Matt Birney

Mineralisation has been observed in all holes drilled in the latest campaign by PolarX at its Star Canyon gold-silver target at the northern end of its overarching Humboldt Range project in Nevada, USA. The explorer says it’s a strong start to the program with visual results consistent with the styles of alteration and mineralisation seen in the region. It’s now heading south to drill a further 10 holes.

Panther Metals is continuing to keep its drill crew busy as it moves its RC rig from the 38 holes just drilled at the company’s Eight Foot Well gold prospect near Laverton in WA to the Merolia gold project where grab samples from the Burtville East target have yielded grades of up to 38.45 grams per tonne gold.

BMG Resources has boosted the regional prospects of its Abercromby gold project in the north-eastern Goldfields region of WA after assay results from more than 10,000m of an air-core drilling program underlined its broader potential. According to the company, a raft of solid hits from drilling across the venture's tenements has identified a sequence of compelling anomalies and opened a string of new target areas.

Allup Silica has listed on the ASX with an exploration strategy of targeting high-purity silica sand resources with economically viable road and port access. The company raised $5 million for exploration and evaluation of its three WA silica sand projects that include an inferred JORC mineral resource estimate of 73 million tonnes at an average grade of 96.6 per cent silica at its Sparkler prospect.

Gold-focused Aurumin is gearing up for its inaugural drilling program at the company’s recently-acquired Central Sandstone gold project 130km west of Leinster in WA. The campaign will feature a mix of RC and diamond drilling and is expected to start this month following the end of the company’s ongoing lithium hunt at its Mt Palmer project, 350km to the south.

Alcore, an ABx Group subsidiary, has secured a $7.5 million modern manufacturing grant from the Federal Government to assist in the development of its world first aluminium smelter bath recycling plant. The facility aims to generate aluminium fluoride, an essential chemical for aluminium smelting, from smelter waste product bath. Australia currently imports its entire aluminium fluoride supply.

K2fly has tabled some healthy numbers from the March quarter with record invoices of $3.3m, maintaining its all-time high total contract values of $16.6m and cracking the $5m mark in annual recurring revenue for the first time. The company operates in the global resources space under a ‘Software as a Service’ business model – meaning it delivers its software on a subscription basis.

ASX-listed Image Resources says it has successfully navigated another challenging quarter at its wholly-owned Boonanarring mineral sands project, 80kilometres north of Perth in Western Australia. The company’s quarterly report shows the average realised price per tonne of its heavy mineral concentrate set a new quarterly record despite lower production and sales over the previous period.

ASX-listed Quantum Graphite says the long-term demand for natural flake graphite in the production of anodes for lithium-ion batteries along with the global push towards a net-zero carbon economy could drive its thermal battery technology with joint venture partner Sunlands Co to the forefront of the bubbling sector.

Junior explorer Tambourah Metals has pegged new tenements prospective for gold and lithium that it has now coined as the Nullagine project. The 34-tenement package under application covers 5788ha and is 5km north of the explorer’s existing Russian Jack lithium project in Western Australia’s Pilbara region. After beginning a project scale compilation of the available data Tambourah has found historical soil samples indicating lithium up to 40ppm.

ASX-listed minerals developer Technology Metals has dived into the implementation phase of its Murchison Technology Metals project after awarding Danish-based kiln supplier FLSmidth a Notice to Proceed with front-end engineering and design services for the key roasting kiln section of its vanadium processing plant.

Surefire Resources has bagged another wide and shallow gold intercept in the latest drilling campaign at its Yidby gold project in WA’s Mid West region. The wide and shallow intersection of 8m going 1.43 g/t gold from 18m was encountered as the explorer drilled for extensions to its Yidby Road prospect. The company says up to 4000m of RC drilling is due to kick off in the next few weeks.

Wiluna Mining's first test of down-plunge extensions of the historic East and West Lodes have yielded strong sulphide mineralisation in the first of eight holes it will sink into the leads in WA’s northern goldfields. The company has seven holes remaining to drill in the current program that is aimed at backing up recent ultra-high-grade gold results at its nearby Bulletin North target.

Okapi Resources is poised to sink its teeth into a 10,000 metre, 24-hole drilling campaign at its Middle Lake uranium project in Canada’s Athabasca Basin after it received the government go-ahead to launch the probe. The company says it has received a raft of permits that will also allow it to kick off a geophysical survey.

Junior explorer Aurumin has just wrapped up the first stage of auger drilling at its recently-acquired Central Sandstone gold project in WA. A vehicle-mounted auger drill rig tested five near-mill targets in addition to a further 29 areas of interest. The 467-hole program aimed to geochemically sample the interface between the covering sediments and bedrock with the company expecting its results in a few weeks.

ASX-listed Middle Island Resources has completed a ground-based induced polarity survey at its Barkly copper-gold project in the Northern Territory's East Tennant Creek region. The company says the survey is expected to provide a three-dimensional outline of the prospect's anomaly and assist in target definition with a drill program expected to kick off next month.

Aurumin Limited is going after lithium-bearing pegmatites with the drill bit at its Mt Palmer project in WA. The ongoing program will drill up to 2500m of RC holes and is expected to take about one week with assays to be fast tracked. The explorer firmed up its targets with a series of soil samples revealing anomalous geochemistry coinciding with historically intercepted pegmatites.

Multi-commodity explorer Valor Resources is moving to expand its footprint in Peru by around 30 per cent after applying for a 60 square kilometre patch containing historic gold and silver mine workings. The new area is only 30km from its exciting Picha copper and silver project in the Moquegua area of southern Peru, a region seeing renewed interest from major mining houses.

Surefire Resources is set to launch a diamond drilling campaign at its Victory Bore vanadium deposit, about 530km north-east from Perth in WA after tying down a drilling contractor to complete the probe. The company already has its footprint all over a 151 million tonne resource at 0.44 per cent vanadium pentoxide, 25 per cent iron and 6.73 per cent titanium dioxide at the operation.

The Resources Round-up conference for ASX-listed explorers is rolling into the streets of Sydney and shaping as the largest conference on the east coast in the event's 18-year history. Ticket sales for the three-day extravaganza that kicks off on May 3rd have been reported as 'huge' with 1500 registered delegates and more than 100 exhibition stands set to showcase the latest from the resources industry.

Triangle Energy has outlined a series of new initiatives including the commencement of a seismic program over some significant onshore Perth Basin targets. Alongside Pilot Energy, the two companies have also outlined adjustments to a number of permits including for the Cliff Head joint venture that will result in a serious reduction in abandonment liabilities on completion.

Oar Resources says surging demand for graphite could breathe life back into its previously shelved Oakdale project in South Australia where the company produced a scoping study back in 2015. With global markets now diving headfirst into low-carbon energy, the company is casting a renewed eye over the asset where it will look to build on the work already completed at the venture.

Strickland Metals is confident that its Millrose gold deposit in the Yandal Belt of WA is a "very substantial" gold system. Strickland has revealed a new drill intersection of 25m at 5.1 g/t gold from 82m that it says demonstrates continuity across a 200m strike with a previous result of 55m at 2.4 g/t gold from 86m. Millrose has a current resource of 346,000 ounces of gold.

Coda Minerals has extended the central bornite zone of the Emmie iron oxide-copper-gold deposit within its Elizabeth Creek copper project in South Australia's Gawler Craton. The explorer says recent drilling has intersected significant widths of bornite and chalcopyrite mineralisation. Importantly, the results materially extend the bornite zone discovered 100m to the southeast and support the potential for further mineralisation to the south.

Calidus Resources has ticked off a major milestone in its quest to becoming Australia’s next gold producer with the commencement of continuous ore processing at its Warrawoona gold project in WA’s emerging Pilbara goldfields ahead of the first gold pour expected in the coming weeks. Under the multi-stage development plan, production is scheduled to ramp up initially to about 90,000 ounces a year.

Canning Basin pioneer Buru Energy has been vindicated in its dogged drive to build a robust energy company in the Canning Basin after an independent report described its Rafael conventional wet gas discovery as a resource tipping over the magic one trillion cubic feet of gas mark, along with a possible additional 20 million barrels of condensate.

American West Metals has hit a cocktail of mixed metals in the USA with its very first diamond hole at the company’s West Desert project in Utah. Notably, new copper and molybdenum results have occurred outside the existing resource and the company says the drill program has confirmed the "exceptional quality" and "significant volume" of the mineralisation. Wide intercepts of decent grade zinc were also encountered and indium was present too.

Conico has intersected high-grade gold in the third diamond drillhole at its Sortekap prospect in Greenland. Some of the best results include 1m at 42.81 g/t gold from only 41m downhole and 1m grading 2.58 g/t gold from 22m. Five more 1m intervals going at greater than 1 g/t were also discovered. Mineralisation is present as gold-bearing quartz veins in the Archean amphibolite that is interpreted as orogenic style.

Shares in BMG Resources surged more than 50 per cent on intraday trading following confirmation that diamond drilling at the Capital prospect, part of the larger Abercromby project in WA has delivered another serious batch of gold results that have more than doubled the size of the deposit and significantly boosted the operation's resource potential.

Neometals looks to be wading deeper into the lucrative lithium-ion battery recycling sector after its JV partner Primobius secured an operating permit for its 10 tonne per day shredding facility in Germany. With the rubber stamp to kick off operations, the company will now look to collect and stockpile electric vehicle battery modules from its disposal service clients ahead of its commercial launch in May.

Twenty Seven Co’s plans to increase the size of the gold mineralisation at its Rover gold project in WA’s Central Yilgarn region look to be on track after completing an RC drilling program that showed good continuity along strike and down dip from previous gold-yielding drilling. The company said one metre splits from four metre composite gold assays confirmed shallow gold mineralisation at its wholly-owned project.

Valor Resources has confirmed the prospectivity of multiple new targets at its Picha project in Peru. Recent spectral analysis highlighted two intriguing targets along a major regional structure hosting the Cobremani, Maricate and Cumbre Coya targets. Rock-chip sampling at the Huancune target has returned assays up to 3.95 per cent copper with a channel sample at the Pacojahua target returning an encouraging 0.82 per cent copper.