Matt Birney

St George Mining has made a strong start to drilling at their East Laverton nickel project with drill hits of prospective ultramafic rocks from the first two holes in the program. The new holes have confirmed a western extension of the Windsor ultramafic unit that produced high grade nickel intercepts for BHP back in 2012. St George rocketed up the ASX this month on the back of its Mt Alexander results.

Drilling by Geopacific Resources at their recently acquired Woodlark Gold deposit in PNG has shown it has spectacularly long high grades like its famous epithermal neighbours. The path has now been cleared for a new resource and reserve estimate early next year. Latest results from the new drilling include 37 metres at 6.21g/t gold, 25 metres at 6.27g/t and 16 metres at 11.00g/t.

Hammer Metals’ newly-formed Mt Frosty Copper-Gold JV with global mining giant Glencore is already looking good with the company announcing this week some highly encouraging drill hits from its maiden drill program in Mt Isa. The ASX-listed junior explorer reported visible copper sulphides from shallow RC drilling, backing up its view there is potential to define a resource with minimal drilling.

Fresh from news of a big increase in their San Jose lithium deposit, Plymouth Minerals is racing ahead with test work on converting the deposit into high-value Lithium Carbonate by way of an on-site plant. Bulk samples are already on their way to Plymouth’s Chinese processing partner, Shandong Ruifu, who will beneficiate the ore and process it into battery-grade lithium carbonate.

Lithium Australia have snagged their first major Lithium resource thanks to a wholly successful decision to take a close look at the unrecognised lithium potential of an historic tin mine in Saxony, Germany. The company announced a maiden resource at Sadisdorf that is capable of supplying a 25,000 tonne per annum Lithium Carbonate plant for 10 years without even drilling a hole.

Recent drilling has increased the size of Plymouth Minerals’ massive San Jose Lithium mica deposit in Spain to more than 1.6 million tonnes of Lithium Carbonate equivalent, paving the way for an impressive feasibility study in 2018. The giant deposit is still open along strike and at depth and is perfectly situated to produce and deliver battery-grade chemicals for Europe’s booming market.

King River Copper's excellent progress on metallurgical test work should unlock a new pathway for the development of its massive 4.7 billion tonne Vanadium/Titanium/Iron project near Kununurra. The Company is aiming to produce 99.5%+ purity vanadium pentoxide, titanium dioxide and iron whilst at the same time dramatically reducing the capex requirements via a new processing flow sheet.

Calidus Resources’ patient efforts to consolidate ground over the Warrawoona greenstone belt in the East Pilbara are paying huge dividends, with new assay results delivering high-grade gold hits at every one of its prospects. The cashed-up explorer will immediately accelerate its aggressive drill campaign and will soon announce a resource upgrade based on its spectacular run of results.

Underwater drone innovator Aquabotix has taken its business ambition up a few pegs with the appointment of a US-based CEO whilst founding CEO Durval Tavares will move into the role of Chief Technology Officer to focus on product innovation. New CEO David Batista has a 20 year background in small caps and was most recently the Managing Director of financial services firm Viriathus Holdings.