Matt Birney

Anglo Australian Resources has gone back to the future to squeeze more ounces out of a gold prospect near Kalgoorlie that netted it a tidy sum of gold back in 2006 and 2007. The company has kicked off a 70 hole drill campaign to revisit the Mandilla project where it previously identified a near-surface weathered bedrock target with a strike of more than 1.5km.

Venus Metals has executed a farm-in and JV agreement with AIC Resources, for that company to earn an 80% interest in 5 exploration tenements within Venus’ Doolgunna project near the Plutonic gold mine in WA. The deal requires AIC to spend $175,000 over a 2 year period. The tenements are prospective for volcanic-hosted massive sulphide mineralisation similar to the nearby DeGrussa copper mine and shear-hosted gold deposits such as Plutonic.

Kalia Limited has announced that a detailed geophysical survey is well underway at its Mt Tore JV tenements on Bougainville Island in the PNG. The highly anticipated exploration program across its porphyry copper-gold assets is ramping up with geological reconnaissance and geochemical sampling underway in the Aita area. The company’s active engagement of local communities is bearing fruit now, with a number of areas already approved for on-ground exploration activities.

Geopacific Resources has improved its understanding of the mineralisation controls at the Great Northern prospect at its Woodlark gold project in Papua New Guinea after making a number of gold hits including a top intercept of 21.77g/t gold. Follow-up drilling will be carried out to further define the mineralisation and move it towards the resource category.

Greenland Minerals and Energy is completing an optimisation program at its Kvanefjeld rare earths project in southern Greenland that will simplify project construction, minimise civil earth works and reduce associated capital costs. Recent onsite engineering studies by a multi-disciplinary team of engineers are expected to reduce the amount of construction effort required for the civil construction, port and plant sites.

Celebrated conglomerate gold specialist Novo Resources will acquire two strategic gold projects 80km south of Port Hedland. The company will fund exploration for two years to farm into Pioneer Resources’ Kangan gold project to earn a 70% interest for a consideration of $600,000 in cash and scrip. Novo will also acquire 4 key tenements from a private company in the area for cash and shares totalling A$8m.

Terrain Minerals has reported excellent metallurgical gold recoveries averaging over 96% from ore composites of its oxidised, transitional and fresh ores at the Great Western project, near Leonora in W.A. The results imply that a conventional milling and processing route is likely to be suitable for the company’s future ore production. Terrain also submitted works proposals for exploratory drilling at its Wild-viper project that surrounds Great Western.

Sky and Space Global has developed new network management and data compression software for its 200 telecommunications “nano-satellites” that are set to be blasted into space in 2019. The company is also developing an autonomous management system and fuel optimisation software that together will allow the nano-satellite constellation to be operated autonomously.

Australian Potash and Salt Lake Potash have signed a memorandum of understanding and cooperation agreement to study the potential cost savings from sharing infrastructure at their respective Lake Wells projects in the Goldfields region of W.A. The joint study will initially focus on joint infrastructure developments and will also study the potential for cost sharing on common evaporation and salt processing facilities.