Matt Birney

Askari Metals has a busy schedule ahead with multiple rock chip sampling, soil sampling, drone magnetic surveys and drilling campaigns planned across its prospective looking West Australian tenure. The company also recently snapped up some prime lithium real estate at its Red Peak project north of Meekatharra that boasts lithium bearing pegmatites never previously explored for lithium.

Podium Minerals has stepped up its hunt for more platinum group metals to add to the company’s 2.2 million ounce combined platinum, palladium and gold resource at its Parks Reef project in WA. More than 12,000 metres of drilling is planned for the new year as a separate three-hole campaign to test grade continuity and thickness of the mineralised reef at depth draws to a close.

Venture Minerals has ended the year with a bang after new drilling at its Mount Lindsay tin-tungsten project in Tasmania included a monster-sized 147m drill intersection going 1 per cent tin and 0.2 per cent tungsten. The latest stellar results sent the company’s share price soaring by more than 27 per cent in intraday trading.

CZR Resources has wrapped up an infill drilling campaign designed to grow the reserves and boost anticipated production from 2mt to 3mt per annum at its Robe Mesa iron ore deposit in WA . The updated reserve estimate will feed into an ongoing definitive feasibility study that will benefit from the infill drilling campaign consisting of 164 RC holes for 7,803 metres within the resource envelope.

Panther Metals has wasted no time getting stuck into its maiden RC drill campaign targeting nickel sulphides at the company’s Coglia project in WA after listing on the ASX only last week. The planned 6,000 metre program will explore the deeper nickel sulphide potential at the Coglia nickel-cobalt project southeast of Laverton before shifting focus to its Eight Foot Well gold project nearby.

Middle Island Resources has sold its Sandstone gold project and processing plant to Aurumin for $6m cash and $6m in Aurumin shares. The deal allows Middle Island to maintain some upside to the project via its Aurumin holdings whilst it takes its $6m in cash up to Tennant Creek in the NT where it is planning to hit the turbo charge button on its copper gold portfolio.

A first pass reconnaissance trip by White Cliff Minerals at its Yinnetharra lithium and rare earths exploration project has yielded encouraging early results. Samples of pegmatite dykes have been sent for laboratory assay and White Cliff said it would aggressively advance exploration now at its Yinnetharra project that sits some 100 kilometres northeast of the Gascoyne Junction in WA.

Kula Gold has polished off a diamond drilling program at its Crayfish gold target in the fruitful Southern Cross goldfields of WA, intersecting a trifecta of greenstone and quartz veins in each of the three holes plunged. The company is now set to run its geological interpretation thumb across its latest samples and push its new core to a laboratory for assay analysis.

Torian Resources has received encouraging news from its Mt Stirling Gold project near Leonora in WA after the company confirmed the presence of primary gold at its Hydra prospect. The best hit from preliminary assay results included a 2 metre intersection grading 2.6 grams per tonne gold from 106m, including a 1m strike going 3.2 grams per tonne gold.

Quantum Graphite saw its share price soar by more than 200 per cent after re-commencing trading on the ASX following a 15-month hiatus. The company now plans to step up its search for graphite to add to its recently updated Uley 2 and Uley 3 resource base in South Australia where a hefty 7.2 million tonnes going 10.5 per cent total graphitic carbon has been defined.

Technology Metals Australia is continuing to work on a string of activities as part of an ongoing “integration study” that will look to boost the mine life at its Gabanintha vanadium project in WA by over 55 per cent. The study is designed to incorporate ore from the company’s nearby Yarrabubba deposit, which it says could boost the expected mine life at Gabanintha from 16 to 25 years.

Legend Mining has been setting a cracking pace at its Mawson Project in the fabled Fraser Range mineral belt of WA whilst putting in some hard yards when it comes to the science behind its mineral deposit. The ASX-listed explorer has just wrapped up a 3D seismic survey which applied the revolutionary oil and gas exploration technology to its hunt for nickel at Mawson.

Galan Lithium has taken a vital step at its Hombre Muerto West lithium brine project in Argentina after appointing engineering consultancy Hatch to run a feasibility study over the project. According to the company, the study is anticipated to be delivered towards the end of the new year and will firm up numbers from a previous scoping study.

Novo Resources Corporation has upped the ante at its Beatons Creek conglomerate gold project near Nullagine in WA’s Pilbara region, after a revised mining approach delivered an optimised five-year plan through to 2026. According to the company, the revised approach delivered a higher processing grade in November of 1.58 grams per tonne against an average grade for both October and November of 1.3 grams per tonne gold.

Kairos Minerals has identified several extensive pegmatite outcrops within a previously defined major lithium-caesium-tantalum anomaly less than 3 kilometres from Mineral Resources’ revered Wodgina lithium project. A recent soil sampling program undertaken at the project returned significant assays including 238 parts per million lithium, 293ppm caesium and 582ppm rubidium. Additionally, a historical rock chip in the area returned a solid 1.6 per cent lithium.

ASX-listed Infinity Lithium Corporation looks to be advancing its San José lithium project in Spain, with the company’s wholly-owned subsidiary, Infinity GreenTech, progressing test work for a “cutting-edge” lithium hydrometallurgical conversion process. The company says its latest venture follows good recoveries of lithium from open circuit test work on its lithium micas.

ASX-listed heavy rare earths developer Northern Minerals, has secured a $4.3 million refund from the ATO as part of the Government’s research and development tax offset scheme for work completed at its Browns Range Pilot plant project in the Kimberley. The refund comes off the back of trial beneficiation and hydrometallurgical plant testing designed to advance the company’s knowledge around processing of its heavy rare earths.

Neometals’ 70 per cent owned subsidiary company, Reed Advanced Materials has entered a co-operation agreement with Portugal’s largest chemical producer, Bondalti Chemicals seeking to commercialise Reed’s “ELi” processing technology for the sustainable production of battery quality lithium hydroxide and carbonate. The collaborators aim to construct a pilot plant ahead of a proposed 25,000 tonne per annum industrial scale lithium refinery in Portugal.

ASX-listed Galan Lithium is steaming ahead with a suite of exploration works to feed into an upcoming DFS at its flagship Hombre Muerto West lithium brine project in Argentina where a 40 year mine life has been envisaged. Construction of evaporation ponds for a pilot plant aiming to generate high-grade lithium concentrate have now commenced, whilst a drilling campaign seeking to grow the existing resource base has intensified.

ASX-listed Great Southern Mining has the rods turning again with two 160m diamond holes at its Southern Star prospect designed to build on some previous stunning intercepts and increase its understanding of the deposit. Meanwhile, an oversubscribed capital raise of $1.6m before costs will help Great Southern fund further drilling in WA and Queensland.

Brightstar Resources has locked in an air-core drill rig to test a grab bag of high-quality targets at its Brightstar South gold project located approximately 40 kilometres southeast of Laverton in WA. Although the target areas have shown significant anomalism, giving up over 5,000 ounces of gold historically, the prospects have inexplicably, never been run to ground with modern exploratory drilling.

Buru shareholders will be looking for some post-Christmas cheer from the Canning Basin with follow up testing of a newly interpreted zone at its recently upgraded Rafael discovery about to happen. The company also has another development well about to kick off aimed at lifting production and cash flows from its cash generating Ungani oilfield.

ASX-listed copper developer, Hot Chili has secured funding to the tune of C$30 million from major institutional investors and existing shareholders. The funds will underwrite 18-months of drilling and development works at its multi-deposit Costa Fuego copper-gold porphyry project in Chile. The company is also preparing to list on the Toronto Stock Exchange, which will then see its shares traded in both Australia and Canada.

Panther Metals commenced trading on the ASX today after raising $5 million through its initial public offering. Drilling at its flagship Coglia nickel laterite deposit is set to commence imminently with a 5,000m RC program aimed at following up some historical drill hits going 2.5 per cent nickel. The maiden drilling also aims to shore up the estimated 30-50 million tonne deposit grading at approximately 0.7 per cent nickel.

King River Resources has upped the ante in its quest to produce high purity aluminium precursor compounds to feed the flourishing lithium-ion battery industry. Using the company’s proprietary “ARC” processing technology, a second and third run of a newly commissioned laboratory scale pilot plant has now delivered a “Type 1” precursor aluminium salt going more than 99.999 per cent purity.

AVZ Minerals has locked in $75 million from tier 1 global institutions in a heavily oversubscribed capital raise. The company issued 150,000,000 shares at $0.50 per share to fund the commencement of site works. A definitive feasibility study for the monster Manono lithium and tin project turned out a robust set numbers with a final investment decision expected to follow the approval of a mining license.

Coda Minerals has snared its widest yet copper-sulphide intercept at its Emmie Bluff Deeps prospect that returned a whopping 83m of chalcopyrite dominated mineralisation. The width of the intercept along with the identification of the first material molybedenum mineralisation logged at Emmie Bluff Deeps suggests the company is on the brink of discovering the core of the deposit and its mineralising structure.

Gold explorer, BMG Resources is set to start the new year with a bang after securing a rig for a 12,000m drilling blitz at its high-grade Abercromby gold project near Wiluna in WA. The aircore drilling will test a series of newly identified structural targets similar to the company’s high-grade Capitol prospect where recent RC drilling returned a sensational 26m hit going 6.07 g/t gold.

ASX-listed Valor Resources is about to wheel in the rotary truth diviner at its Hook Lake uranium prospect deep in northern Saskatchewan, Canada. Major Drilling has been contracted to run the 2500m drill program which will comprise of ten to fifteen 200-250m deep holes. The drill targets are within the “S Zone” target, where previous surface sampling returned assays of up to 59.2 per cent uranium oxide.

Interpretation of a seismic survey by nickel explorer, St George Mining has uncovered another high priority nickel, copper and platinum target near the mineral rich Cathedrals Belt at its Mt Alexander project in the north-eastern Goldfields of WA. The new target, named ‘S2’, stretches for more than 400 metres down dip and adds to another key target recently identified beneath the Cathedrals Belt, named ‘S1’.

Blackstone Minerals has recommenced mining at the company’s per cent owned Ta Khoa nickel project in northern Vietnam and has plans to complete around 1,000m of development through the Ban Phuc disseminated orebody. The company is also gearing up to recommission the Ban Phuc nickel concentrator to produce two batches of nickel concentrate for use in the Ta Khoa refinery piloting programs.

Memphasys is rapidly hurtling towards commercialising with its “Felix” bio-separation IVF technology with clinical trials set to commence to assess embryo fertilisation efficacy in patients at four Monash IVF Australian clinics. 104 couples are anticipated to commence IVF trials in March 2022 with results expected to support regulatory filings and international commercial sales.