Matt Birney

Element 25 has bounded over the final hurdle in its bid to become an international manganese concentrate producer, this week locking down a vital groundwater allocation from the Department of Water and Environmental Regulation at its Butcherbird Project in Western Australia’s southern Pilbara region. The allocation was the final domino to fall in the approvals process and the company says the project is now shovel ready.

Barton Gold has executed two Native Title Mining Agreements with the Gawler Ranges Aboriginal Corporation RNTB. The most important of the agreements involves three exploration tenements covering the entirety of the Tunkillia project. A second agreement was inked to cover a small portion of one lease over the Tarcoola project area 70km north of the 965,000-ounce Tunkillia gold deposit.

ASX-listed Infinity Lithium has become involved in a Spanish battery consortium led by one of its key strategic partners, EIT InnoEnergy that hopes to snare a whopping €1.2 billion in pandemic recovery funding from the Spanish Government. The company’s San Jose lithium project may be in line for a €256 million CAPEX injection if the consortium’s application is successful.

Horizon Minerals has decided to hang onto full ownership of the historic Nimbus silver-zinc project near Kalgoorlie adjacent to its flagship Boorara gold project after turning down several acquisition and farm-in proposals for the asset. Nimbus hosts high-grade lodes totalling 260,000 tonnes at the bonanza grades of 774 g/t silver and 12.8 per cent zinc for 6.4 million ounces of contained silver and 33,000 tonnes of zinc within a larger resource.

ASX-listed aspiring West African bauxite developer, Lindian Resources has continued to put potential infrastructure building blocks in place to help accelerate the development of its Lelouma, Gaoual and Woula bauxite projects in Guinea. Its subsidiary, Terminal Logistics and Holdings recently struck a memorandum of understanding with the Guinean Government to appraise the possible joint development of the Dobali port and an associated logistics corridor in Guinea.

Ora Banda Mining has added to its rapidly developing story at the Davyhurst gold project that it rescued from the Administrators of the failed Eastern Goldfields Ltd after it nailed a set of drill results at its Riverina South Project. The development comes just days after the company churned out its first gold bar from the re-invigorated project north of Kalgoorlie.

Zuleika Gold has kicked off a 30,000-metre drilling program across its namesake project in the fertile Eastern Goldfields in WA. First cab off the rank for the company is the Paradigm East target where previous drilling has returned a wealth of mineralised intercepts including 27 metres at 2.87 grams per tonne gold from 33m and 7m at 9.8 g/t gold from 42m down-hole.

Australian-based Blackstone Minerals has graduated to the US-based OTCQX Best Market, the highest market tier of OTC Markets, on the back of its progress in developing a significant “green” nickel business in Asia. The company is currently developing the Ta Khoa nickel sulphide project in northern Vietnam, with recent results from its King Snake discovery continuing to showcase the project.

Aspiring ASX-listed heavy rare earths developer, Northern Minerals is looking to shave two years off its target date for commercial production and cash flow at its 100 per cent-owned Browns Range project in WA. The company is now aiming for first cashflows from a full-scale beneficiation plant at Browns Range in WA’s top end as early as 2023.

Victory Mines has returned a clutch of broad gold intersections from a second major drilling program at its historic Coogee gold project about 55km south-east of Kalgoorlie. The company says results from 14 holes at Coogee – out of 40 holes to be drilled in the current RC campaign totalling 6,000m – highlight the high‐grade nature of some of the thicker gold intersections at the project.

Altech Chemicals has taken a giant leap towards securing the remaining financing required for its proposed US$280 million HPA processing plant at Johor in Malaysia, with preparations well under way for a US$144 million listed green bond instrument. Altech’s Malaysian subsidiary plans to use US$100 million of the total amount raised as a secondary debt facility for the partial funding of plant construction costs.

Hot Chili expects a VAT tax refund payment of up to $4 million this year against all expenditure associated with its Cortadera copper-gold discovery, the centrepiece of its overarching Costa Fuego porphyry copper-gold project in Chile. Hot Chili says the VAT refund was given the nod by the Chilean Government and the tax refunds will shore up the company’s cash position as it gradually moves to full ownership of Cortadera.

Venture Minerals is poised to ride the crest of the monster iron ore price wave as it counts down to the start of iron ore production at its revived Riley mine in north-west Tasmania. The company has just raised $10 million and has been busy getting its ducks in a row for the main construction phase push at the Riley project development site including the critical wet screening plant.

ASX-listed Eclipse Metals has vectored in on a large circular magnetic anomaly containing multiple conductive exploration targets on its ground just a kilometre or two east of its recently acquired Ivittuut cryolite mine in southern Greenland. Eclipse is targeting cryolite, rare earth elements, high-purity silica and even nickel sulphides as it continues to explore its tenement in the frozen north.

Australian Bauxite appears to have added a second string to its bow with the company encountering intriguing levels of rare earth elements at its Tasmanian and Queensland bauxite projects that it describes as “potentially game changing”. Initial results from exploration undertaken over the past 15 months returned encouraging hits of rare earth elements at the Binjour bauxite deposit within its Sunrise project 115km south-west of the Bundaberg port and at the DL130 prospect in north-east Tasmania.

Comet Resources has rattled the tin and raised a million dollars from sophisticated and institutional investors. The cash injection will largely go towards funding an expansion of exploration activities at its historic Barraba copper project in the New England Fold Belt region of NSW. Recent geochemical sampling results at the project included up to 4.6 per cent copper, 4.0 per cent zinc and 0.7 per cent cobalt.

Indiana Resources has uncovered an historic gold assay that has laid dormant in the annals of the South Australian mineral core library for nearly six years without anybody actioning it. Indiana’s decision to re-examine historic core held by the South Australian Government could lead to a golden pay off after wide mineralised intersections were observed in a historic drill hole.

TNT Mines has nailed its first drill program at the Eureka gold project 50 kilometres north of Kalgoorlie after it hit 34 metres at 1.75 grams per tonne gold in one drill hole. The company has moved quickly to test the potential of the Eureka gold project after it reached an agreement to acquire 100 per cent of Warriedar Mining, the previous owner of the project back in October 2020.

ASX-listed Blue Star Helium’s US helium development hopes have been given a massive lift on the back of a 175 per cent increase in combined potential resources to 9.6 billion cubic feet across five prospects at its Las Animas helium project in Colorado. The additional 6.1 billion cubic feet in “2U/P50 unrisked prospective” helium resources came from Blue Star’s newly assessed Galactica, Pegasus and Argo prospects.

Hot Chili is poised to take full ownership of the immense Costa Fuego project in northern Chile, following the early payment of an additional US$10 million to the vendors of the Cortadera discovery, SCM Carola. The company has delivered a total of US$17 million to the private Chilean group, with a final payment of US$15 million now due on or before the middle of July 2022.

Ora Banda Mining has made good on its promise to breathe new life into the old Davyhurst gold operation about 120 kilometres north-west of Kalgoorlie after producing its first gold bar at the new-look operation. Davyhurst is a very different operation with a very different resource profile to the operation that once impaled Eastern Goldfields who slipped into administration with the project.

Si6 Metals has followed up historic drilling at its Maibele Project in Botswana, with new results successfully expanding a sulphide-hosting horizon identified back in 2014 by more than 60 metres. The company has returned to the Maibele after seven years and looks set to write its own chapter in the history of exploration at the project.

Aspiring Balkans multi-metals project developer, Adriatic Metals has secured a key regulatory approval for its Vares silver-zinc-lead project in Bosnia and Herzegovina that nudges it further along the pathway towards production start-up, expected to be later this year. The Bosnia and Herzegovina Government approved Adriatic’s application for an environmental permit covering the project’s Rupice deposit following an environmental impact assessment.

After a COVID-19 related delay, Native Mineral Resources is set to hit the ground running next month as it chases a range of gold targets at its Music Well gold project in the world-class Yilgarn Craton region in Western Australia’s Eastern Goldfields. Field work is set to include detailed geological mapping and sampling to assess the gold endowment of various prospect areas.

TSXV-listed Novo Resources has made its final payment of A$3 million in cash and issued 1,198,395 shares to the vendor to wrap up its acquisition of the Comet Well project in the Karratha region of Western Australia. The Comet Well deal comes just as Novo starts to pull dirt from its Beatons Creek gold deposit that it is looking to treat at its newly refurbished Golden Eagle plant south-east of Nullagine.

ASX-listed Aurora Labs has succeeded in upgrading the fume extraction capability of its flagship RMP-1 prototype 3D printer, maintaining its competitive performance edge in the rapidly developing 3D printing market. Importantly, the company says it has done so without any reduction in print quality. Aurora said the fume extraction upgrade which was delivered on time and budget is part of its 12-month development pathway.

AVZ Minerals is set to expand its lithium resource at its Manono project in the DRC with drilling below the current pit floor delivering an incredible 279.2 metre intercept grading 1.45 per cent lithium oxide from only 24.06m down-hole. With lithium companies currently enjoying a resurgence, AVZ continues to show that it may well have the biggest and best undeveloped lithium deposit in the world today.

PolarX is edging closer to the development of its copper-gold deposits in Alaska, with results from its recent drilling campaign at the Zackly skarn discovery highlighting the potential of the project and triggering the planning of a scoping study. The new study will include metallurgical test work and an economic evaluation of the metal-rich assets in the mountains of the northern US state.

Further metallurgical test work on Lindian Resources’ high-grade sample ores from its Bouba conglomerate bauxite deposit in Guinea has come up trumps again. The company says digestion test work following up on recent positive results from dry screening of the Bouba ores showed they were suited to both low temperature and high temperature digestion settings in Bayer process alumina refineries.

Iron ore monolith, Rio Tinto has signed up to a 3-year software-as-a-service contract with ASX-listed tech player, K2fly. Rio will make use of K2fly’s Infoscope software platform to manage very sensitive heritage information across its iron ore mining operations in Western Australia’s Pilbara region. K2fly said the total contract value for the deal with Rio was set at A$719,000.

Novo Resources is poised to join the growing ranks of WA’s gold producers having received its final approvals from the state government for the commencement of operations at its Golden Eagle plant south-east of Nullagine. Mining has already commenced at the nearby Beatons Creek deposits and with the commissioning of the operation now underway, the company is preparing for its much-anticipated maiden gold pour.

Blackstone has hit massive sulphide vein mineralisation in multiple drill holes at its King Snake nickel prospect in Vietnam while vectoring in on several high-priority electromagnetic targets, or EM plates, across the company’s developing Ta Khoa Nickel project in Vietnam. Blackstone’s KS20-02 diamond core drill hole tagged 9.4 metres of sulphide mineralisation, including 1.18m of a massive sulphide vein.