Matt Birney

Lithium Australia has outlined a maiden vanadium mineral resource for a portion of the Youanmi Complex near Sandstone, WA, that it has the option to purchase from Diversity Resources. The inferred resource of 185 million tonnes grading 0.33% vanadium pentoxide is near Venus Metals’ Youanmi vanadium project and was estimated using historical drilling completed by Australian Gold Resources back in 1999.

Bellevue Gold’s deep hole drilled with the assistance of the WA Government’s exploration incentive scheme at its namesake project near Leinster, WA, has intersected visible gold below the historical Bellevue mine. The company’s own ongoing exploration program also discovered a new Viago look-alike target immediately west of the high-grade Tribune Lode.

Northern Minerals has returned encouraging preliminary rare earth element results from portable XRF assaying completed on infill, extension and exploratory RC drilling samples at the Dazzler and Iceman prospects near its Browns Range operation in the East Kimberley region of WA. The company said the results also outlined a new target area just to the northwest of Iceman that is anomalous in the pathfinder element yttrium.

Hawkstone Mining has appointed experienced investment banker and corporate advisor, Barnaby Egerton-Warburton, as its Non-Executive Chairman to oversee financing of the emerging Big Sandy lithium clay project in Arizona, US. He previously held executive roles in the resources sector and was most recently a Director of ioneer Limited who is developing the Rhyolite Ridge lithium-boron resource nearby in Nevada state.

Greenland Minerals has outlined major improvements at its massive Kvanefjeld project in southern Greenland, including an impressive 8% increase in rare earth recoveries to 94%, compared with its 2016 Feasibility Study metrics. The work will lead to an increase of USD$31m per annum in revenue, based on the current basket prices for REO and provide attractive margins on production, while seriously reducing OPEX costs for the project.

Buru Energy has kicked off a flurry of drilling activity that seeks to unlock the oil and gas potential of the severely underexplored Canning Basin in northern WA. Besides two horizontal production wells that could substantially increase its oil output, the company is also preparing to drill the Yakka Munga-1 and Rafael-1 exploration wells, either of which could be game changers if they are successful.

Novo Resources is a step closer to mine production from its Pilbara gold assets in WA this week, with a key mining lease now granted for its emerging Beatons Creek project near Nullagine, WA. The rigorous tenement approval process was underpinned by the company’s impressive mineral resource estimate of just over 900,000 ounces, with 316,000 ounces sitting in the oxide zone, which Novo will attack first.

Kalia Limited’s engagement of technical expert Dr Steve Garwin to overview its Mt Tore project on Bougainville Island has paid off, with five key porphyry copper-gold and epithermal gold targets delineated. Dr Garwin identified the geochemically “fertile” nature of the region’s rocks, with the underexplored area holding potential for world-class deposits of copper-gold in the highly endowed, desirable “Pacific Ring of Fire” location.

Sky and Space Global has signed a definitive agreement with Nasdaq-listed manufacturer GomSpace for up to 16 new nano-satellites to extend its IoT and M2M connectivity services over the entire globe. These nano-satellites will be delivered in two batches with the first batch of eight dispatched by the end of 2019, whilst the second optional batch could be delivered in the first half of 2020.