Matt Birney

Soil samples taken from Si6 Metals’ Maibele East and Mashambe prospects in Botswana have revealed elevated levels of copper, zinc and nickel suggesting the possibility of nickel-sulphide deposits lurking beneath. Identified by X-ray fluorescence analysis, Si6 says the samples show evidence of ultramafic lithology across the Maibele-Mashambe trend whilst exploration at its Gobajango prospect has also revealed highly prospective mineralisation.

As extensional drilling at Strickland Metals’ cornerstone Millrose deposit continues to deliver shallow high-grade gold the company is gearing up for further work at its gold and base metal projects 70km east of Wiluna in WA’s Mid West region. The latest oxide gold drill results coming out of Millrose include 28m at 3.7 grams per tonne gold from 54m containing a high-grade hit of 6m at 12.1 g/t.

Lithium Australia’s wholly owned subsidiary Envirostream has bolstered a partnership with an arm of consumer electronics dynamo LG to recycle over 250 tonnes of lithium-ion batteries. Under the agreement the company will deliver spent cells to the recycler’s facilities in Melbourne where the devices will be stripped, processed and treated before being repurposed into new energy storage solutions.

A first phase of exploration drilling has yielded Horizon Minerals high-grade results from its Pinner prospect at the company’s Cannon gold project 30km south-east of Kalgoorlie in WA’s Goldfields. Notably, new and shallow mineralisation was encountered with intercepts including 1m at 35.39 grams per tonne gold from 36m within a broader 6m hit going 6.94 g/t from 35m.

Diamond drilling at JV partners DiscovEx and Carnaby Resources’ Nil Desperandum prospect near Mt Isa in Queensland has unveiled another patch of copper-gold mineralisation that has extended the zone's prospectivity. The joint venture says the mineralisation remains open at depth and plans are plan place to continue chasing it through additional drilling and downhole electromagnetic surveys.

St George Mining shares shot up nearly 40 per cent at one point during intraday trading on news of significant lithium potential at the company’s Mt Alexander project 95km west of Leonora in WA. Initial field mapping and rock chip sampling at the project has confirmed numerous outcropping pegmatite dykes occurring in swarms that extend over 15km within its ground.

TSX-listed Novo Resources is ramping up its exploration blitz across the company’s highly prospective 11,000 square kilometre Pilbara portfolio with a significant focus on gold prospects at its Purdy’s North project. An RC drilling program is currently underway at the Morto Lago copper-gold target in addition to the Milburn nickel-copper-gold prospect at the company’s project near Karratha in Western Australia.

A tough winter drilling campaign in northern Tasmania has borne fruit for ABx Group with assays more than tripling the lateral extent of the high-grade rare earth elements mineralisation at its Deep Leads deposit. The company has now kicked off its maiden resource estimation. The market liked the news with its shares closing 32 per cent higher at the end of trading.

Coda Minerals has launched a 30-hole, 3000m RC drill campaign at its Cameron River copper-gold project near Mt Isa in Queensland’s north. The company will use the probe to test a suite of promising geochemical and induced polarised targets at the site and plans to have the program completed in about 3 weeks.

Ahead of an inaugural drill campaign Askari Metals has extended its copper mineralised footprint and defined extensive gold mineralisation after sifting through soils at the company’s Horry copper and gold project in WA’s Kimberley region. The recent soil sampling work picked up results of up to 655 parts per billion gold and up to 152 parts per million copper.

The Dusty nickel project in WA’s north-eastern Goldfields continues to deliver for Toro Energy after follow-up drilling at its recently discovered Dimma deposit hit massive and semi-massive nickel sulphides. The company says exploration intersected a zone of intermittent nickel-sulphide mineralisation that extends for more than 20m and includes 2.5m of continuous massive nickel sulphide from 314.7m downhole.

Assays from the central ore zone of Podium Minerals’ Parks Reef platinum group metals project continue to deliver high-grade results as the company assesses its mining potential near Meekatharra in WA. Highlights include a 16m intersection at 2.51 grams per tonne 3E PGM from 76m that recorded 1.69 g/t platinum, 0.80 g/t palladium and 0.01 g/t gold.

Infinity Lithium’s plans to develop its 75 per cent owned San José lithium project in Spain appear to be gaining political support after local and regional government representatives have called for a technical presentation of the proposed underground mine and integrated lithium processing plant. The continued revival of the project follows the regional government’s declaration last week that lithium extraction and processing are of regional and general interest.

Venus Metals Corporation has lit up multiple priority targets using remote sensed data at the company’s Mangaroon rare earths project in one of the country’s fastest emerging rare earths districts. The company’s four tenement package on the edge of WA’s Gascoyne region borders significant rare earth ventures held by ASX-listed Hastings Technology Metals, Dreadnought Resources and Lanthanein Resources.

Diamond drilling at Buru Energy and Sipa Resources' jointly held Barbwire Terrace project south-east of Broome in WA has turned up a smorgasbord of high-grade base metal mineralisation. The joint venture says portable XRF readings on samples from one of the two recently plunged holes delivered grades as high as 19.8 per cent lead plus zinc from 413.5 metres.

ASX-listed 88 Energy is locking onto a new exploitation target at its Icewine East oil project on Alaska’s North Slope after examining a batch of newly acquired seismic data. The company is now gearing up to drill test the “Hickory-1” well next year with planning and permission work underway.

Aurumin’s winning run has continued with impressive results from the third hole of an RC drill campaign at its Central Sandstone gold project in WA including a 352.8m intersection at 1.5 g/t gold from 267.2m. The company says mineralisation continued down the hole with another 145.2m section going 0.5 g/t gold from 620m as the explorer aims to further define its resource at the Two Mile Hill deposit 130km west of Leinster.

WA-focused mineral explorer Tambourah Metals has added two new exploration licences to its Russian Jack lithium project in WA’s Pilbara region. The new zones are already producing results with rock chips going as high as 1420ppm lithium. The new licences have more than doubled Tambourah’s project size to over 500 square kilometres.

ASX-listed Asra Minerals has delivered a solid 23 per cent lift to its precious metal inventory at its flagship Mt Stirling project in Western Australia. The total updated mineral resource estimate at the operation has risen to 152,000 gold ounces from a previously tabled 118,384. The company’s MS Viserion deposit saw its resources swell 34 per cent for 2.55 million tonnes going 1.7 grams per tonne gold for 137,000 ounces.

Mineral explorer EMU has secured the right to earn up to 80 per cent in a trio of exploration permits covering 850 square kilometres in Queensland’s Georgetown mining district under a Heads of Agreement with TSXV-listed Rugby Resources. Whilst gold has been the traditional focus for the region the tenements are also prospective for base and battery metals including lithium, silver, lead, zinc, copper, tin and uranium.

WA-based explorer Surefire Resources has appointed geologist and mineral economist Cain Fogarty as CEO. The company says Fogarty brings to the role a varied skill set accumulated over a career spanning more than two decades in the mining industry across Australia, Asia and Africa, including exploration, resource growth, feasibility studies and executive management.

Toro Energy has initiated a scoping study for a standalone Lake Maitland uranium-vanadium mining and processing operation after identifying a beneficiation step to reduce costs at its Wiluna uranium project. The Lake Maitland uranium deposit is just one of four deposits that form part of Toro’s fully owned Wiluna uranium project in WA’s northern Goldfields region 710km north-east of Perth.

Kalgoorlie Gold Mining will soon test down-dip and high-grade gold extensions at its La Mascotte prospect that sits as part of the company’s larger Bulong Taurus gold project in WA. The upcoming 3 hole, 600m campaign follows a review of legacy drill campaigns that delivered a slew of solid results from modest depths.

King River Resources has continued its winning run with gold exploration at the company’s Tennant Creek project in the NT with rock chip samples up to 49.5 grams per tonne gold found near its Kurundi prospect. The company has also recorded positive copper and silver results after analysis of assays from its recent RC drill program at the prospect.

Meeka Metals has unveiled a solid set of shallow high-grade gold results from air-core drilling at its St Anne’s discovery that sits in the company’s larger Murchison project in Western Australia. Some of the eye-catching hits include 8m at 11.78 grams per tonne gold inside of a larger 24m parcel running 4.73 g/t gold from 52m and a further 8m at 11.07g/t gold within a 36m interval going 3.61 g/t gold from 44m.

Conico has struck heavily disseminated and semi-massive sulphides in four more drill holes at the company’s 50-50 owned Mt Thirsty joint venture with Greenstone Resources less than 200m south from Galileo Mining’s newfound Callisto deposit. Five diamond drill holes for 1650m are now complete as part of an ongoing phase I drill campaign testing for extensions to the recent palladium-platinum-gold-copper-nickel discovery 16km north-west of Norseman in WA.

A successful geophysical survey program has highlighted a number of highly prospective nickel sulphide targets for St George Mining at the company’s Mt Alexander project near Leonora in Western Australia. Using a combination of seismic and electromagnetic surveys St George has highlighted three anomalies consistent with massive sulphides with one specific target, named the Manta prospect, to be prioritised for drilling.

Shares in American West Metals surged more than 80 per cent in intraday trading following the delivery of a robust set of maiden assay results from diamond drilling at its Storm project in Canada. The results include 41m at 4.18 per cent copper from 38m with a higher grade 15m parcel going 10.05 per cent from 47m.

Horizon Minerals has acquired the remaining 50 per cent of ASX-listed Labyrinth Resources’ high-grade Penny’s Find gold project in WA’s Eastern Goldfields for a package of $500,000 in cash and $250,000 in shares. Horizon now owns 100 per cent of the high-grade gold project and associated tenements via its wholly owned subsidiary Black Mountain Gold.

Pumping tests at Galan Lithium’s wholly owned Hombre Muerto West lithium brine project has churned out a high flow rate of around 20 litres of concentrate per second and delivered robust lithium grades of up to 927 milligrams per litre. Work at a well in the operation will now launch hydraulic testing at a second pumping well to follow up on results from another bore.

Handheld XRF readings from Buru Energy and JV partner Sipa Resources’ first diamond drill hole at the duo’s Barbwire Terrace project has turned up sniffs of lead-zinc near Broome in WA. The partnership deemed the program’s first diamond hole a “technical success” after it intersected a geological package consistent with significant lead-zinc deposits in the area.

Indonesia-focused gold explorer Sihayo Gold has tabled a maiden resource for the company’s Sihorbo South deposit within its Hutabargot Julu project and in the process piled on another 100,000 ounces of gold to its 1.56-million-ounce base. The explorer plans to conduct a scoping study to assess the potential to include the new resource as a satellite operation for its flagship project.