Matt Birney

Market punters pushed Buru Energy’s share price up 25 per cent in intraday trading following news that the company’s Rafael 1 exploration well in the Canning Basin is set for production testing. Only last week Buru completed the drilling of Rafael and the company put a spring in its step after early indicators pointed to wet gas rich in LPG and condensate in the hole.

Mineral exploration company, Kairos Minerals has wrapped up a 15,000 metre drilling blitz with a bang at its 873,000 ounce Mt York gold project in the Pilbara region of WA. Latest drilling has unveiled new gold lodes in areas with minimal past drilling that have delivered wide and shallow intercepts including 20m at 1.58 grams per tonne gold from just 28m depth.

Superior Resources has wrangled a stampede of significant gold intercepts from 15 RC drill holes returned from the latest round of assays at its Steam Engine prospect in Queensland. Stellar assay results received include a 21m wide hit grading at 2.2 grams per tonne gold from 160m downhole and an 8m intercept that came in at 2.8g/t gold from 154m downhole.

Novo Resources has launched into a 15,000 metre drill program at its Nullagine gold project where it will focus on the company’s Parnell-Vulture prospect located a meagre 45 kilometres from its Golden Eagle processing plant in the Pilbara. The Parnell-Vulture prospect has an assortment of historical high-grade, near surface drill intercepts including a 9m hit going a commendable 8.4 grams per tonne gold.

Blackstone Minerals has secured a strategic investment in Flying Nickel Mining Corporation’s massive 44Mt Minago nickel sulphide project southwest of Thompson in Manitoba, Canada. Blackstone has pumped C$2.98m into Flying Nickel in return for a 6.85 per cent interest in the company. A Memorandum Of Understanding has also been signed with Flying Nickel to collaborate on upstream and downstream processing and opportunities around offtakes.

Okapi Resources has appointed highly experienced mining executive Andrew Ferrier as the company’s new Managing Director. Ferrier brings with him over 15 years’ experience in corporate finance, management and principal investment roles in the global mining sector. He previously spent over a decade at Pacific Road Capital - a mining and metals-focused private equity investment firm with interests across Australia, Canada and the US.

Venture Minerals’ Tasmanian tin pursuit looks to be heating up with drilling at its Mount Lindsay Tin-Tungsten project intersecting 93 metres of mineralisation in its opening hole of a freshly launched campaign. The intersection included a high-grade zone of 12m grading 1.7 per cent tin equivalent from 107m. The company says its recent work is aimed at completing an updated feasibility study for an underground mine.

Aldoro Resources is powering through a rock chip sampling program targeting high-interest lithium and rubidium pegmatites, following up some exciting previous rock chip samples at its Wyemandoo project approximately 80 kilometres southeast of Mount Magnet in WA. To date, 275 samples have been collected and of the 80 samples already analysed by portable XRF the overwhelming majority have returned highly anomalous rubidium values.

ASX-listed Quantum Graphite has delivered a solid lift to its graphite resources on the Eyre Peninsula in SA. Recent drilling near its hefty 6.3Mt Uley 2 resource grading 11.1 per cent total graphitic content has now defined an additional 0.9Mt going 6.6 per cent TGC at its newly delineated Uley 3 deposit. Mineralisation at Uley 3 remains open along strike and at depth, according to the company.

Venus Metals Corporation together with joint venture partner, Rox Resources, has struck several high-grade gold intersections at Youanmi in WA including a 3.87m hit grading a solid 9.9 grams per tonne gold from 328.33m downhole and a 3.62m hit going 6.49g/t from 315.42m downhole. The new parallel lode remains open in all directions and is on track to increase estimated gold resources at the Youanmi gold project.

ASX-listed Infinity Lithium looks to be systematically progressing its battery production expertise at its San José lithium project in Spain with the company’s freshly incorporated, Infinity GreenTech outfit lodging a provisional patent application for a cutting-edge lithium hydrometallurgical conversion process. The company says its latest venture will focus on commercialising low carbon footprint lithium hard rock processing technologies.

Kalgoorlie Gold Mining commenced trading on the ASX yesterday after raising $7.5 million through its initial public offering. Drilling is already well underway at its flagship Bulong Taurus gold project near Kalgoorlie with a total of six holes completed to date targeting some bonanza historical grades, including a 5m hit grading a whopping 52.1 grams per tonne gold from 15m downhole.

An intriguing listing is set to hit the ASX in December with the company, 8 Au Limited, offering a handful of impressively diverse Western Australia tenements prospective for gold, nickel, lithium and platinum group elements. All of the company’s projects are located in tier one jurisdictions and all have returned either significant drill intersections or anomalous sampling results that would seem to demand follow up work.

Zuleika Gold has consummated a mineral rights acquisition deal with Wingstar Investments that will allow the junior explorer to gain the gold rights of two highly prospective mining leases in the revered Menzies district of Western Australia. The company says the acquisition is consistent with its broader strategic objective of consolidating its landholding at Menzies along the highly prospective greenstone contact and proximal to extensive gold deposits.

Kula Gold continues to plumb the depths of the Crayfish gold target at its 100 per cent owned Marvel Loch project in the prolific Southern Cross goldfields in Western Australia. Diamond drilling has just commenced at the newly discovered prospect, extending recently drilled RC holes aimed at unravelling the geological secrets of gold-bearing rocks and structures.

Junior explorer, Torian Resources has unearthed more high-grade gold from a regional drilling push at its Mt Stirling gold project near Leonora in Western Australia. New intercepts from only two holes drilled at the recently discovered Unexpected prospect include a 4m strike going 4.86 grams per tonne gold from 52m and a 1m hit grading 7.41 g/t gold from 64m.

Wiluna Mining Corporation has posted an impressive 28 per cent increase in its measured and indicated resource to now stand at a healthy 2.73 million ounces grading 4.46 grams per tonne gold at its namesake WA gold operation. The company’s total mineral resource at the project now clocks in at 36 million tonnes grading 3.9g/t gold for 4.51 million ounces of the previous yellow metal.

Following a strategic review of existing pegmatite fields in Western Australia, ASX-listed junior explorer, Askari Metals has swooped on two compelling exploration projects, Red Peak and Mt Deverell, both prospective for lithium-hosted pegmatites to the north of Meekatharra. No less than 11 significant pegmatite fields have already been mapped at Red Peak, with strike lengths of some stretching for more than three kilometres.

Buru Energy has completed drilling at its Rafael 1 exploration well with early indications highlighting the company has found wet gas rich in LPG and condensate. The crucial wireline logging and flow testing will follow. Since its last report, Buru says it has continued to encounter good to excellent gas shows in the much-vaunted Ungani Dolomite equivalent section from 3,857-3,977 metres depth.

Wide-spaced aircore drilling by mineral explorer, Kairos Minerals has intercepted anomalous gold and lithium at its Kangan project in the Pilbara region of WA, just 20km south of De Grey Mining’s spectacular 6.8 million ounce Hemi gold discovery. A 3,000m infill air-core drill campaign is now planned for later this month to follow-up the encouraging results.

Todd River Resources looks on track to extend its growing list of nickel, copper and platinum group element targets in Western Australia’s South West mineral field with the company kick starting an 8,000 metre aircore and RC drilling program along the eastern trend of gabbroic and ultramafic intrusions in the Berkshire Valley.

Oar Resources has expanded its footprint at its nickel, copper and platinum group elements Crown project in the Julimar district, about 70 kilometres north east of Perth in the vicinity of Chalice Mining’s amazing Gonneville deposit. A new land access agreement has opened up a raft of new potential targets that will form the focus of Oar’s ongoing soil sampling and mapping in the area.

Askari Metals has completed its inaugural field program at the Callawa copper project that sits strategically close to Rio’s extraordinary Winu copper discovery in the Pilbara– and the early results haven’t disappointed. Rock chips grading 6.78 per cent copper, 4.35 per cent, 2.02 per cent and 1.85 per cent copper were discovered in the first pass in what is generally recognised as copper-gold “elephant country”.

First pass rock chip sampling at Twenty Seven Co’s multi-element Trident project near Broken Hill in New South Wales has delivered a suite of strong copper, gold and tin hits. The results include 17.6 per cent copper, 1.275 grams per tonne gold and 2.44 per cent tin. The company is now planning further sampling around the high-grade results.

Galan Lithium is probing deeper into its Greenbushes South project in WA’s South West with a successful geophysical pilot study indicating possible pegmatites at depth. A soil sampling program is underway and conservation management plans have been submitted for a widened exploration program. The Greenbushes South lithium project is a joint venture between Galan Lithium who holds 80 per cent and Lithium Australia who has 20 per cent.

ASX-listed gold explorer Barton Gold has wound up its maiden Phase 1 drilling program at its Tunkillia gold project in South Australia. Results have defined a high-grade shallow core at the 223 deposit, highlighting a potential development opportunity as a higher grade starter pit. Drilling has coughed up a slew of significant intercepts including 12m going 2.7 g/t from 101 metres.

ASX-listed Infinity Lithium is ticking off the milestones at its San José lithium project in Spain with the successful completion of the next phase of test work triggering the second investment by EIT InnoEnergy of €200,000. Under an agreement struck last year, the third and final payment of €200,000 is payable upon the completion of the bench scale test work slated for the first quarter of 2022.

Metal Hawk has snagged another solid nickel hit down dip of its discovery RC drillhole that the company says demonstrates continuity of high-grade mineralisation at its Berehaven nickel project 20km south-east of Kalgoorlie. The significant drill hit gave up a 3.4m section grading a solid 2.32 per cent nickel from 203.8m downhole just 50m down-dip of a previously reported 1m hit going 5.89 per cent nickel from 144m.

Tambourah Metals has swooped on additional land near Chalice Mining’s spectacular Julimar nickel-copper-PGE discovery in WA to become the second largest landholder in the Julimar region with a sizeable 1,127 square kilometres. The company has picked up two new exploration licences that it says are prospective for nickel, copper and platinum group elements in the region.

Triangle Energy is set to get the ball rolling on a front end engineering design study on a proposed 5,000 barrel per day modular feed renewable fuel refinery in the mid-west of WA. The refinery is slated to use crude, condensate and bio-crude feedstocks to produce renewable diesel and renewable marine fuel blends.

Novo Resources looks set to commence phase two mechanical sorting trials on its Pilbara gold deposits. The company says its ore sorter will be installed adjacent to the Golden Eagle processing facility in Nullagine and it expects trials to commence early next month. Following testing, Novo will relocate the unit and has plans to commercialise some of its lower grade Pilbara conglomerate gold deposits courtesy of the ore sorter.

West Cobar Metals says maiden drilling at its Bulla Park copper and silver project on the western edges of the mineral-rich Cobar Basin in NSW has confirmed its geological model for stratabound copper mineralisation at its namesake prospect. The company says all four holes drilled so far have intercepted zones of disseminated copper mineralisation, with the rig now set to test other compelling targets at its tenure.