Matt Birney

AVZ Minerals has locked in a long-term lease over an industrial site earmarked as an integral logistics hub for the transfer of concentrate for export from its proposed Manono hard-rock lithium project in the DRC. The company says the Kabondo Dianda “intermodal staging station”, where the Manono concentrate will be trucked, forms part of its logistics plan to export finished products to global markets.

ASX-listed Estrella Resources has dished up a 22.85m intercept of nickel-copper sulphides above a previous hit that returned 20.1m going 1.04 per cent nickel at its T5 discovery north of Kalgoorlie in WA. Results from the current phase-three drilling campaign are due soon as the company continues to advance its geological understanding of the prospect ahead of the next stage of its exploration.

Queensland-focused Superior Resources has kicked off a significant new drilling program that will look to build on its gold resource base and follow up intriguing copper exploration signals at Greenvale in the state’s north. Managing Director, Peter Hwang says the planned 8,000 metres of drilling is shaping up as a defining step for the company and its bold blueprint for a greater Greenvale gold-copper production hub.

CZR Resources has managed to punch its way through almost half the planned 5,000m reverse circulation drilling program being undertaken at its 85 per cent-owned Buddadoo gold project in WA despite heavy rain. The company recently completed 24 holes for 2,298m on the first of several priority prospects straddling the Salt Creek shear in its project area on the Gullewa greenstone belt.

Todd River Resources has outlined a three-kilometre-long nickel-copper target at its Berkshire Valley project, 150 kilometres north-east of Perth in Western Australia. Recent shallow aircore drilling, designed to test for mineralisation below the soil and alluvium that blankets the region, has consistently returned highly anomalous base metal values kicking as high as 4,800 parts per million copper and 4,000 ppm nickel.

South Australia gold explorer, Barton Gold is set to list its shares on the Australian Securities Exchange in a fortnight after receiving conditional ASX admission approval. It follows hot on the heels of the company’s recently oversubscribed IPO that closed early and gave the company a $15 million war chest to unleash in SA’s Gawler Craton.

Latitude Consolidated says it has unearthed a new auriferous trend near the former Andy Well underground mine at its Murchison gold project in WA’s Murchison Goldfields. An initial set of drill results from the company’s 10,000m phase-one RC program included an encouraging 7m grading an average 1.9 grams per tonne gold from 121m including 1m going at 9.59 g/t from the Suzie North prospect.

Legend Mining has returned further encouraging drill intersections from the Mawson nickel-copper-cobalt massive sulphide prospect within its Rockford project in WA’s Fraser Range district. Best of the latest results are 3m at 1.04 per cent nickel, 0.61 per cent copper and 0.09 per cent cobalt from 181m and 1.7m at 1.48 per cent nickel, 1.12 per cent copper and 0.10 per cent cobalt from 456.4m.

Victory Mines has returned to drilling at the Coogee copper-gold discovery, near Kalgoorlie in Western Australia. The company has launched into a 6,000-metre drilling program over the prospect as it looks to begin testing a large porphyry target with recent resampling returning 17 metres at 1 per cent copper and 1.98 grams per tonne gold from only 77m down-hole.

Neometals says vanadium recovery from its Perth pilot plant has reached steady-state production. Successful completion of the pilot campaign will support the technical feasibility of the company’s proprietary process at scale and generate data that will be fed into a definitive feasibility study. Its pilot plant trial will process about 13 tonnes of vanadium-bearing steel by-product from three Scandinavian sites over 22 days.

Valor Resources has continued to build its portfolio in the Americas, pegging 14 new mining concessions around its Picha copper-silver project in southern Peru. The staking spree comes in the wake of recent channel sampling that produced grades up to 6.04 per cent copper and 18 ounces to the tonne silver, pointing to the potential of the underlying mineral system.

Kairos Minerals is moving closer to the coveted one-million-ounce resource threshold at the Mt York gold project in Western Australia’s Pilbara region. The company has launched a 20,000m reverse circulation drilling campaign with the aim to convert a newly defined exploration target into ounces that can be added to the project’s existing 873,000 ounce resource base.

Classic Minerals has taken a key step in moving its Kat Gap gold project in Western Australia to full production by securing approvals for trial mining of the deposit. The trial operation will enable the company to fine-tune the processing plant and generate metallurgical, engineering and geological information to optimise production and improve project economics ahead of full-scale mining.

Further investigation of ground that may cover an extension of the rocks that host the world’s largest spodumene lithium mine is now in prospect for Galan Lithium after the company reported positive indicators from a site visit to its Greenbushes South property in WA’s south-west.

Anglo Australian Resources has received a final payment from AuKing Mining for a 25 per cent stake in a joint venture covering base metals at its Koongie Park project about 20km south-west of Halls Creek in WA’s eastern Kimberley region. Anglo Australian retains the right to explore for and develop gold and other precious metals deposits within the Koongie Park project area.

Impact Minerals is off and racing in its WA nickel hunt, with the company identifying a wealth of targets across the state’s prospective South West Mineral Field and launching into an extensive program of surface sampling at its key projects. Impact controls over 1,900sq.km of ground between Northam and Corrigin, east of Perth, said to host a number of Julimar-style nickel-PGE targets.

Leading ASX-listed pure helium play, Blue Star Helium continues to expand its landholding around one of the world’s highest-grade helium producing fields in Colorado, USA, ahead of its planned drilling start in the next quarter. The company has now more than doubled its tenure near the old Model Dome helium field in the past 12 months with its latest addition of nearly 33,000 net acres.

Novo Resources has upped the ante at its Beatons Creek gold mine near Nullagine in WA’s Pilbara region, with the Nullagine operation pushing out more than 5,000 ounces of gold in May. Interestingly, over 60 per cent of the gold recovered in the plant comes via the nuggets and coarse gold captured in the gravity circuit from the company’s conglomerate ores.

Comet Resources has hit the ground running in northern Mexico with a drill rig already pushing out diamond core from the company’s Santa Teresa gold project. The company has designed more than 2,000 metres of diamond drilling to test the historical mining area, with exploration targeting a mass of quartz veins and stockworks which have previously returned assays of more than 950 g/t gold.

ASX-listed junior explorer, Strickland Metals has picked up a strategic slice of the revered Yandal greenstone belt in WA that complements its flagship Horse Well gold project immediately to the north. The Perth-based company acquired a 75 per cent interest in a cluster of exploration licences making up the Yandal East gold project from Renegade Exploration for a mix of shares and cash.

Coda Minerals looks to have unearthed a new IOCG discovery at Emmie Bluff in South Australia. The company’s maiden drill hole has bulls-eyed over 200 metres of intense hematitic and sulphidic alteration suggesting that Coda may now be probing a massive mineralised system, sending the company’s share price skyrocketing, up by more than 235 per cent in daily trade.

WA-focused gold and lithium explorer Aruma Resources is firing up the drill rigs in the second half of 2021 with maiden drilling programs planned for prime locales in the Pilbara and south of Norseman. The work includes keenly anticipated follow-up drilling at the emerging Saltwater gold project, south-east of Paraburdoo.

South Australia-focused explorer Indiana Resources has launched into a 3,600m aircore drilling campaign in the prospective Gawler Craton. The drilling is along strike from the company’s Minos prospect where the company previously reported multiple stellar drill hits including 38m going 6.54 grams per tonne gold. Assay results from more recent drilling at Minos are due soon and diamond drilling is also on the cards.

A review of historical drilling at its Ngalia Basin project in the Northern Territory has served up shallow uranium, vanadium and strontium mineralised zones for Eclipse Metals. Intercepts including 0.5m going 960 parts per million uranium and 570 ppm strontium from just 1m depth and a zone stretching over 11km of strike caught the eye. Seven untested radiometric target areas were also delineated.

Adriatic Metals has secured an exploration permit for additional mineral concession areas at its developing Vares silver-zinc-lead project in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The dual ASX and London-listed company was awarded the concession areas covering 32 square kilometres last year and has already completed an initial heliborne magnetics and radiometric geophysical survey across the new ground-holdings.

Emu NL is currently building a substantial copper target in WA’s emerging South West Mineral Field, with recent surface sampling at its Viper project outlining copper mineralisation along nearly four kilometres of strike. Sampling extended both east and west of the high-grade Netty copper mine and also returned anomalous levels of nickel and cobalt, pointing to a deeper sulphidic target.

WA-focused explorer St George Mining has launched into a 10,000m drilling blitz targeting new copper and gold discoveries along 35km of prospective stratigraphy at the Paterson project in the state’s north. The maiden reverse circulation program is aimed at emulating recent discoveries in the region that include Rio Tinto’s Winu project hosting some 503Mt in resources going 0.45 per cent copper-equivalent.

ASX-listed CZR Resources is set to tip $7 million into its treasury via a well-supported two-tranche capital raise, with the bulk of the funds earmarked for feasibility studies on its 85 per cent-owned Robe Mesa iron ore project in WA’s Pilbara region. The company will issue 608.69 million new shares to sophisticated and institutional investors including major shareholder, Creasy Group.

ASX-listed junior explorer, Okapi Resources has kicked off a maiden round of drilling at its Enmore gold project about 30km south-east of Armidale in NSW’s New England Fold Belt region. The company says the first-pass drill program, consisting of up to 10 reverse circulation holes for at least 1,000m, will probe priority targets at its two key brownfields prospects.

88 Energy has moved to 100 per cent ownership of the Peregrine oil project in Alaska, USA, by acquiring the half share of its partner, Alaska Peregrine Development Company. 88 Energy now has a clear run to continue exploration in the oil rich Nanushuk formation where it is targeting more than one billion barrels of oil in gross mean prospective resources.

Active junior explorer, Native Mineral Resources has added some exciting greenfields copper, gold and nickel search targets to its WA and Queensland copper-gold portfolio after a successful bid for ground in the WA Nullarbor region. The company is aiming to get on the ground and commence fieldwork as soon as the tenements are granted.

WA explorer, Estrella Resources says a further intersection of massive nickel-copper-iron sulphides from drilling in the T5 discovery area near the old Carr Boyd nickel mine north of Kalgoorlie has added to confidence in its geological modelling ahead of market reporting of assays. An incoming funding boost will put Estrella in a position to up the tempo again at its cornerstone project.