Matt Birney

Legend Mining has reported intriguing anomalous zinc, gold and sulphur assay results from its new Shackleton discovery, located in the revered Fraser Range region of WA. The company believes the new results bear all the geochemical fingerprints of a volcanic-hosted massive sulphide style of base metal mineralisation. The find is located only 7km northeast of the Independence Group’s Andromeda “VHMS” copper-zinc, gold and silver discovery, revealed earlier this year.

Bellevue Gold has doubled the global inferred resource at its namesake project northwest of Leinster in the Goldfields of WA to 2.6Mt @ 12.3g/t for 1.04 million ounces of contained gold. This is due to its reporting a maiden resource of 800,000t at an impressive grade of 22g/t gold, or 550,000 ounces of contained gold. There is potential for further upside as Viago remains open in all directions.

Base metal developer Galena Mining has taken the prudent step of separating its non-core exploration assets into a new entity, Metal Range Limited, so it can fully focus on developing the flagship Abra project in WA into construction during 2019. The new company will pick up the Woodlands complex, Manganese Ridge and Quartzite Well exploration prospects, which are variously mineralised with lead, zinc, copper, silver, gold and manganese.

Strike Energy has launched a $16.1m all-scrip takeover offer for fellow oil and gas company UIL Energy to increase its exposure to the Perth Basin in Western Australia. This will increase the company’s acreage in the Perth Basin to over 3000 square kilometres. Strike is planning to drill a well to test the West Erregulla prospect, which is adjacent to the Waitsia gas field, in the first quarter of 2019.

Rare earth element developer Greenland Minerals has flagged a substantial reduction in the capital costs for civil earth works at its huge Kvanefjeld rare earth element project located on the southern tip of Greenland. An engineering review has optimised the process plant and site infrastructure ground footprint at the proposed mine, reducing the volume of material disturbance by 80% from previous estimates.

Sky and Space Global has started construction of its nano-satellites after a key design review by Nasdaq listed contractor GomSpace, found that all technical components of the design met the required standard to proceed. The company said the first batch of the mini satellites is on track for launch in 2019 with successive launches in the following quarters until the entire constellation of about 200 satellites is in orbit during 2020.

ASX listed Strike Energy has started the much-anticipated gas production phase at its Jaws-1 project wells in SA’s Cooper Basin with operations now set up for continuous gas release. Water production rates have been maintained at between 750 and 800 barrels of water per day while gas release has continued to build in both the horizontal and vertical well bores.

St George Mining has outlined an extension to its high grade massive nickel/copper sulphide mineralisation at the Investigators East prospect near Leonora, with a new drilling result of 3.55m @ 4.67% nickel, 2.27% copper, 0.2% cobalt and 2.94g/t combined platinum group elements from 116m down-hole. The intersection has extended mineralisation down-plunge and is several hundred metres east of recent results within a defined 1.5km east-west trending mineralised corridor.

Volt Resources is now free to progress its proposed Stage 1 and Stage 2 developments at the Bunyu graphite project after it was granted two mining licences by Tanzania’s Ministry of Minerals. The company will now focus on completing its proposed USD$40m bond issue on Tanzania’s Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange. Once this is completed, the company will start front end engineering work for the initial Stage 1 operations and order long lead time components.

Adriatic Metals has reported another wide, high grade base metal, gold and silver intersections from its emerging Rupice multi-mineral ore system in central Bosnia. The new drilling result of 66m grading 9.5% zinc, 4.9% lead, 187g/t silver, 2.4g/t gold, 0.5% copper and 56% barite from 204m down-hole extends mineralisation by a further 35m at the northern end of the deposit, adding more tonnes adjacent to the concession boundary.

Artemis Resources’ wholly-owned Radio Hill processing plant in the west Pilbara region of WA has drawn Eric Sprott-backed Canadian explorer Pacton Gold to sign a MoU for a potential processing deal. Pacton is currently identifying conglomerate gold opportunities on its tenements for bulk sampling and production. Radio Hill has approved throughput capacity of 500,000 tonnes per annum of gold ore.

Calidus Resources has raised $3.7m in funds to underpin resource development activities and complete the feasibility studies for its flagship Warrawoona gold project, located near Marble Bar in the eastern Pilbara region of WA. The company describes the deal as a strategic technical alliance between the companies, where Calidus can leverage Alkane’s experience and costing assumptions from its operating Tomingley open pit gold mine in NSW.

Infinity Lithium has expanded the scope of its lithium hydroxide scoping study for the San Jose mine in western Spain to consider the potential to deliver either lithium sulphate or lithium hydroxide. Work underway has already noted the leached material will go through a lithium sulphate stage regardless of whether lithium carbonate or lithium hydroxide is selected as the final product.

Myanmar Metals has delineated strong indications of potential shallow conductive base metal sulphide mineralisation at the prospective ER Valley exploration target area, just southeast of its flagship Bawdwin multi-commodity resource in Myanmar. The area has numerous artisanal workings and anomalous zinc, lead and silver assay being recorded from historical diamond drilling and sludge samples taken from horizonal adits. Elevated copper, cobalt and nickel values have also been recorded.

Tyranna Resources has intersected near surface gold peaking at a top grade of 11.6g/t gold from resource drilling at the Campfire Bore prospect of its Jumbuck project in South Australia. The results keep the company on track to upgrade and increase confidence in the existing inferred mineral resource of 2.78Mt @ 1.2g/t gold for 109,000 ounces for Campfire Bore.

BlackEarth Minerals’ initial metallurgical test work has produced a high grade 96% TGC concentrate with large flake graphite making up more than 52% of its content from composite material obtained from the Razafy prospect. Test work is ongoing on both oxide and primary ore mineralisation from Razafy to establish a preliminary flow sheet design for the current scoping study.

King River Copper has reported encouraging recoveries of vanadium, titanium and iron from separate programs of metallurgical test work underway on ore composites from its flagship Speewah project, located in the Kimberley of WA. The company is seeking the most commercially viable processing route for the ores and to determine the suite of downstream products it can technically generate for the market from the massive project.

Blackstone Minerals has identified the Jewel copper-gold-cobalt prospect in British Columbia as its highest priority drill target after soil sampling identified a 1.5km long copper-gold-cobalt target that sits over a recently identified IP anomaly, that was interpreted to be a potentially large sulphide bearing body. New surface rock chip samples at the Jewel prospect have also returned results of up to 5.6% copper.

Venus Metals’ preliminary beneficiation test work has increased the grade of an oxide composite sample from its Youanmi vanadium project in the Murchison region of WA from 0.58% V2O5 to 0.8% V2O5. This allowed 40% of the mass to be rejected, which could reduce the downstream processing volume and acid consumption. It could also allow Venus to avoid the high capital and operating costs associated with mill processing.

Altech Chemicals has been awarded a key patent from the Australian Patent Office for its proprietary process for the production of high purity alumina from all types of aluminous clay including kaolin, using hydrochloric acid. This enables the company to protect its intellectual property as it progresses development of its proposed HPA plant in Malaysia and associated kaolin mine near Meckering in WA.

Spectrum Metals has acquired the historic Penny West gold mine, located 30km south of the mothballed Youanmi operation in WA. The open pit mine was last worked in 1992 and produced over 85,000 ounces at a staggering grade of 21.8g/t gold. The deposit has a remaining resource of 230,000 tonnes grading 4.8g/t gold for 36,000 ounces, with significant exploration and development potential on two granted mining leases.

Northern Minerals has received a $25m investment from China’s NRE Industrial Group Limited, which is subscribing for 240.4m shares in the company for between 9c and 11c per share. A new private investor is also subscribing for $2m worth of shares priced at 9c each. The funds will be used to progress development of the Browns Range heavy rare earths pilot plant project in the Kimberley region of WA.

Perth-based security surveillance company Spectur has reported revenues of $1.1 million for the September 2018 quarter, up 161% from the corresponding quarter of 2017. The company is also starting trials of its new Shark Warning System, which is based on its solar powered, stand alone, cloud-based HD4 cameras, with the Augusta Margaret River Shire Council in November this year.

ASX listed biotech PharmAust now has sufficient data from testing of different tablet prototypes of its flagship Monepantel anti-cancer drug to take the best performing and most economical tablet for GMP manufacturing. The selected tablets will be used in formal dose escalation studies in healthy Beagle dogs to determine the maximum dose that can be given and with what safety margin.

Hammer Metals’ ongoing rock chip program has returned some extraordinary high grade results of up to 18.4g/t gold, 76g/t silver and 15.15% copper at the new Toby prospect near Mt Isa, Queensland. Follow-up sampling of and mapping of both the Toby and Charlie prospects is underway with results expected soon. The company will also carry out a sub audio magnetics survey and RC drill program at the Perentie project.

Artemis Resources says it finally has a good handle on the geology at its intriguing cobalt-gold-copper ore system at the company's Calow Castle project near Karatha after throwing nearly 25,000 metres of drilling at it this year. The existing resource of 4.5 million tonnes grading 0.9g/t gold, 0.07% cobalt, 0.4% copper and 1.3g/t silver dates from January 2018.

Calidus Resources has intersected wide zones of high grade gold at its Coronation prospect, 12km west of its flagship Klondyke resource in the east Pilbara. Results include a 10m intersection grading 4.69g/t gold from 57m and 5m @ 4.48g/t gold from 35m down-hole. The company’s drill rigs are going flat out at the Warrawoona gold project, targeting ore extensions both down-dip and along strike.

King River Copper’s Mt Remarkable project near Kununurra is continuing to live up to its name with recent drilling unearthing a new, 9m long high grade gold zone going 2.78 grams per tonne gold from 45m down-hole including 1m @ 12.45g/t gold. Step out drilling to the east also returned 5.76g/t gold, confirming the company’s belief that multiple high-grade zones exist on the Trudi vein.

Galena Mining has kicked off a definitive feasibility study for its flagship Abra lead-silver project located north of Meekatharra just weeks after unveiling its PFS that highlighted an impressive pre-tax NPV of $528m. The study is expected to be completed in mid-2019 and the company is also on track to start construction in 2019 with initial production expected in 2021.

MGC Pharmaceuticals has reached a major milestone after receiving formal authorisation to sell its CannEpil medical cannabis based epilepsy treatment in Australia through specialist prescribers under the Authorised Prescriber Scheme. This signals the start of commercial-scale production of CannEpil at MGC’s EU GMP certified facility in Slovenia. CannEpil is expected to generate $1m in annualised revenues from an initial base of about 100 patients.

Tyranna Resources and JV partner Alliance Resources, have commenced a regional aircore drilling program at its interesting looking Weednanna East prospect this week. The prospect is 1km east of their Weednanna gold deposit that holds 1.1 million tonnes grading 5.1g/t gold for 181,000 ounces. The program will test existing gold soil anomalies and build on previous drilling, which returned elevated gold results adjacent to known northwest faults.

Canadian listed conglomerate gold specialist Novo Resources has revealed a significant increase in mineral resources at its Beatons Creek gold project near Nullagine in WA. The resource now sits at 8.38 million tonnes grading 2.47 grams per tonne gold for 667,000 ounces. The company also said that its highly anticipated assays from bulk sampling of gold-bearing conglomerates at the Comet Well project near Karratha are due in October.