Matt Birney

ASX-listed Okapi Resources is all set to launch an 11-hole diamond drilling program at its wholly-owned Enmore gold project in NSW within the next three weeks. Okapi plans to follow up last year’s RC drilling campaign at the Sunnyside gold prospect that returned exceptional gold assay results. The company says mineralisation at the prospect remains open at depth and along strike.

Strong lithium grades up to 2.35 per cent and an extension of the Spear Hill lithium pegmatites to over 4.3km strike length have convinced the owners of Pirra Lithium to spin the company out into an IPO by the end of this year. Calidus owns 50 per cent of Pirra Lithium, the joint venture controls tenements and lithium rights covering over 1000 square kms where recent assaying has doubled the known size of lithium mineralised zones.

Junior explorer Aurumin has intersected multiple pegmatites with indications of lithium after RC drilling at the company’s Mt Palmer gold project in Western Australia. Anomalous lithium and pathfinder elements were uncovered in the first-pass drilling, with up to 370 parts per million lithium detected across several samples in Aurumin’s 12-hole program.

Aruma Resources hopes history repeats with a fresh diamond drilling program to add to its huge gold hits in March that reached 224 grams per tonne from the Salmon Gums gold project in WA’s eastern Goldfields. Other eye-popping RC drill cores from its maiden program graded above 50 g/t and 83 g/t gold.

Ongoing work at Asra Minerals’ Mt Stirling project in the eastern Goldfields region of WA has delivered another stunning set of high-grade gold intercepts that has also extended the operation’s mineralisation down-dip. The Perth-based company says recent drilling at the Estera prospect has delivered some of its best results so far across the operation’s southern tenements.

Brightstar Resources has hit the ground running with its latest drilling program at its Cork Tree Well project, near Laverton in WA’s northern Goldfields, as it bids to expand its JORC-compliant resource. The gold developer reports drilling is averaging more than 200m a day and eight holes have already been completed at the Delta 2 prospect.

Valor Resources’ recent decision to add the 60 square kilometre Charaque project to the company’s portfolio in Peru is paying off with high-grade silver hits more than 900 grams per tonne from rock and soil samples. Other strong results from its existing Picha project 30km away has spurred Valor to kick off a 5000m first-pass diamond drilling program across its prospective acreage.

Perth-based Cyclone Metals has sealed a binding exclusivity agreement with Ewaah Cameroon on a “world-class” cobalt-nickel-manganese land package in the central African region. The deal gives the company the right to procure 100 per cent of the issued capital of the Camdu Corporation, a subsidiary of Ewaah, that has applied for a mining permit covering the prospective ground.

Middle Island has unveiled a couple of drill-ready targets at its Crosswinds copper prospect in the Northern Territory after a five-line Induced Polarisation survey at the site. The company says the zones are supported by ground-based gravity work and regulatory assessments are the only thing standing in the way of an imminent probe.

Perth-based Surefire Resources NL has tabled encouraging geochemical anomalies from its recent drilling at the Yidby Road gold project in WA’s Mid West, adding they represent a potential new gold d

King River Resources will begin RC drilling at its Tennant Creek gold project in the NT at the weekend, focusing on the Kurundi Main prospect where recent rock chip samples returned gold hits. Multiple samples at the prospect returned results of up to 17.25 grams per tonne gold along a 2km mineralised trend that has never been explored.

WA explorer Meeka Gold is expanding its rare earths project by adding 33 per cent to its Circle Valley landholding in the Albany-Fraser province soon after reporting high-grade rare earths oxides hits at its Cascade project only 50km away. In addition to rare earths, the acreage contains two major regional shear zones, both highly prospective for Tropicana-style gold mineralisation.

ASX-listed Blackstone Minerals has landed a new massive sulphide discovery with portable-XRF readings of up to 20 per cent nickel at its Flagship Ta Khoa nickel project in northern Vietnam. Several nickel targets have been identified at the project including massive and semi-massive and net-textured sulphides. The standout results saw a 2.95m intersection of sulphides, with portable XRF readings indicating the presence of up to 20 per cent nickel.

Superior Resources has potentially unearthed a significant copper system at its Bottletree copper prospect, part of its larger Greenvale project near Townsville in Queensland, after assays returned a 632m copper hit within a remote section of an interpreted porphyry structure. The news was not lost on the market with Superior’s share price up 60 per cent at one point during the session on heavy turnover from the previous close.

Only one month after its first gold pour at the company’s Warrawoona gold operation, Calidus Resources is looking at its Blue Spec East prospect as an open pit operation following strong drilling results. The move could boost throughput at its nearby plant in the Pilbara. The company produced first gold last month with a 33kg pour and aims to ramp up to 90,000 ounces per year.

CZR Resources has increased the mineral resource at its Robe Mesa iron ore project in the Pilbara by more than 50 per cent whilst maintaining an iron ore grade of 56 per cent. Assay results reported in March revealed extensive direct shipping iron ore outside the prefeasibility study pit designs. The deposit’s JORC mineral resource has increased from 24.7 million tonnes to 37.5Mt.

As it looks to stack more gold on its 603,000-ounce Yandal project, 70km east of Wiluna, junior explorer Strickland Metals is gearing up to pass its fleet of drill rigs over its cornerstone Millrose gold system. In preparation for its drill out, the company has completed a heritage assessment and will start a magnetic survey as early as next week.

Podium Minerals has been given the green light to start drilling next week at the central section of its Parks Reef platinum group metals project in the Mid West region of WA after it was granted registered heritage site access in April and its program of work approved last month by the Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety.

Cyclone Metals has wrapped up a maiden gold exploration program at its Mareburn and Macraes South projects, about 40km north of Dunedin in the Otago Province of New Zealand. According to the company, the region has churned out over 10 million ounces of the precious metal and all eyes will now be on the results from the campaign, which are anticipated for around a month.

Multi-element explorer Horizon Minerals has hit nickel sulphides in its first hole at its Euston prospect within the company’s wholly-owned Cannon project in WA. Preliminary assays of the 4m nickel intercept revealed encouraging grades of over 1 per cent nickel, 607 parts per million copper and 250ppm cobalt from 160m. Further assays from the five-hole program are pending.

Metal Hawk’s Berehaven nickel project on the outskirts of Kalgoorlie, WA, is growing in size with strong geochemical platinum group elements results from the Torana prospect. The new data came just to the north of the Commodore nickel sulphide discovery that the company made in the project area last September, 20km south-east of the historic goldfields town.

Coda Minerals has extended its Emmie iron oxide-copper-gold deposit within its Elizabeth Creek copper project in South Australia by more than 900m — increasing its mineralised target zone. A recent surface step-out drill hole encountered multiple zones of visible copper sulphide mineralisation to the north of the Emmie IOCG geophysical anomaly, providing evidence the deposit contains multiple conduit zones.

Okapi Resources is targeting a two-commodity play at its Rattler uranium project in Utah, USA, after a rock chip sampling program confirmed the samples also contained high-grade vanadium. The results ran up to 12.5 per cent vanadium pentoxide, some way above the general concentrations of up to 2.5 per cent found in some deposits.

As it hurtles towards an expected resource upgrade, Asra Minerals has returned more significant high-grade gold intercepts from RC drilling at its flagship 118,400-ounce Mt Stirling project in WA’s Eastern Goldfields. The program continues to extend mineralisation beyond previous resource boundaries, with the company reporting results grading up to 1m at 11.86 g/t from two more holes.

Toro Energy has tabled more massive nickel sulphide discoveries at its Dusty project in Western Australia. The results from Toro’s latest campaign saw a drill hole intersecting 7.2 metres of visible nickel sulphides, grading 1.05 per cent nickel and 0.26 per cent copper from 252m downhole. The Dusty nickel project falls within Toro’s 100 per cent owned Yandal Gold Project in the State’s Mid West.

Galan Lithium will soon hit the go button on a long-term pumping test program at its wholly-owned Hombre Muerto West lithium brine project in the Catamarca Province of Argentina. The company says the results of the analyses will flow into a definitive feasibility study for the operation and is expected to be wrapped up by September this year.

Mineral explorer Si6 Metals has completed its second phase of air core drilling at its wholly-owned Monument gold project in WA’s Laverton gold district. The 6000m program tested five prospect areas and was designed to follow up on successful drilling from a first phase completed late last year. The campaign encountered a wide range of prospective rocks with assays now pending.

Triangle Energy has completed the first stages of pivoting away from its ageing, offshore foundation asset of Cliff Head by completing a 3D seismic survey over its onshore permits as it seeks to replicate the success of fellow explorers in the Perth Basin in discovering elephant-size gas fields along the route of the Dampier-to-Bunbury natural gas pipeline.

Venus Metals believes the presence of mafic-ultramafic rocks discovered during recent exploration at its Youanmi base metals and lithium projects make the area prospective for gold and base metals mineralisation. The rocks were found along an east-south-east trending structure that comes off the Youanmi shear zone close to Ramelius Resources’ Penny gold mine, about 550km north-east of Perth.

Buoyed by positive gold assays, ASX-listed Askari Metals has started a third round of RC drilling at its Burracoppin gold project in Western Australia’s eastern Wheatbelt. The program will probe up to 3500m, with the explorer launching a volley of 13 holes before adjusting its aim and firing another volley of up to 40 holes.

Test work on rare earths from ABx Group’s Deep Leads project in northern Tasmania has strengthened the company’s belief that it hosts ionic adsorption clay-style or “IAC” mineralisation. The deposits are known to be a major source of permanent magnet minerals and are used to develop super magnets for electric vehicles, wind turbines, mobile phones and computers.

Terrain Minerals has discovered clay-type rare earth elements at its fully owned Lort River project in Western Australia after a review of historic auger drilling data, including a high percentage of rare earths used in the production of magnets. Assays also show high scandium grades the company says are a potentially important addition to the high-grade rare earths mineralisation.