Matt Birney

Following rolling success across its reinvigorated battery metals and rare earth-focused portfolio, White Cliff Minerals has offloaded its non-core Gardener Dome rare earths project in WA to ASX-listed explorer Black Cat. The transaction will see the company pocket a non-refundable deposit of $5,000, followed by $45,000 in cash and $150,000 worth of fully paid ordinary shares in Black Cat upon the deal's completion.

After an initial phase of reconnaissance, Askari Metals has uncovered high-grade spodumene-hosted lithium within extensive pegmatites at the company’s recently acquired Uis lithium, tantalum and tin project in Namibia, Africa. Results up to 2.1 per cent lithium oxide were returned from 196 rock chip samples collected as part of the company’s due diligence evaluation of the advanced project.

JV partners Triangle and Pilot Energy could lodge a formal application to use the company’s Cliff Head oil reservoirs as carbon storage tanks in the next few weeks after finalising the regulatory approval data required for the submission. The producer’s oil fields are currently churning out about 700 barrels of oil per day but once depleted it is hoped they will be used to progress the partnership’s clean energy initiatives.

As the price of gold continues to recover lost territory, Surefire Resources has wrapped up a five-hole diamond drilling program at the company’s Yidby gold project in the Murchison district of WA’s Mid West. The campaign was designed to reveal structural and lithological information as the explorer looks to home in on the project’s broad gold mineralisation and localised high grades. The drill core has been transported to a laboratory in WA and is currently under the geological microscope.

Shares in mineral explorer Tambourah Metals shot up over 83 per cent this morning after multiple prospective pegmatites were confirmed across a strike length of 500m at the company’s Russian Jack lithium project in WA’s Pilbara region. The explorer also excited the market by claiming a small yet highly prospective tenement in the Pilbara’s latest lithium hotspot.

The recently released Federal Budget has highlighted the importance of the mining and resources industry to the Australian economy with a particular focus on the critical minerals sector. One of the most important commodities to the current market is lithium due to the importance of the metal to the electric vehicle and battery sector.

As it looks to table an updated mineral resource, Australian explorer Godolphin Resources has confirmed rare earths mineralisation in a four-hole diamond drill program completed in July at the company’s Narraburra rare earths project in NSW. All holes in the 285.6m-long campaign intercepted rare earths across the project in both weathered surficial material and in underlying fresh rock with a peak grade of 1027ppm TREO.

Captivate Energy Alaska, a wholly owned subsidiary of ASX-listed oil and gas explorer 88 Energy could soon pick up ten leases spanning over 25,000 acres in Alaska's North Slope. The acquisition follows a formal bidding process in that saw the company win the rights to acquire the tenure that boasts historical hydrocarbon shows and an existing 3D dataset which could expedite future work.

Newly listed lithium and gold explorer Octava Minerals has lit up a number of priority targets at the company’s Talga lithium project in WA’s Pilbara region after a preliminary portable XRF machine analysis of over 2000 soil samples. Whilst the company awaits its full laboratory results it already has identified multiple additional pegmatites and marked seven priority target areas for further field assessment.