Matt Birney

ASX-listed Neometals’ joint venture company, Primobius GmbH, has successfully commissioned stage one of its showcase lithium-ion battery recycling demonstration plant in Germany. The joint venture company is owned 50:50 by Neometals and SMS group GmbH. The partners have developed an innovative proprietary process that focuses on recovering cobalt and other valuable materials from spent lithium batteries.

Great Southern Mining has rattled the tin for $2.5 million that will largely be funnelled into exploration at its exciting Duketon gold project about 45km north of Laverton in WA’s prolific north-eastern Goldfields. Last week the company reeled off a stellar 59m drill intersection grading 2.1 grams per tonne gold from 53m down hole at the project’s Southern Star prospect.

ASX-listed Conico has notched up a second successive round of sulphide hits as its drilling campaign motors on at the Ryberg project in Greenland. Downhole intervals of 45 metres, 32m and 27.8m of copper sulphide mineralisation have been encountered. The company believes the mineralised system is likely to be ‘fertile’ at depth and is steaming ahead with further drilling and regional geophysics.

ASX-listed minerals technology player Neometals has hailed its latest vanadium recovery pilot plant test work a resounding success. The Perth-based company says the scaled-up pilot trials produced a consistently higher than 99.5 per cent-purity vanadium pentoxide product from the processing of about 14 tonnes of vanadium-bearing steel making by-product, with average recoveries exceeding 75 per cent.

ASX-listed junior explorer Askari Metals has kicked off an initial mapping and geochemical sampling program at its “heavily under-explored” Horry copper-gold project about 90km south-west of Halls Creek in WA’s Kimberley region. The company says the Horry exploration licence area takes in a smattering of old copper and gold workings including the Western Lead gold mine and the Horry Horse and Leo copper-gold workings.

PolarX is making the most of the Alaskan summer and has already put a diamond drill rig on the ground at its high-grade Caribou Dome copper discovery north of Anchorage. The timely move into drilling has been prompted in part by the recent skyward move in the price of the lucrative red metal, which reached all-time highs of US$10,780 per tonne in early May.

Adriatic Metals has chalked up a high-grade, multi-metals hit from step-out diamond drilling at its proposed Vares silver-zinc-lead project development in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The company produced a cracking intersection near its keystone Rupice underground deposit at Vares of 21.1m at 296 g/t silver, 5.46 per cent zinc, 3.7 per cent lead, 1.22 g/t gold and 0.18 per cent copper from 338.6m depth.

ASX-listed gold developer, Classic Minerals has moved a step closer to full-scale gold production at its Kat Gap project near Southern Cross having turned the first sod in a trial mining operation. The company is targeting up to 1,000 ounces of gold initially from a bulk sample that will also provide important geological, engineering and metallurgical information prior to full-scale mining of its 93,000-ounce resource.

Bardoc Gold is crouched and ready to take that elusive leap from gold explorer to producer after the company locked in engineering group GR Engineering as preferred tenderer for the construction of a stand-alone gold processing plant at its namesake Bardoc project north of Kalgoorlie. The move follows hard on the heels of Bardoc initiating a “cash-flow optimisation” study on the multi-deposit gold project.

Torian Resources has picked up some encouraging gold sniffs from regional reconnaissance drilling at the Diorite Block section of its flagship Mt Stirling gold project about 40km north-west of Leonora in WA. The company’s reverse circulation program across Diorite produced better intersections of 1m at 4.66 g/t gold from 109m at the “Unexpected Mine” prospect and 1m at 2.19 g/t from 8m at Diorite East.

Aldoro Resources has followed up its “hole in one” late last week with a second sulphidic drill hole from the company’s Narndee base-metals project in WA. The company’s second drill hole hit 11.2m of sulphide mineralisation, including 3.9m of the elusive massive sulphides from the southern strike extensions to its VC1 electromagnetic target. The company’s maiden drill hole over the target delivered 2m of massive sulphides.

Hot on the heels of this week’s earlier announcement that Glencore has agreed to pump A$14.4m into Hot Chili in return for a 9.99 per cent equity stake, Hot Chili has surprised the market with further news that it plans to raise $40 million to move to full ownership of its massive Cortadera copper-gold deposit. Hot Chili stock soared immediately by almost 20 per cent on the news.

King River Resources says it has uncovered new, potentially gold-bearing quartz veins following an initial rock chip sampling program across its Mt Remarkable regional tenement holdings in WA. The company says the epithermal quartz veining with indications of gold mineralisation – such as adularia, malachite and oxidised sulphides – was identified in five different areas on the back of 88 rock chip grab samples collected during the first-phase helicopter reconnaissance work.

Novo Resources continues to churn out record production numbers at its Nullagine gold operations in Western Australia’s Pilbara, posting a massive 46 per cent increase above the June result. Revenue also surged 50 per cent over the previous month with 8,589 ounces of gold pumped out from the mill generating $19.2 million revenue. During the month the company also appointed Michael Spreadborough as its new executive co-chairman.

Barton Gold has put the latest phase of development work at its Tarcoola project to bed, with exploration work across the South Australian gold target including reverse circulation drilling and ground penetrating radar now wrapped up. The work program is partially funded by a grant from the South Australian government and paves the way for an accelerated development program across the historical goldfield in the months ahead.

ASX-listed Buru Energy says wireline logging at its Currajong 1 exploration oil well in the Canning Basin in the north of WA has revealed porous zones with interpreted oil saturations in one section of the well and a second section that has potential oil-bearing zones. Natural hydrogen gas has also been detected in the well that is targeting 28 million barrels of conventional oil.

Valor Resources looks to be on a roll in Canada with the budding explorer identifying a wealth of new uranium anomalies across the company’s burgeoning ground holdings in Canada’s famed Athabasca Basin. A recent radiometric survey at Hook Lake has highlighted several target zones in the northwest of the company’s tenure, alongside various new targets outside the recognised historical prospects.

ASX listed Aldoro Resources has hit paydirt with its maiden drill hole at its VC1 geophysical target within the company’s flagship Narndee Igneous Complex project. Approximately 2m of complex nickel-copper massive sulphides have been recovered and significantly, the maiden hole is also the first hole drilled in the area in nearly a decade.

ASX-listed junior explorer Oar Resources says it now has boots on the ground at its Crown nickel-copper-PGE project in the emerging Julimar province about 70km north-east of Perth in WA. The Perth-based company wasted no time kicking off its first-pass exploration phase at Crown after being granted an exploration licence covering the project area in the previous quarter.

ASX newcomer Askari Metals hopes to get cracking on a reconnaissance exploration program at its “heavily under-explored” Springdale copper-gold project in NSW during the current quarter after receiving formal approval of its exploration licence application. The Perth-based company is looking to start mapping and sampling soon and shortly get an induced polarisation survey under way that is aimed at pinpointing potential copper-gold drill targets.

Against a backdrop of increasing prices and market appetite for rare earth elements, Australian Bauxite is looking to build on a recent discovery of rare earth elements accumulations within its DL130 bauxite project in Tasmania. The company says the discovery appears to increase in grade in an arc from west to north-east with the latest hole drilled in the arc yielding an eye-catching grade of 301ppm neodymium oxide.

Aldoro Resources continues to expand its strategic ground-holding across the Windimurra-Narndee terrane east of Paynes Find after the company put its foot on additional prospective lithium tenure adjacent to its existing permits in the region. Aldoro has signed a heads of agreement with privateer Mining Equities to acquire exploration licence E 58/571 which sits next to the company’s Wyemandoo and Windimurra permits.

ASX-listed 88 Energy appears to have detected additional upside at its Umiat oil field on the North Slope of Alaska, immediately south of its Project Peregrine where it recently spudded the Merlin-1 well. The company says that analysis of Umiat 3D seismic data, together with post-well testing of Merlin-1, has revealed potential for additional reservoir sands at Umiat.

Zuleika Gold has continued its high-grade run of drill hits north-west of Kalgoorlie, with exploration at its Credo project notching up a string of eye-catching drill intercepts. Reverse circulation drilling over the Credo gold structure has returned results as high as 7 metres at 5.22 grams per tonne gold including 2m at an impressive 14.92 g/t gold from 89m down-hole.

ASX-listed Lithium Australia’s wholly owned subsidiary VSPC has been granted an Australian patent for its proprietary nanotechnology process of manufacturing phosphate-based battery cathode materials for use in lithium-ion batteries. Perth-based Lithium Australia says the cost of producing nickel-free and cobalt-free battery cathode powders can potentially be significantly reduced by using VSPC’s technology.

Barton Gold has landed a $300,000 grant from the South Australian government to ramp up exploration at the company’s Tarcoola gold project. The funding further validates Barton’s strategic position in the Gawler craton where the state government is looking to reinvigorate exploration across the fertile mineral terrane. The company says the funding will be used to expedite additional geophysical surveying and drilling.

Strickland Metals is set to kick off reverse circulation and aircore drilling programs this month at a keystone deposit and an emerging prospect at its Horse Well gold project in WA. The company says its recently launched gravity geophysical surveying work has turned up several “look-alike” targets near the anchor Dusk Til Dawn deposit that it intends probing with a round of RC drilling.

ASX-listed Blackstone Minerals’ board of directors has given the green light to a definitive feasibility study on a proposed downstream processing refinery and a related downstream pilot plant at its flagship Ta Khoa nickel-copper-PGE project in Vietnam. The move comes after the company tabled a “compelling” pre-feasibility study on hydrometallurgical processing of nickel sulphide concentrate to produce a battery-grade nickel-cobalt-manganese for use in lithium-ion batteries.

ASX-listed PharmAust Ltd subsidiary Epichem OHD has hit a milestone in its development of technology to turn waste into fuel on an industrial scale, after the company completed the build of a benchtop scale reactor that will enable research, development and promotion of its potentially disruptive technology. The reactor turns biomass waste from a wide range of sources into fuels, fertiliser, agricultural growth stimulants and even ethanol.

Bardoc Gold has pivoted towards front-loading gold production and cash flows into the first five years of its proposed Bardoc mining and processing operations in WA. The company says it has kicked off a cash-flow optimisation study that will run the ruler over increasing the projected annual gold production rate, margins and free cash flows across the first five years of Bardoc’s forecast life of mine.

Lithium Australia, through its 90 per cent owned recycling division Envirostream Australia, has filed a patent application related to its alkaline battery separation process used in fertiliser micronutrients, as it looks to secure intellectual property protection for its battery recycling technology. The company recently launched an expanded field trial using the process to generate samples for manganese-deficient soils across four sites in WA and one in SA.

St George Mining appears to be onto a new high-grade nickel trend at its Mt Alexander project in Western Australia. Soil sampling over the Carnac trend, about 14 kilometres north of St George’s nickel sulphide discoveries on the Cathedrals Belt, is producing anomalous nickel and copper along more than 1,600 metres of strike with drilling now scheduled to kick off in the weeks ahead.