Matt Birney

ASX listed EMU N.L now has three drill rigs working at its Chilean gold project where good recent weather and smooth operations has sparked hope for the imminent release of a flood of assays. The Perth-based explorer is committed to making up for lost time and completing at least 6000m of drilling before the southern hemisphere winter rolls in.

Another impressive round of high-grade drill hits from Draig Resources has extended the strike length and depth of the company’s Tribune Lode gold discovery parallel to the famed Bellevue mine in the Wiluna belt. Mineralisation has now been confirmed over a strike length of 550 metres and one of the next priorities is to test for continuity with the Southern Belle Lode 800 metres further south.

Ironbark Zinc’s Citronen project is rapidly moving from the drawing board to ground-breaking reality as the Perth-based company prepares to ship equipment to Greenland during the northern hemisphere summer. Landed cargoes, scheduled for mid-August, will trigger the start of the mine construction phase aimed at fulfilling the production potential of one the largest undeveloped zinc projects in the world.

King River Copper has laid claim to the highest-grade vanadium concentrate of any Australian mineral deposit after successfully completing metallurgical tests on the company’s massive Speewah project in the Kimberley. Perth-based King River said the bar had been raised by grinding and separating test work that produced a magnetite-ilmenite concentrate of 2.11% vanadium pentoxide, elevating Speewah to vanadium royalty status.

Southern Gold’s hopes for a rapid restart of a number of high-grade gold mines in South Korea have been boosted, with new investigations at the mine revealing it to be in excellent condition. Joint venture partner Bluebird Merchant Ventures reported the mine has been frozen in time since the 1970s, when a US$140 gold price brought about a premature close.

Classic Minerals has announced it has executed an MOU with Tianye SXO Gold Mining, who own the Marvel Loch processing plant, 100km north of the company’s promising Forrestania Gold project. Classic has several potential sources of gold ore identified through its focus on the Lady Ada and Kat Gap deposits. The deal could provide a valuable stream of cash to support Classic’s regional exploration play.

ASX-listed Sky and Space Global has booked first revenues from its history making nano-satellites that are currently orbiting the earth. The company says that revenues from its three pilot miniature satellites are expected to ramp up to around A$1 million a year from current bandwidth and up to $1 billion a year once its entire network of 200 nano-satellites is up and running.

Perth-based TNG Ltd has signed strategic agreements with contracting giants Clough and McMahon, bringing the exotic metals company a step closer to catapulting its Mount Peake vanadium-titanium-iron mine in the Northern Territory into production. The project is expected to spit out a staggering AU$738m a year in free cash and produce an extraordinary pre-tax NPV of AU$4.7b. TNG currently has 804m shares on issue.

Neometals has announced the acquisition of a strategic brownfields lithium project, located 40km from its existing Mount Marion Lithium project near Coolgardie. The company obtained 75% of the lithium rights to the Mt Edwards Lithium project for a staged consideration of $2.7M and will obtain the remaining 25% lithium rights by purchasing 19 tenements from a private company for a further $1.8M.