Matt Birney

St George Mining has delineated further extensions to the nickel/copper mineralisation in an ongoing diamond drilling program at its emerging Investigators prospect located near Leonora in the WA Goldfields region. Recent exploration intersected wide, massive sulphide intersections of between 5-6 metres true width and returned portable XRF analyses averaging from 8.0 - 8.8% nickel and 4.5 – 5.0% copper in the massive sulphide intercepts.

Kairos Minerals has found another 135 gold nuggets weighing over 11 ounces at its Croydon Project in the Pilbara region of WA, barely two months after its initial discovery of 256 nuggets. Most of the nuggets were found about 2.5km south of, and within the same stratigraphic corridor as the first patch while the third patch of nuggets marks the first time the company has recovered gold from the lower Hardey Formation.

Ore sorting could be the panacea for conglomerate gold projects that are notoriously hard to drill after Novo Resources reported positive results from trials on bulk samples from its Comet Well conglomerate gold project near Karratha. The company said that ore sorting rejected up to 99.7% of the waste materials, with visual and X-ray examination of the ore concentrates showing gold nuggets, providing encouraging feedback from the trials.

Myanmar Metals has delineated extensions to its new Western hanging wall Lode during resource development drilling that targeted areas outside of the existing mineral resources at its Bawdwin base metals project in Myanmar. This extends the strike of the lode to over 250 metres, with exceptional intersections up to 24m grading 2.2% lead and 0.9% zinc from 25m down-hole, including 6m @ 5.3% lead and 2% zinc.

Legend Mining has enhanced the prospectivity of its emerging Area D prospect in the Fraser Range region of WA, by locating 17 conductors from an innovative moving loop electromagnetic survey program at the Rockford project. The surveys were designed to test for potential accumulations of massive sulphide mineralisation associated with 4 zones of coherent and anomalous nickel-copper-cobalt assays returned from regional aircore drilling programs.

Image Resources has produced its first heavy mineral concentrate from its flagship Boonanarring zircon-rich mineral sands project located 80km north of Perth in the North Perth Basin region of WA. The processing plant will transition to full operation over the next 2-4 weeks. The company will receive its first revenue for ore production in January before progressing rapidly to a positive cash flow later in the March quarter.

MGC Pharmaceuticals has reached a partnership with the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem to launch an international research hub – Cannahub - for medical cannabis in the first quarter of 2019. Cannahub will initially focus on the use of medicinal cannabis in the treatment of cancer, the effectiveness of traditional and medicinal cannabis combination treatments and drug delivery systems.

Blina Minerals has signed an option agreement to acquire private Australian company Madacu Resources in a cash and scrip deal that will give it access to a promising copper project in Madagascar. The Maintirano project hosts over 30 copper occurrences, some of which are mined on an artisanal basis. Rock chip sampling by Blina and Madacu has returned up to 11% copper.

Neometals Ltd has commenced an update of its 2009 DFS for the Barrambie vanadium-titanium-magnetite project located near Sandstone in WA, citing a 4-fold increase in vanadium prices since that initial study was conducted. The update will examine development options including offshore processing of the crushed ores, onsite production of a high-grade concentrate for direct sale and potential refining opportunities to generate premium vanadium chemicals.

Metalicity Limited has secured nearly 650 square kilometres of prospective looking nickel-copper-gold exploration tenements over two projects in the sought after Fraser Range region in southern WA. The new projects are surrounded by operating mines and significant mineral occurrences. The company is selling off its zinc and lithium interests in WA as it shifts focus towards copper, nickel, cobalt and gold exploration.

Sky and Space Global has signed binding MoUs with Brazilian telcos Inovsat Telecom and AltaRede Corporation to determine how its nano-satellites can increase the reliability, accessibility and affordability of their telecommunications services. The company expects to convert both MoUs into definitive agreements with commercial terms following the launch of the first batch of Pearls nano-satellites in 2019.

Fresh from its recent exploration success at the old Bellevue gold mine, Bellevue Gold now has its tail in the air with a successful $15m capital raise under its belt and a big exploration program ahead of it. The company has detailed a plan to ramp up exploration on several near mine targets at its namesake project near Leinster in WA.

ASX listed Alterra is taking a page out of Wesfarmers’ playbook with a proposal to demerge its carbon forestry business and focus on the development of its agribusiness projects. The move is expected to realise the full value of the carbon business and generate a potential windfall to shareholders who will now own 85% of the carbon business in their own right whilst retaining their Alterra shares.

Great Southern Mining has outlined its initial exploration strategy for its new Mt Weld gold play, located 30km southeast of Laverton in the northern Goldfields region of WA. The company will acquire remote geophysical data and complete on-site mapping and surface sampling at the project during this quarter. The project area is centred 12km from the company’s flagship Mon Ami gold project that contains at least 59,000 gold ounces.

Lithium Australia has reached in principle agreement with a battery researcher for the development of advanced silicon anodes that could significantly increase the energy density of lithium-ion batteries. The company is planning to establish facilities for the development of the new graphite/silicon anodes at its VSPC plant in Brisbane with operations starting under the terms of an MOU.

Strike Energy’s $16.1m all-scrip takeover bid for Perth Basin-focused oil and gas company UIL Energy has been found to be both fair and reasonable by an independent expert. The company also said its Jaws-1, deep coal seam gas well in South Australia is now starting to flow gas continuously with regular bursts of up to 100,000 cubic feet per day and gas flows continuing to build.

Hammer Metals has produced some exceptional copper and gold recoveries from initial metallurgical test work studies on ores from its Jubilee prospect, located in the Mount Isa mining district of north-western Queensland. The company achieved exceptional copper recoveries of 98% and even managed gold recoveries of 80%, essentially as a bonus credit in the final concentrate during mineral flotation test work for Jubilee.

PharmAust has signed an agreement with US company Catalent Pharma Solutions for the GMP-grade manufacture of its “Monepantel” anti-cancer drug for its upcoming clinical trials in dogs. Manufacturing the drugs to GMP standards will enable the resultant data to be admissible to the US FDA in support of new drug registration programs, a key milestone for PharmAust.

MGC Pharmaceuticals has finalised the sale of its cannabis-based cosmetics business, MGC Derma, to CannaGlobal for a 10% stake in the private Canadian cannabis investment company. MGC has also received CAD$500,000 for an initial supply order under an exclusive five-year agreement to supply cannabidiol and cosmetics materials to CannaGlobal for the manufacture of the MGC Derma range of products.

Metalicity Limited has secured nearly 2200 square kilometres of promising looking copper-gold exploration tenements over two projects in the sought after Paterson Province of the eastern Pilbara region. The new projects are surrounded by operating mines and significant mineral occurrences. The company is in the process of selling its zinc and lithium interests as it shifts focus towards its copper, nickel and cobalt assets.

ASX listed upstart telco Vonex’s success in growing its cloud PBAX business continues unabated with the company now boasting 25,000 registered users as at the end of October 2018, up 25% from the same time in 2017. Further growth is expected as the second phase of Vonex’s very successful marketing campaign across Australian capital cities hits its stride.

Australian Potash has successfully intersected brines in recent deep aircore drilling at its Lake Wells sulphate of potash project located near Laverton in WA. All new drill holes ended in permeable deep sand aquifers suitable for abstracting the drainable mineral commodity. The new data should allow an upgrade of the existing resources into the measured status of classification, ahead of the company’s highly anticipated DFS.

Adriatic Metals has revealed another exceptional intersection from its Bosnian, multi-commodity play with the latest numbers from the Rupice prospect turning up a serious looking 18 metre intersection grading 17.6% zinc, 9.4% lead, 3.8g/t gold and 508g/t silver from 162m down-hole. The result is 100m up-dip from a previous high grade result and grows the mineralised footprint ahead of the company’s maiden resource estimate.

Azumah Resources has kicked off a massive 40,000m multi-target drilling campaign to be managed and funded by Perth mining investment fund Ibaera Capital. Azumah is seeking to achieve a major boost to its resource and reserve numbers at the interesting looking project as it looks to deliver a feasibility study by the end of the year.

Myanmar Metals has delineated significant extensions to the China Lode during resource development drilling at its Bawdwin base metal project in central Myanmar. The work is targeting areas outside of the existing mineral resources and those resources with lower confidence inferred status. Results included 32m @ 4.2% lead, 0.9% zinc and 91g/t silver from 81m down-hole that falls outside the current resource, but inside the optimised open pit shell.

Calidus Resources has had further success with its infill and extensional resource drilling program at the Warrawoona gold project in the Pilbara. Encouraging intersections up to 6m @ 7.61g/t gold from 16m down-hole were returned from the St George Shear prospect, whilst results including 2m @ 20.84g/t gold from 88m down-hole and 6m @ 3.82g/t gold from 93m down-hole extended the Klondyke East prospect to over 600m of strike.

Hammer Metals has achieved encouraging recoveries of up to 95.1% copper and 95.4% cobalt from its first pass metallurgical testing program at the Millennium JV project near Cloncurry in Queensland’s Mt Isa mining district. Testing of the high grade composite sample from the northern quartzite zones also recovered 81.4% of the gold together with the copper concentrate.

Sovereign Metals’ says it can make AUD$57m a year by investing AUD$67m in initial CAPEX at its Malingunde graphite deposit in Malawi. The numbers are contained in the company’s recently tabled PFS that shows off a high grade, low CAPEX operation with excellent operating margins over an initial mine life of 16 years. The project produces a pre-tax NPV of USD$201m and an IRR of 56%.

Adriatic Metals has increased its land holdings at the exciting Vares project in Bosnia, after local Government authorities approved the company’s request for major expansions to its existing concession agreement over the Rupice and Veovaca prospect areas at its 100% owned base metals play. At Rupice, the expansion takes in the region north and down plunge of a 66m thick, high grade intersection reported in October.

A Chilean-based geological consultant has completed a review that supports Emu NL’s interpretation that the Vidalita project in the highly endowed Maricunga Belt in Chile is a highly mineralised epithermal system with the potential to host a large gold-silver-base metal deposit. The review found that the high sulphidation mineralisation is likely to be largely intact due to limited erosion.

Great Southern Mining has completed a maiden inferred mineral resource estimate of 1.1 million tonnes grading 1.7g/t gold for 59,000 ounces at its flagship Mon Ami gold project near Laverton in the northern Goldfields region of WA. The newly discovered deposit is just 25km trucking distance from Gold Field’s Granny Smith gold operation, opening up the possibility of future toll treatment of ores.

Alaska-focused 88 Energy has estimated that its wholly-owned Yukon leases in the famed “North Slope” oil province could hold prospective oil resources of about 90 million barrels of oil after processing 3D seismic it acquired earlier this year. The company will generate an inversion 3D volume to further delineate and de-risk the current mapping at the leases.