the existing Radio Hill processing plant.

Pilbara conglomerate gold theorist Novo Resources has generated rich concentrates from ore sorting trials at its Comet Well project near Karratha, producing ore grades up to 792.4g/t gold. The company also separated coarse gold nuggets from gravelly ore horizons at its Egina project near Port Hedland using gravity techniques and it has suggested that the procedure could be ramped up to a larger scale in the future.

Legend Mining has identified two significant new bedrock conductors at the Shackleton prospect within its Rockford Project in the revered Fraser Range that may be prospective for VMS mineralisation. The company plans to carry out RC and diamond drilling to test the Shackleton 1 conductor and carry out further surveying over this trend in 2019.

St George Mining has intersected a 5.25m drill intersection going 6.95% nickel, 2.67% copper, 0.23% cobalt and 3.1g/t palladium plus platinum from 185m down-hole at its Investigators prospect near Leonora in WA. Another impressive 8.49m long intersection in a separate hole showed 5.78% nickel, 2.64% copper, 0.18% cobalt and 3.61g/t palladium plus platinum from 183.9m down-hole. The impressive results continue to extend the mineralised footprint at the prospect.

Vonex has reported its highest ever monthly customer billings of $741,000 in November, a year‐on‐year growth of more than 13%, largely due to the market disruption caused by the continued rollout of the NBN in metropolitan areas and the start of its online marketing campaign across Australia. The company has also grown the number of registered cloud based PBAX users by 26% year‐on‐year to 25,800.

Aurora Labs has formed an equal joint venture with leading Australian mining services and engineering group, WorleyParsons, to provide 3D printing services to the oil and gas, mining and major infrastructure industries. This will allow the company to offer its innovate 3D printing technology and expertise to existing and new clients of WorleyParsons.

Metalicity Limited is now geared for exploration at its prospective new copper project tenements in the highly sought after Paterson region in WA, after netting nearly AUD$1.5m from the sale of non-core lithium and cobalt assets. The company’s Pilbara lithium project was sold to Chilean major SQM for AUD$1.35m and a royalty, whilst its Yerrida cobalt project was purchased by Great Western Exploration for $170,000 in cash and shares.

88 Energy has received strong interest in the farm-out of its conventional oil play at its Project Icewine in Alaska’s famed North Slope oil province and has extended its deadline for offers to the first quarter of 2019. The company is also carrying out lab tests and other studies to better understand its unconventional HRZ shale before starting farm-out proceedings next year.

Hammer Metals has generated its maiden mineral resource for the Jubilee deposit near Mount Isa in Queensland, defining 1.4 million tonnes grading 1.41% copper and 0.62g/t gold. The project is of a similar size and mineralisation style to other copper-gold deposits successfully mined by small-scale open pit operations elsewhere in the district, providing the company some confidence that Jubilee may be economically extracted in the future.

Strike Energy continues to achieve greater continuous flows of gas from its super-deep Jaws-1 coal seam gas well in the Cooper Basin, South Australia, as more coal enters the critical desorption window. Water production has also remained steady which is an indicator that continued fluid recovery will lead to more gas production growth.

Middle Island Resources has been awarded a $150,000 grant from the WA Government, which will assist in funding an exploratory diamond drilling program on three geophysical gravity targets at its Sandstone gold project in WA. The discrete gravity lows are interpreted to be similar to, and located within a 1km radius of the major Two Mile Hill tonalite deposit, which is a large, low grade, gold-mineralised ore system.

WA agribusiness player Alterra is another step closer to demerging its carbon forestry business after receiving proxy votes that favoured the demerger. The company is seeking shareholder approval at Thursday’s extraordinary meeting for the demerger, which will place its carbon arm and a solid stream of income into the hands of individual Alterra shareholders.

King River Resources, formerly King River Copper is focusing on an alternative development plan centred on the use of acid leaching for its giant Speewah vanadium project in the east Kimberley region of WA. This has the potential for capital and operating costs savings whilst increasing and diversifying product outputs and revenue opportunities.

Artemis Resources has announced an updated mineral resource estimate of 975,000 tonnes grading 2g/t gold for just under 63,000 ounces at its satellite Weerianna gold project, just 35km from its 500,000 tonne per annum Radio Hill processing plant near Karratha in WA. Gold mineralisation at Weerianna outcrops at surface and the deposit could potentially be mined by open cut methods as an ore feed for the existing plant.

Azumah Resources continues to build the case for underground mining at its flagship Wa project in Ghana after making further deep, high grade drill hits including 35m @ 4.7g/t gold and 5m @ 6.01g/t gold. The company said that the Bepkong system remains open at depth and along strike and that follow-up holes are underway to extend mineralisation in the Eastern lode.

Myanmar Metals’ extraordinary base metals play in Myanmar just got a little more extraordinary with the discovery of the Yegon Ridge lode that could reduce the already low strip ratio in the China Pit scoping study and significantly improve the project economics. The new find continues the company’s ongoing success in finding high grade mineralisation in areas that were too difficult to access for historical miners.

88 Energy is just one approval away from receiving the green light to spud its much anticipated Winx-1 exploration well that will target up to 400 million barrels of oil in Alaska’s famed North Slope oil province. The company will submit the drill permit application before the end of the year with approvals expected to flow in January 2019. This will allow the well to be drilled in February next year.

Strike Energy is wrapping up the takeover of fellow Australian oil and gas explorer UIL Energy after receiving acceptances representing 92.01% of UIL shares on issue for its all-scrip offer. UIL’s three northern permits are believed to potentially contain an extension of the Kingia-High Cliff sands that are the main target at the West Erregulla prospect. Strike plans to drill it in the first quarter of 2019.

Surefire Resources’ high level geological review of its Kooline project in the Ashburton region of WA, has thrown up extensive, untested areas the company says are prospective for lead-silver-copper and gold mineralisation. In the north, scattered gold results were reported from historical auger samples and shallow drilling, whilst to the south an investigation of the Kooline mine workings confirmed the potential of the mineralisation to thicken along strike.

Galena Mining says that a combination of higher lead/silver resource and reserve ore grades and reduced development costs at its Abra deposit, have the potential to materially improve the economic outcomes for the project. The company will complete an interim update of the PFS early next year, ahead of the release of its DFS for the underground base metal mining project in the middle of 2019.

Venus Metals has unearthed two intriguing looking exploration targets from gravity surveys at its DeGrussa North copper project near Meekatharra in WA. The anomalies are located 200m from surface and may be related to sulphide mineralisation. The targets are located 3km north of Sandfire Resources’ high grade DeGrussa copper-gold operations and the company is planning follow up ground electromagnetic surveys to help identify their source.

Australian Potash is set to benefit from a hefty reduction in WA State Government rental rates for potash brine projects as part of an initiative to help develop a new industry in the state. From the new year, rental rates for brine mining leases will be slashed from $18.70 per hectare to just $2.32 per hectare for the first five years before rising to $4.64 per hectare from the sixth year onwards.

Conglomerate gold developer Novo Resources continues to progress exploration and resource development activity for its large tenement holdings in WA’s Pilbara region. At the Egina project, bulk samples of gold-bearing gravels are being processed through the company’s gravity gold plant on-site, whilst progress on other work programs was reported for the Karratha, Beatons Creek and Talga Talga gold projects.