Matt Birney

Southern Gold’s Gubong JV gold project in South Korea could have low capital and operating costs if results from preliminary metallurgical testwork carried out by partner Bluebird Merchant Ventures is any indication. A study into the economic feasibility of re-opening the historic high-grade mine is due to be completed in July 2018. With samples going an ounce to the tonne Gubong is looking interesting.

Strike Energy expects its Jaws-1 deep coal seam gas well in South Australia’s Cooper Basin to potentially come online in early July. Production testing will confirm the commercial viability of Strike’s Southern Cooper Basin Gas Project which has conditional gas off-take agreements already in place with substantial domestic gas consumers.

Neometals Ltd has reported a major increase to its nickel mineral resources at the Mt Edwards project courtesy of four new deposits, nearly tripling metal inventories to 7.4 million tonnes grading 1.7% nickel for just over 123,000 tonnes. The company recently completed the acquisition of the Mt Edwards tenements from Apollo Phoenix Resources and with them, the assignment of further nickel rights.

Artemis Resources and Novo Resources have commenced a major exploration program aimed at proving up grades and tonnages at the Purdy’s Reward conglomerate and paleoplacer gold deposit, 35km southeast of Karratha, in the west Pilbara of W.A. The work will generate a mineralisation report to underwrite the application for a mining lease and the company also reported its 3.3km super-deep drill hole has reached 163m depth.

King River Copper is thinking about a serious upsizing of its proposed mine at Speewah after an initial pit study found a monster-sized pit could be the best approach to mining the giant vanadium-titanium-iron deposit. The latest study has lowered the strip ratio to just 0.4 to 1, taking full advantage of the large, flat-lying and evenly-distributed mineralisation.

New spectacular drill results from King River Copper’s Mt Remarkable gold project in the East Kimberley have extended a very high grade epithermal gold zone and shored up the company’s view there could be other gold-rich zones nearby. Best results from the latest assays include 3m @ 41.75 g/t gold, including 1m @ 81.5 g/t, from a downhole depth of just 16m.

Kopore Metals has announced that a regional soils program at its KM1 EM anomaly has produced two impressive copper-lead-zinc targets in geologically and structurally favourable locations at the Ghanzi West prospect area in Botswana. The coherent anomalies are identified over a12 square kilometre area, coinciding with airborne and ground EM geophysical anomalies. The company considers the new anomalies to be high value drilling targets.

Geopacific has initiated a major exploration program at its Woodlark gold project in PNG. The company recently raised $10m and will channel the funds towards increasing its mineral resource inventory with a view to extending the proposed mine life beyond 10 years. Drilling will focus on under-explored, high grade structural corridors and historical targets between and adjacent to the large Kulumadau and Busai gold deposits.

Calidus Resources has achieved success in a major resource drill out at its Warrawoona gold project in the Pilbara. Results of up to 10m @ 3.84g/t gold from 27m down-hole at the Coronation prospect have confirmed a strike length of about 250 metres for the prospect. The company also reported it had extended the Klondyke mineralisation another 150m down-plunge with strategic deep diamond drilling.