Matt Birney

ASX-listed budding gold producer, Calidus Resources says its Blue Spec high-grade satellite gold deposit is set to significantly boost annual production at its under-construction Warrawoona gold mine in WA’s East Pilbara region, following a Blue Spec “integration” study. According to the study, the company is now looking at forecast gold production averaging 110,000 ounces per annum across the first seven years of production at Warrawoona.

Indiana Resources is kicking its exploration efforts into high gear with an upcoming drilling blitz at the Minos discovery in South Australia’s Gawler Craton. The ASX-listed company was well blooded for the hunt after it recently unearthed an extraordinary 38m drill intersection going 6.54 g/t gold from just 29m. Other targets along strike will also be tested.

ASX-listed PharmAust subsidiary, Epichem, has entered into a multi-year license agreement to harness “Oxidative Hydrothermal Dissolution” technology from IP owner, Illinois-based Thermaquatica. Epichem will research, develop and promote Thermaquatica’s disruptive waste to fuels technology that uses waste and biomass as a feedstock. The company will also target government grant funding to accelerate its research and development initiative.

ASX-listed junior explorer, Kalamazoo Resources has consummated a deal with C$740 million market-capped Pilbara gold producer, Novo Resources. TSX-listed Novo will issue A$2 million worth of its stock to Kalamazoo to take on 50 per cent of Kalamazoo’s Queens gold project in Victoria and Novo then has the right to move to 70 per cent by ploughing a further $5 million into the project.

Strike Resources is looking to get a foothold in the burgeoning battery metals space with plans to spin out its lithium and graphite assets into a new IPO to be known as Lithium Energy. Strike will retain a 43 per cent stake in the new company that is slated to raise around $9 million ahead of its listing on the ASX.

Perth-based explorer PolarX Limited is expanding its footprint in America by proceeding with the acquisition of the high-grade gold and silver Humboldt Range project in Nevada. Off the charts samples grading as high as 3,384.14 g/t gold and 2,083.3 g/t silver highlight the potential of the project in the multi-million-ounce American mining region.

Victory Mines has wrapped up a second round of reverse circulation drilling at its Coogee gold project 55km southeast of Kalgoorlie on the north-eastern shore of Lake Lefroy. One of the best intercepts from Victory’s latest bundle of samples returned a broad width of 28m at 1.2 g/t gold from 128m downhole, including 16m at 1.68 g/t gold.

Perth-based explorer Kingwest Resources continues to make waves in the Goldfields of WA with an initial aircore drilling campaign at the Goongarrie gold project returning significant results from three areas where the company appears to have defined a gold anomaly over 1,000m in strike length at Area 9. Further drilling on newly identified targets at the project is planned for quarter two.

Buru Energy and its new farm-in partner, the giant Origin Energy, are gearing up to roll out a fresh oil exploration drilling campaign in WA’s revered Canning Basin during this year’s Top End dry season. Buru is chasing as much as 97 million barrels of oil across two prospects, including the highly anticipated Rafael-1 test well that sits east and along strike from the company’s producing Ungani oil field.

88 Energy has cracked 1,512 feet, or 460 metres, as it drills its way towards its highly anticipated 600-million-barrel prospective oil target at an interpreted depth of 6,000 feet, or 1,829 metres, below the frozen arctic ground in Alaska. Its moment of truth will arrive in just three to five days when it will get to test the reservoir sands of the oil-rich Nanushuk formation target.

Coda Minerals continues to receive solid results from its copper discovery at Emmie Bluff in SA including 7.58 metres at 1.51, however it is now casting its eye further afield as it looks to build a pipeline of copper projects in Australia, with the company picking up the interesting looking Cameron River copper project near Mt Isa in Queensland.

Horizon Minerals has completed its agreement to buy a 50 per cent interest in the high-grade Penny’s Find underground satellite gold deposit in WA’s Eastern Goldfields for $1.5 million cash. As part of the acquisition, Horizon has also committed to sink a further $1 million in pre-development expenditure into the ground to firm up a mineral resource estimate for the historic gold mine about 50km north-east of Kalgoorlie.

ASX-listed InteliCare has launched its latest product offering known as “InteliLiving Health Metrics”, which harnesses artificial intelligence to provide real-time reporting and insights of personal health metrics to assist in caring for the elderly disabled. InteliCare’s latest analytics offering integrates with wearable smart health devices to monitor personal biometrics in real time, enhancing its remote home and aged care facility-based smart monitoring solutions.

Northern Minerals has passed another significant milestone after producing more than 210,000 kilograms of heavy rare earth carbonate concentrate for sale to end-users. A 40,406kg shipment of concentrate from Northern’s Browns Range rare earths pilot plant is due to be dispatched to its European offtake partner within days. The shipment will contain dysprosium, terbium and yttrium.

Adriatic Metals continues to deliver the goods at the Raska project in Serbia with more wide shallow zinc hits including 36m at 3.7 per cent zinc, 1.4 per cent lead, 21 g/t silver and 0.2 g/t gold from surface. A third rig is due on site next month as the company targets a maiden JORC resource this year.

ASX-listed WA agribusiness avocado orchard developer, Alterra Ltd says it expects to bank nearly $700,000 courtesy of the Federal Government’s research and development tax incentive scheme. According to the company, the government scheme, administered by the ATO, recognises the innovative avocado growing methodology it has implemented across the initial five-hectare planting out of its flagship Carpenters avocado project development in WA’s South West.

Things are starting to get interesting for White Cliff Minerals in the Goldfields of WA with results from two gold drilling campaigns at the Reedy South project soon to be tabled as the company looks to grow its current resource base. New targets for follow-up testing in the second quarter and throughout the year are also being generated.

ASX-listed explorer, Comet Resources has struck an agreement to buy a portfolio of prospective greenfields base and precious metals properties in the Northern Territory in a scrip-dominated staged payment deal worth under $1 million. The tenements package consists of several exploration licences and licence applications spanning an area of approximately 840 square kilometres that take in the Oonagalabi copper-zinc, Paradise Well copper-gold and Silver Valley copper-gold-silver-lead projects.

ASX-listed Venture Minerals has started building a key piece of production infrastructure at its rejuvenated Riley iron ore project in north-west Tasmania, with structural, mechanical, piping and electrical installation of the wet screening plant now well under way. Construction of the plant will be followed by its commissioning, which the company expects to take place late next month.

Si6 Metals appears to have locked onto extensions of its Maibele nickel deposit in Botswana, with drilling 200 metres along strike from the known resource intersecting massive sulphide stringers that returned anomalous assays of both nickel and copper mineralisation. Diamond drilling is testing a new, recently identified hanging-wall sulphide lode, which lies around 200 metres to the south-east of the existing Maibele North deposit.

Kairos Minerals is getting into full swing with the commencement of a drilling blitz across two projects in WA. A 3,000-metre campaign at Roe Hills targeting nickel and gold is due to start early next month, whilst another 20,000m campaign is looking to grow existing gold resources at Mt York in the Pilbara. Both are due to start mid-April.

Troy Resources has teased out further high-grade gold hits from the latest diamond drill holes at its Smarts Underground gold deposit which sits snuggly between its active Smarts open pits at the Karouni gold project in Guyana, South America. The last batch of assays delivered some good widths including 20m at 3.68 g/t gold from 212m and 13m at 3.64 g/t gold from 177m downhole.

ASX-listed Chilean focused copper hopeful, Hot Chili has unearthed yet another spectacularly long copper mineralised drill hit at its giant Cortadera copper-gold porphyry discovery in Chile. Latest results from the company’s 40,000m follow-up drilling campaign at Cortadera were headlined by an eye-catching 813m intercept grading an average 0.4 per cent copper and 0.1 g/t gold from just 54m depth.

Coda Minerals has the bit between its teeth at its Emmie Bluff copper project, having completed a 17-hole diamond drilling program across the South Australian target. The drill program completes a significant milestone in the company’s advance towards declaring a maiden JORC resource in the coming months. It is now logging and sampling almost 8,000m of drill core while awaiting the results from the assay labs.

Sihayo Gold has unearthed an intriguing near-surface bonanza gold drill hit at its Hutabargot Julu epithermal gold-silver prospect in North Sumatra, Indonesia. The high-grade intersection was 9m at 8.36 g/t gold and 9.3 g/t silver from just 8m depth including 1.2m going a spectacular 48.4 g/t gold and 23.7 g/t silver, providing some cause for on-market excitement as the company’s share price more than doubled in intraday trade.

Si6 Metals’ Monument gold project in the world-class Laverton Tectonic Zone of WA is starting to look the goods. Initial results from recently completed drilling have returned significant gold, with a stand-out intercept of 6m grading 3.15 g/t gold from 95m depth leading the pack. Results from a further twenty-five holes remain pending with a resource update expected to follow.

Whilst ASX-listed Infinity Lithium is fleshing out a formal feasibility study for its vertically integrated, battery-grade lithium hydroxide project in Spain, Europe’s key power brokers have met for the fifth time under the guise of the European Battery Alliance to reaffirm the region’s investment commitment to sustainable local sourcing of raw materials used in the battery value chain.

Blackstone Minerals is looking to fast-track its development program in Vietnam, establishing separate business units to handle critical components of the evolving pre-feasibility study over the Ta Khoa nickel project. The company’s recent work program has focused on drilling out a wealth of nickel sulphide resources across the project, however Blackstone is now shifting the spotlight back onto a potential move into a production.

Terrain Minerals is getting set to resume gold drilling at its Smokebush project in WA. A successful campaign at the Monza prospect last year will be followed-up in the renewed campaign, with the Paradise City prospect, on newly acquired tenure, to also be drill tested. Last year Monza the delivered some solid numbers including 4 metres grading 4.46 grams per tonne gold.

Todd River Resources has kicked off an auger geochemical sampling program over a large section of the eastern trend of mafic and ultramafic rocks it considers prospective for intrusive-style nickel-copper-PGE mineralisation at its Berkshire Valley project in WA. The company says the auger drilling is aimed at detecting areas of coincident nickel-copper-PGE anomalies, similar to those identified along part of the nearby western trend.

ASX-listed gold hopeful, Zuleika Gold has weathered disruptions due to unseasonal heavy rain and punched out 115 aircore holes for a total drilling coverage of 6,779 metres at the Paradigm East and Browns Dam prospects at its Zuleika gold project in WA. The holes are part of a recently launched 30,000m-plus aircore and RC drilling blitz at the project near Kalgoorlie.

Wiluna Mining Corporation’s ongoing drilling campaign has delivered a massive 142 per cent increase in the contained gold within company’s mineable underground ore reserves. Development drilling has rapidly built the Wiluna’s underground inventory across the site, which now tips the scales at 4.33 million tonnes at 4.74 grams per tonne for over 660,000 ounces of gold.