Matt Birney

Altech Chemicals has finalised a US$170m debt package guaranteed by the German Government on very favourable terms to cover more than half the cost of their high purity alumina project, based on the Meckering kaolin deposit in W.A. The “extremely attractive” loan is part of a $US190 million debt package subsidised by Germany because the project will use German technology and engineering.

Galena Mining is racing towards a prefeasibility study on a high-grade-underground development of the giant Abra lead-silver deposit after completing a maiden drill program with high-grade hits encountered in every hole. Final assays released today completed a perfect run for Galena and have cleared the way for a maiden estimate of a high-grade resource within weeks.

ASX-listed Online screening and verification company CVCheck reported an 11 per cent surge in cash receipts to $2.8 million last quarter on the back of burgeoning demand from corporate clients. Corporate customers now account for almost 60 per cent of total revenue as more and more large companies seek to weed out dodgy job seekers from their interview lists.

A revised gas off-take agreement to supply packaging firm Orora has been pushed out to 2020, giving junior explorer Strike Energy the manoeuvrability to fully-focus on its streamlined development strategy in the Southern Cooper Basin Gas Project. The company has welcomed the new deadline for the deal as it prepares to spud its ground breaking Jaws-1 appraisal well, which is potential a game-changer for the oil and gas industry generally.

The final piece of the land jigsaw puzzle has been put in place by Calima Energy as the ASX-listed company completed its core acquisition strategy in the lucrative and liquids-rich sweet spots of the Montney Formation in northeast British Columbia, Canada. The Perth-based explorer is now targeting the next phase culminating in a drilling campaign to take advantage of increasing oil price tailwinds.

Metallurgical testwork on King River’s giant Speewah vanadium deposit in the Kimberley has shown that it could produce super-high purity titanium dioxide, boosting the economics of the project. The latest leach test on Speewah concentrates produced 99.5% purity titanium dioxide. The high purity levels potentially open up new master allow markets such as the aerospace market for King River.

One of the oil industry’s top analysts has given a very positive report on Strike Energy as it embarks on a drill program with the potential to save the east coast gas market from its supply shortage. Peter Strachan’s new report concludes Strike is worth 66% more than its current share price and that’s before the high-impact Jaws drilling program gets underway in the Cooper Basin.

Aquabotix has reported a 22% increase in cash receipts for the December quarter, putting the underwater drone player in a sound financial slipstream as it accelerates towards new growth targets. The Sydney and Massachusetts-based company added 10 new distributors to its global network in the last quarter of the year and has revised sales targets for its automated drones in a number of industries.

Nzuri Copper’s Kalongwe copper-cobalt project could be set for a mine life extension after exploration drilling just 2.5kms away produced a series of very positive results that may lead to a satellite orebody. Drilling at Monwezi 2 has extended an historic copper-cobalt intercept in three directions and confirmed a new geological interpretation of the target.