Matt Birney

Geopacific Resources has improved its understanding of the mineralisation controls at the Great Northern prospect at its Woodlark gold project in Papua New Guinea after making a number of gold hits including a top intercept of 21.77g/t gold. Follow-up drilling will be carried out to further define the mineralisation and move it towards the resource category.

St George Mining has confirmed that mineralisation at its Investigators nickel-copper prospect near Leonora in W.A becomes thicker in the down dip direction after intersecting 8.4m @ 2% nickel, 0.96% copper, 0.06% cobalt and 2.59g/t total PGE from 199m. Further step-out drilling is underway while down-hole electromagnetic surveys are being run near one of the very strong conductors.

Greenland Minerals and Energy is completing an optimisation program at its Kvanefjeld rare earths project in southern Greenland that will simplify project construction, minimise civil earth works and reduce associated capital costs. Recent onsite engineering studies by a multi-disciplinary team of engineers are expected to reduce the amount of construction effort required for the civil construction, port and plant sites.

Mineral sands miner Image Resources has unearthed anomalous, shallow gold intersections during its first-pass drill program at the Erayinia prospect, located east of Kalgoorlie. The best result was 20m @ 0.7g/t gold from 40m down-hole, including 4m @ 1.2g/t gold from 48m and 4m @ 1g/t gold from 56m. The company will conduct a larger program of aircore drilling now to test 7km of prospective strike extensions.

Celebrated conglomerate gold specialist Novo Resources will acquire two strategic gold projects 80km south of Port Hedland. The company will fund exploration for two years to farm into Pioneer Resources’ Kangan gold project to earn a 70% interest for a consideration of $600,000 in cash and scrip. Novo will also acquire 4 key tenements from a private company in the area for cash and shares totalling A$8m.

A Perth based ASX listed junior has quietly been sweeping up big swathes of lucrative acreage in Alaska’s hottest oil province known as the North Slope with the truth diviner in the form of a drill rig about to be put to the test in coming months. 88 Energy will soon drill a well targeting up to 400 million barrels at its Western Blocks project in the region.

Terrain Minerals has reported excellent metallurgical gold recoveries averaging over 96% from ore composites of its oxidised, transitional and fresh ores at the Great Western project, near Leonora in W.A. The results imply that a conventional milling and processing route is likely to be suitable for the company’s future ore production. Terrain also submitted works proposals for exploratory drilling at its Wild-viper project that surrounds Great Western.

Artemis Resources has recovered 225 ounces of gold nuggets to date from its ongoing conglomerate gold exploration play at the 47K Patch and Purdy’s Reward discoveries, just south of Karratha, in the western Pilbara region of W.A. The company is working with CSIRO and is currently completing a geophysical survey over 47K Patch. Bulk sampling will be carried out once all data is consolidated, integrated and processed.

Sky and Space Global has developed new network management and data compression software for its 200 telecommunications “nano-satellites” that are set to be blasted into space in 2019. The company is also developing an autonomous management system and fuel optimisation software that together will allow the nano-satellite constellation to be operated autonomously.

Myanmar Metals has completed its scoping study for the Bawdwin base metal project in central Myanmar, saying that it will redevelop the historical mine, starting with a low cost, low strip ratio cutback of the high grade China Lode over a 13-year initial mine life, which will accelerate its cash flow position. The milestone precedes a PFS due in early 2019, along with a maiden ore reserve estimate.

Australian Potash and Salt Lake Potash have signed a memorandum of understanding and cooperation agreement to study the potential cost savings from sharing infrastructure at their respective Lake Wells projects in the Goldfields region of W.A. The joint study will initially focus on joint infrastructure developments and will also study the potential for cost sharing on common evaporation and salt processing facilities.

Lithium Australia will send samples of its lithium iron phosphate cathode powders produced from its VSPC plant in Brisbane to Chinese battery manufacturers for testing. The company has already completed a number of pilot-plant production runs and is seeking confirmation of the high capacity of its battery cathode material from the lucrative Chinese lithium battery manufacturing market.

Having just banked a maiden resource estimate at its Razafy graphite project, BlackEarth Minerals has now commenced a regional exploration program at its Maniry and Ianapera projects in Madagascar. The company is planning close spaced trenching and sampling work to outline future high grade drilling targets and is now looking to also table its scoping study for Razafy and a resource estimate for the Haja prospect later in the year.

Surefire Resources has confirmed thick, high grade, vanadium rich magnetite mineralisation in three separate ore horizons from a drill program at its Unaly Hill project near Sandstone. The best result was 50.8m grading a very respectable 0.55% vanadium pentoxide from 298m down-hole, which included 9m @ 0.89% vanadium oxide from 306m. Ore composites will now undergo comprehensive testing to determine the characteristics of the upgraded concentrates.

Kairos Minerals has identified a new conglomerate gold target at its Croydon Project in the Pilbara region of W.A after stumbling across a bonanza gold nugget patch just weeks after starting its conglomerate exploration program. Additional mapping, stream sediment sampling and metal detecting is currently underway in earnest now whilst diamond drilling will determine the overall dimensions of the find.

ASX listed Australian Potash has been granted the mining leases it requires to develop and operate the Lake Wells sulphate of potash project that is located 180km northeast of Laverton in the Goldfields region of W.A. The company’s field work over the next quarter will include its geotechnical program and additional work required for a reserve estimate. It plans to report the results of its DFS in 2019.

Terrain Minerals has unearthed some encouraging base metals and gold results from its maiden drill program at the Red Mulga project, near Geraldton. A highly anomalous result of 5m grading 0.15% nickel and 0.35% chromium from 33m down-hole was returned from a mafic schist in the south of the project and elevated levels of copper to 0.74% and zinc and gold were also located in rocks to the north.

Artemis Resources has reported exceptional high grade cobalt results and solid gold and copper numbers, from a drill campaign at its Carlow Castle project near Karratha in W.A. Results include a new cobalt zone at the Quod Est prospect that produced 17m @ 0.61% cobalt, 1.86g/t gold and 0.05% copper from 88m down-hole. The company also outlined high-grade ore intercepts from infill drilling at the nearby prospect areas.

Venus Metals’ farm in partner Lepidico has intersected multiple zones of lithium-rich mineralisation whilst drilling at the company’s Youanmi project tenements in the Murchison region of W.A. Lepidico reported intersections up to 9m thick of lepidolite mica from the recently completed drill campaign and it has secured an option to earn up to 80% of the lithium rights on an exploration licence located 20km from Venus’ Youanmi gold operation.

Lithium Australia is now the sole owner of the Sadisdorf lithium project in far east Germany where recent drilling returned very wide intersections of lithium after the transfer of project licences was approved by the Upper Mining Authority of Saxony. The company is currently progressing a scoping study for the project that is based on using its “SiLeach” technology to unlock the project’s potential.

Metalicity has received the first payment of CAD$500,000 for the sale of its West Australian zinc projects after Canadian spin-off Kimberley Mining successfully completed the first tranche of its CAD$2m seed capital raising. The company will also receive CAD$20m worth of Kimberley shares and a CAD$4m payment on successful completion of Kimberley’s IPO in the December quarter this year.

Northern Minerals has discovered new, thick, rare earth mineralisation, rich in the sought-after element dysprosium. The find come courtesy of a drilling campaign on its Dazzler and Iceman prospects, 15km south of the company’s operating Brown Range mine, in the southern Kimberley region of W.A. Best results came from Dazzler, which returned 18 metres grading 9.1% total rare earth element oxide, incorporating a significant 0.86% dysprosium oxide content.

Galena Mining’s resource extension drilling of the “apron zone” at its Abra lead-silver project near Meekatharra continues to extend the known mineralisation, with results of 16.2m @ 9.2% lead and 44g/t silver from 373m down-hole, including 4.5m @ 15.1% lead and 44g/t silver from 384.7m. The current campaign is proving up mineral resources that will be incorporated into the company’s PFS, due for release later this quarter.

King River Copper has reported another outstanding gold drill result from a narrow, but ultra-high grade vein at its Mt Remarkable gold project near Kununurra in W.A. The intersection of 6m @ 60g/t gold from 24m down-hole, included an exceptional, 0.3m @ 354g/t gold from just 24.7m. Additionally, the company said that scoping study results for its separate Speewah vanadium and fluorite projects will be reported by month’s end.

Researchers at the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Research Institute in Melbourne have independently confirmed the ability of Pharmaust’s anti-cancer drug, Monepantel, to impact cancer cells. This includes other previously untested human melanoma cancer cell lines. The research also found that the drug became progressively more effective over a longer time whilst having minimal impact on two non-cancerous ovarian cell lines.

Lithium Australia has successfully completed Stage 1 of its SiLeach pilot plant trial at ANSTO Minerals facility in New South Wales with the production of a lithium pregnant liquor that meets purity targets. SiLeach is a potential game changer for the lithium battery chemicals business as it has the ability to process lower grade ore at a lower cost that the expensive “roasting” based methods.

MGC Pharmaceuticals has signed a key distribution agreement with Maltese based A.M. Mangion that will fast track the distribution of its medical cannabis pharmaceutical products into key target markets in Europe. The company is also weeks away from starting construction of its second medical cannabis production and cultivation facility that will produce GMP-grade pharmaceutical products on a commercial scale.

Coolgardie Minerals has signed off on an ore sales agreement that will see the company deliver up to 100,000 tonnes of ore in small parcels to processing facilities at Northern Star Resources’ South Kalgoorlie operations for toll treating over a six-month period, beginning in October. The agreement locks in a gold price of A$1,650 per ounce, potentially generating more than A$10m in revenue for Coolgardie from the agreement.

Tyranna Resources’ partner Alliance Resources has recorded a maiden high grade mineral resource of 1.1 million tonnes grading a very respectable 5.1 grams per tonne gold at the Weednanna gold deposit within the Wilcherry JV project in South Australia. Alliance will carry out extensional drilling to identify additional gold mineralisation and it will infill drill in order to upgrade more of the inferred resource to indicated.

Myanmar Metals has outlined an extensive program of exploration activities at its Bawdwin multi-mineral mining concession in Myanmar. Detailed soil sampling and ground geophysical surveys are ongoing at the property ahead of exploratory drilling programs scheduled for later this year. The company is completing work both sides of its existing mineral resource, focussed on areas of historical mining or drilling and gossanous outcrops, which indicate subsurface prospectivity.

Blackstone Minerals has identified two new targets that could unlock the potential for its Little Gem cobalt project in Canada to host multiple deposits akin to the Bou-Azzer primary cobalt mineralised area in Morocco. A detailed soil sampling program over multiple prospects adjacent to Little Gem and regional targets over 335 km2 of tenure is also nearing completion.

St George Mining has drilled over 13 metres of mixed massive and disseminated nickel-copper sulphide mineralisation from 193.3m down-hole at its emerging Investigators prospect, near Leonora in W.A. The drilling has extended a high grade plunge to the ore zone to 320 metres. The next phase of drilling will target a very strong off-hole electromagnetic conductor some 80 metres down-dip from an existing mineralised intercept.