Matt Birney

Southern Gold has been granted two interesting looking exploration tenements over the large Beopseongpo gold-silver epithermal target in South Korea’s Jeolla Province, which hosts the operating Eunsan-Moisan gold mine. Recent rock chip sampling at Beopseongpo, which has a strike length of 4km, returned grades of up to 21.8g/t gold and 19g/t silver from float material and 3g/t gold and 1g/t silver from outcrop.

Lithium Australia has commenced production of lithium-iron-phosphate battery cathode material after commissioning its innovative pilot production plant in Brisbane, with commercial samples to be delivered to international battery makers in the fourth quarter. The production of battery cathode materials closes the loop for Lithium Australia who is also a lithium explorer and mineral processing technologist.

Hot Chili has reported shallow, high grade copper drilling results from its maiden RC drilling program at the El Fuego project area in central Chile. Assays showed intersections up to 19m @ 2.0% copper from 61m depth and 15m @ 1.7% copper from 80m down-hole at the San Antonio copper mine prospect. The ore system strikes over 700m and has a higher grade plunge component.

Artemis Resources has beaten Rio Tinto to a 600km2 exploration licence application that is located just 40km east of Newcrest Mining’s Telfer copper-gold mine in Western Australia’s Pilbara region. The prospect, which will take Artemis’ Pilbara landholdings up to about 2400km2, also hosts the northern extension of the same geological structure that hosts London listed Greatland Gold’s Haverion copper-gold discovery.

ASX listed explorer Emu NL has found traces of a gold monster in northern Chile after it drilled through a 163m gold mineralised system, albeit at low grades at this stage. The company has discovered a substantial, epithermal precious metal system at its Vidalita prospect in the lucrative Maricunga precious metals belt and the hunt is now on for the mother lode.

Northern Minerals expects to officially open its Browns Range rare earths pilot plant in Western Australia on the 27th of July 2018 and it has already produced a rare earth carbonate as part of the commissioning process. The pilot plant will investigate the technical and economic feasibility of a proposed full scale operation and will run for up to three years.

Classic Minerals has teamed up with CSIRO to study the potential correlation of large tree sizes to major gold deposits at the Forrestania Gold Project in Western Australia’s Goldfields region. The Australian Government’s Innovation Connections grant and CSIRO will fund the majority of the six month project that could allow rapid generation of new targets without ground disturbing exploration in the future.

Draig Resources has discovered high grade gold mineralisation from deep exploratory scout drilling below the historical Bellevue gold mine near Leinster in W.A. Results include 2.5m @ 13.1g/t, 1.4m @ 9.6g/t and 0.3m @ 35.9g/t gold and are strongly supported by down-hole EM surveys showing off-hole conductors. The 800m long shear zone is interpreted to be an overlooked offset position from the original Bellevue ore lode.

ASX listed Legend Mining will pepper the southern part of its promising Rockford project in the Fraser Range with 150 aircore drill holes totalling about 10,000m. The fresh program will target a number of exciting looking electromagnetic conductors and other aeromagnetic/gravity features in the at the Project. Legend is planning to carry out further exploration at the Area D Prospect following geophysical, geological and geochemical data hits.

Artemis Resources has received a key safety approval for the installation of a new gold circuit at its Radio Hill processing plant near Karratha, W.A and it is now only waiting on the environmental and final licence approvals to start installation. The full capital and installation cost of the Gekko circuit and gold room equipment remains on budget at about $3m.

Myanmar Metals has identified distinct zones of unexpected cobalt, nickel and copper mineralisation at its Bawdwin deposit in central Myanmar by reassessing drill sample assay data returned over the past 12 months. Best results include a 27m intersection grading 0.16% cobalt, 0.84% copper and 1.74% lead from 164m. This included 5.5m @ 0.39% cobalt, 3.25% copper, 116g/t silver and 1.03% nickel.

Northern Minerals is carrying out 5000 metres of drilling to test seven interesting looking prospects at its Browns Range heavy rare earths project in W.A. The company’s goal is to increase the expected mine life at Browns Range from 11 years to more than 20 years. The company is on track to bring its pilot plant, the only dysprosium producing operation outside China, into operation this quarter

The super impressive drill results just keep rolling in for newly listed Adriatic Metals in Bosnia including a new 66m intersection going 2.1g/t gold, 158g/t silver, 2.3% copper, 8.6% lead, 12.8% zinc and 37% barite from 210m down-hole. It took a little while but the market is now all over Adriatic with the company’s share price tripling just three months after listing on the ASX.

Tyranna Resources has announced that nine additional zones of mineralisation have been modelled from a large number of gold intercepts found in an historical database at its Weednanna project, near Whyalla in S.A. Results up to 9m @ 25.1g/t gold from 7m depth and 7m @ 21.2g/t from 125m down-hole were identified. The company also said that a maiden resource estimate will be reported soon.

Droneshield has secured an additional patent in the U.S. covering its ground breaking developments in the acoustic detection of drones. The company has four other U.S. patents for its counterdrone technologies. If drones are going to be big then anti-drone technologies will be just as big and Droneshield owns the space currently.

King River Copper is awarding shareholders with one free option with an exercise price of $0.12c and an expiry date of the 31st of July 2020 for every three shares that they hold. More than 412.8m options are expected to be issued and existing option holders are not eligible unless they exercise their current options, which will result in additional options being issued.

ASX listed Sky and Space Global has started discussions with the Caribbean Telecommunications Union to explore the provision of connectivity services following a successful demonstration of its narrowband nano-satellites. The company is planning to provide coverage into the Caribbean via its proposed constellation of up to 200 miniature satellites to be deployed late next year.

St George has commenced drilling across 5 EM conductor targets at its Investigators and Cathedrals prospects, 100km west of Leonora in the northern Goldfields of W.A. The company is seeking extensions of high grade nickel copper mineralisation in the area. The priority target is 120m down plunge of a solid intersection of 5.3 metres @ 4.95% nickel, 2.75% copper, 0.16% cobalt and 4.55 g/t total PGE’s.

MGC Pharmaceuticals’ manufacturing facility in Slovenia will now commence production of pharmaceutical grade cannabis derived medicines after receiving a manufacturing licence. The Brett Mitchell chaired company will now begin full scale manufacturing of its epilepsy drug CannEpil for final, independent validation before exportation into Australasia and Europe. CannEpil is already approved for use in Australia.

Southern Gold has intersected narrow widths of high grade gold mineralisation during its maiden diamond scout drilling program at the Hampyeong gold project in southwest Korea. The best intersection was 0.95m @ 5.33g/t gold from 32.6m depth in quartz veins. Mineralisation was noted over a strike of 750 metres and the company said that there were potential extensions along strike and down-dip for the main ore zones.

Altech Chemicals has executed a Stage 1 construction works agreement with Germany’s SMS group for its high purity alumina plant in Johor, Malaysia. The agreement covers site works, the electrical sub-station structure and maintenance workshop. Altech is equity funding the works, which will be carried out in parallel with project financing in order to ensure a fast tracked route to market.

Neometals Ltd has received some very encouraging metallurgical results for potentially direct shipping ore concentrates from its Barrambie titanium vanadium iron project, located near Meekatharra in W.A. The processed ores produced recoveries exceeding 90% for titanium dioxide and also showed high recoveries for pig iron and vanadium. The results provide encouragement that a simple, conventional processing pathway can be developed for the high grade ores.

Infinity Lithium has reaffirmed its JV partnership with engineering firm Sacyr/Valoriza Mineria and aligned a strategy to accelerate technical work at its San Jose lithium project in Spain. The company is proposing to produce both lithium hydroxide and lithium carbonate on site at the mine, taking full advantage of the availability of affordable power in the area and re-writing the lithium playbook in the process.

Greenland Minerals and Energy is inching closer to commencing building its rare earths pilot plant in Greenland after major Chinese shareholder and technical partner, Shenghe, said it will shortly select the best flotation circuit for the project, clearing the way for pilot plant operations to begin. Greenland has already produced mineral concentrates with grades approaching 25% rare earth oxides.

Terrain Minerals has commenced drilling up to 10 holes targeting cobalt, nickel, chromium, copper and gold mineralisation at the Red Mulga project near Kalbarri, Western Australia. If successful, the drill campaign will be followed up by physical airborne and/or detailed ground electromagnetic surveys to better map out the targets. Red Mulga is considered prospective for the highly sought after Cobalt.

Artemis Resources has penetrated 300m of a felsic intrusive rock during a deep drilling program, 65km south of Karratha in the Pilbara. Such intrusions “invade” the in-situ rock sequences in a hot fluid state and cause significant cracking due to the high temperatures involved and the extreme pressures. The intrusions can be the source of economic ore deposits, if they originally contained dissolved metals.

Sky and Space Global has signed an MOU with major launch services provider China Great Wall Industry Corporation to potentially launch its nano-satellites. The two companies will begin formal negotiations for a launch contract once China Great Wall’s launch capabilities have been assessed to meet Sky and Space’s technical and operational launch requirements.

Security surveillance company Spectur has reported an 86% increase in revenues for the 2018 financial year to $2.48m on the back of a successful east coast expansion strategy. Spectur rents and sells wireless solar security cameras that have a number of unique abilities. Annualised recurring revenues, which the company considers as a buffer against the fixed costs of its operations, exceed $1.2m.

ASX listed Babylon Pump & Power has secured a contract valued at $1.1m from Adenco for the supply, installation and maintenance of new power generators to BHP Billiton’s Area C Surplus Water Pipeline Project in Western Australia. The order is an endorsement of the company’s strategy to add power generation to its suite of pumping services and products.

ASX listed biotech Phylogica will start animal testing of its cell penetrating Peptide’s ability to deliver proof of concept enzyme Cre drugs across cell walls into a diseased cell this month. The company has also started large scale screening of its drug library to find more peptides that can target the insides of specific cells and deliver drug cargoes with different properties.

Galena Mining’s targeting of the “apron zone” at its Abra project near Meekatharra will have shareholders pulses racing, after the company intercepted a 15.4m drill section grading 25.9% lead and 74g/t silver from 519m down-hole, including 7.7m at 41.7% lead and 116g/t silver from 525.7m. Drilling also intersected 8.0m @ 9.5g/t gold, 1.4% lead, 0.6% copper and 77g/t silver from 706m in the same hole.

Hot Chili has announced the discovery of multiple large copper exploration targets during a reconnaissance mapping and sampling program, near its San Antonio prospect area in Chile. Surface sampling produced results up to 6.5% copper, 1.97 g/t gold and 24.3g/t silver. The company also said an RC drilling program at San Antonio was progressing well, with assay results from priority holes containing visible copper sulphides due shortly.