Matt Birney

Kalia Limited has announced it will commence a highly anticipated exploration program on its porphyry copper-gold tenements on the PNG Island of Bougainville, after funds from a $3m secured loan facility were released this week. The company will invest the capital in completing a detailed aerial geophysical survey program over its tenement holdings in Bougainville and improve site facilities to support ongoing exploration activities.

Anglo Australian’s Kalgoorlie gold play is hurtling headlong towards a maiden resource after multiple successful passes with the drill rig produced gold intersections going up to 6 ounces to the tonne just 14km from the super pit. The project is located on the Norseman-Wiluna Belt which plays host to a number of major deposits including the 3moz New Celebration and 15m ounce St Ives gold mines.

TNG has been granted environmental approval for its Mount Peake vanadium-titanium-iron project near Alice Springs in the N.T. The company is finalising its mining agreement with the Central Land Council with the project mining lease expected to be granted shortly. TNG has indicated that a final investment decision for the $853m Mount Peake project is anticipated in the middle of 2018.

Classic Minerals has announced a new gold discovery at the Van Uden West prospect at its Forrestania gold project, south of Southern Cross. The best result of 12m @ 5.75g/t gold from 59m down-hole is open along strike and down-dip. High grade results were also reported from both the Kat Gap and Lady Lila prospects in exploration that confirmed the orientation of the gold mineralisation.

DroneShield has set up a demonstration hub for its cutting-edge range of anti-drone products in the Netherlands where the NATO Joint Force is headquartered. Next month the company will present its suite of drone-combatting products at the new hub to NATO Governments including military, law enforcement and secret service agencies. It will then hold a series of demonstrations across Europe.

Southern Gold has reported encouraging developments at its South Korea gold projects. At Gubong, the company’s JV partner Bluebird Merchant Ventures has announced gold recoveries exceeding 90% from met test work. At the Kochang mine, Bluebird has completed an extensive mapping and sampling program of underground workings. Bluebird is evaluating the economic feasibility of re-opening the historic gold mines.

Lithium Australia’s Sadisdorf project in the “Ore Mountains” of Germany’s Saxony region has returned solid drill hits of lithium and tin from the first hole of a maiden drill program. Intercepts included 32.19m at 0.52% lithium oxide, well above the average grade of the maiden inferred resource announced last December, confirming the pervasive nature of the lithium mineralisation.

Algae.Tec has locked down a research deal with Canada's Radient Technologies that will see the health sciences company accelerate the production of high-value algae-based products into the lucrative global nutraceuticals market. Algae.Tec will use Radient’s unique extraction technology to boost yield and consistency of its algae-based products that are in development for the nutraceuticals market.

Altech Chemicals dogged bid to avoid almost any further equity dilution when locking away the final chunk of funding needed to build its exciting high purity alumina plant just got a giant shot in the arm with an offer of further debt now firmly on the table. The company said that a global investment bank had offered up the entire remaining amount of $US120m in debt.

Many ASX juniors are artfully skilled at turning out feasibility studies but often not so good at traversing the debt and equity markets to make that quantum leap into production. Image Resources however, has done just that with $50m in debt and $25m in equity now locked away to take its zircon rich, multi-element, mineral sands play near Gingin in W.A into production within just months.

Auroch Minerals’ new base metals project on South Australia’s Kangaroo Island has produced spectacular zinc and gold grades from surface sampling, raising expectations for a maiden drill program to get underway next quarter. Rock chip samples produced assays of up to 28% zinc, 0.91% copper and 33.3 g/t gold and created excitement around the company’s entry into a rich base metals belt in South Australia.

Calima Energy’s uncanny ability to sniff out interesting looking projects in the oil and gas space has once again been demonstrated, with the company picking up a big exploration block in an emerging off shore oil basin in Namibia. The securing of the new block follows a surge in investment by the likes of Exxon and Total in the region, which will see a number of wells drilled on adjacent permits.

MGC Pharma has stepped up its offering in the multi-million-dollar cannabis-based skincare market, launching its second marijuana-infused dermatological product “CBD Herbal Replenish Cream” aimed at treating inflammatory skin conditions. The release of the company’s skin repair product comes after successful clinical tests in Europe. It is the second of three products in MGC’s cannabis skincare range.

BlackEarth Minerals is nearing completion of its maiden drill program at the Maniry project in Madagascar and will report a JORC-compliant resource by the end of June. The program has outlined two continuous graphitic lenses 900 metres long and up to 50m thick from surface. The company is undertaking comprehensive mineralogical and metallurgical test work programs to determine the quality of its defined graphite product.

Myanmar Metals has hit a 23m drill intersection in Myanmar that is brimming with lead, zinc, copper and silver with excellent grades. The company is now compiling its highly anticipated maiden JORC- resource for the project. Last week the company received Government advice allowing it to proceed with the exercise of the Bawdwin option, where it will acquire 85% of the project.

There’s more to Ironbark Zinc than just the giant Citronen zinc project in Greenland, with the company and heavyweight joint venture partner Glencore lifting the pace of exploration at their high-grade base metals project in NSW. The companies are about to fly a high-tech EM survey at the Captains Flat project near Canberra, where drilling has already produced exciting base metal hits.

Draig Resources has grown its holdings in the northern Goldfields by over 2,000 square kilometres in a mining district well endowed with gold and base metals. Historical exploration was largely ineffective due to poor outcropping and masking cover that downgraded the potential. The company believes there is great opportunity for the discovery of new mineral resources on the new tenements.

King River Copper has secured two new tenements in the underexplored Tennant Creek copper-gold belt in the Northern Territory. Its extensive 6,634km2 tenement holding is highly prospective for iron oxide copper gold deposits similar to Westgold’s Rover 1 project nearby. The company is awaiting grant of its remaining applications and it is collating drill programs to target priority positions later this year.

Metallurgical testwork shows Galena Mining’s Abra deposit is not only one of the world’s most significant undeveloped lead-silver deposits in terms of tonnes and grade, but it also has the mineralogy to produce clean, high-grade concentrates. New testwork for the PFS shows lead recoveries of 90% plus and concentrate grades of more than 72%, well above the typical quality of other operating mines says Galena.

The historic Wiluna gold project never fails to surprise the market with the latest drilling by Blackham Resources uncovering multiple extensions of high-grade shallow mineralisation right on the doorstep of the rejuvenated mill. The company said it was working on another upgrade of resources and reserves after a string of gold hits, including 16m at 4.41 g/t from just 2m below the surface.

The election of a new pro-mining Government in Greenland might just be the enabler required for Greenland Minerals to fast track its massive rare earths and uranium project into production. The incoming Government has specifically expressed its support for developing Greenland’s rare earths and uranium riches, the largest and most advanced owner of which is Perth based Greenland Minerals.

Shares in Azumah Resources have jumped by more than 50% on spectacular gold hits from its Wa project in Ghana, including 44m at 5.37 g/t gold. The West African-focused explorer believes a new geological model has led it to a high-grade oreshoot that could plunge to extensive depths and may lead to a material upgrade in resources. The company has enough funding to find out too.

Neometals has announced it has mined a bulk sample of high grade titanium-vanadium ore from its Barrambie project for dispatch to metallurgy research institutes in China. The material selected is potential ore feed for a future direct shipping operation and samples will undergo extensive beneficiation and pyrometallurgical test work to confirm the optimal processing pathway ahead of offtake pricing negotiations with the Chinese.

Australian Potash has announced the appointment of Jay Hussey to the position of Chief Commercial Officer to take charge of the company’s DFS for its Lake Wells potash project near Laverton. Mr Hussey is a fertiliser industry executive, having served 10 years as VP of China’s Migao Corporation. He has an extensive background in potash marketing, supply contracting, off-take and JV negotiations.

Galena Mining has commenced deep exploration drilling at its Woodlands copper prospect, 200km north of Meekatharra. The company is targeting two high priority electromagnetic targets delineated last year from heliborne geophysical surveys. The targets coincide with historical drill intersections that include 60m @ 0.3% copper from 505m and 3m @ 1.6% copper from 188m down-hole.

Security surveillance company Spectur will roll out state-of-the-art artificial intelligence technology on its suite of security camera systems, enabling its remotely monitored solar-powered cameras to learn and recognize peoples’ faces, vehicle number plates and even specific objects. Perth-based Spectur expects field trials of the new smart camera technology to commence in the next two months.

Emu NL says it might be on the cusp of an exciting gold-silver discovery at the Vidalita project, within the strongly mineralised Maricunga belt in Chile. The company has completed a drill campaign that identified wide intervals of rock types, textures and alterations that could represent the top of a high value, epithermal gold system. Visible sulphides were intersected beneath anomalous surface sampling.

With the wet season out of the way, King River has finally begun follow up drilling at Mt Remarkable in the East Kimberley, where drilling in November produced one of the year’s most exciting gold hits. One rig is already on site, and another is on its way to the high-grade epithermal gold discovery that produced 11m at 27.9 g/t gold, including 1m at 90.7 g/t.

Terrain Minerals is about to kick off its maiden drill program at the Red Mulga project, 100km east of Kalbari. The company believes that a large mafic-ultramafic geological complex may exist at the project, based on anomalous nickel, copper and chromium assays returned from surface sampling. Drilling will also target elevated gold, copper, silver and lead assays returned from extensive quartz veining.

Legend Mining has announced anomalous nickel-copper assays from an aircore drill program at its Rockford project in the Fraser Range of W.A. The work returned results up to 37m @ 0.34% nickel and 0.22% copper from 56m depth, extending the mineralisation at the Area D prospect to over 300 metres. The company also reported that end-of-hole drill chips contained nickel-copper sulphide minerals.

Blackham Resources suddenly has more gold reserves available for processing through its existing Carbon in Leach plant at the Matilda-Wiluna project thanks to positive results from recent metallurgical testwork. The testing found that transitional ore between oxides at the surface and the bedrock sulphides is suited to CIL treatment, and can be processed at a 30% lower cost than previously thought.

After a period of relatively low activity, ASX listed junior, Spectrum Rare Earths looks like it has stumbled across a potential company maker in Northern California. The Perth based company has locked down an option to purchase a mothballed, fully permitted gold mine that has historically produced around 250,000 ounces of gold at an amazing average grade of around an ounce to the tonne.