Matt Birney

ASX-listed gold and copper explorer, White Cliff Minerals has identified several high-priority gold targets at its historic Reedy South gold project in WA after completing a significant aeromagnetic survey flown across the entire Reedy South tenement package. The company says the aeromagnetic survey was commissioned in order to improve its understanding of what may be going on under the soil cover at Reedy South.

ASX-listed Horizon Minerals has shuffled its Kalgoorlie based tenement portfolio around and it appears to have come out with a few trump cards as the company pushes ahead with its regional consolidation strategy, focusing on WA’s rich Goldfields region. Horizon said its slew of recent deals is value-accretive for the company.

Native Mineral Resources has expanded its Palmerville copper-gold project in north Queensland following the grant of an additional exploration licence on the eastern margins of its tenement holding in the region that hosts the recent Leane’s copper discovery. The company now holds over 1,820 square kilometres of the mineral-rich Chillagoe Formation which hosts the nearby Mungana, Red Dome and Griffith’s deposits.

Venus Metals and joint venture partner, Rox Resources, have posted an outstanding set of metallurgical results from the Grace gold discovery in WA. First-pass, bench-scale test work on bulk samples from the discovery at Youanmi has returned stellar recoveries of up to 99.8 per cent of the contained gold in fresh rock samples.

Lithium Australia’s application for a US patent for one of its proprietary lithium extraction technologies, SiLeach, has been approved by the US Patent and Trademark Office. The Perth-based company also received a notice of acceptance from IP Australia for the same patent application, which is expected to be granted at the end of April.

Sure-footed East Pilbara gold developer, Calidus Resources has inked a farm-in deal to acquire up to 90 per cent of fresh ground, 20km east of its Blue Spec gold project, by spending up to $800k on exploration over six years. Calidus said the highly promising tenement is littered with soil geochemical anomalies and immediately east of a mineralised corridor identified by Novo Resources.

Comet Resources has unearthed samples bearing visible, fine gold at its high-grade Santa Teresa project in Mexico. Detailed geological mapping and sampling through the historic mine area has also identified a raft of previously unrecognised structures hosting gold-rich quartz veins that remain untested by drilling. The permitting is now well advanced and the company expects to kick off resource drilling in the coming months.

Godolphin Resources has unveiled a revised mineral resource estimate for its historic Lewis Ponds polymetallic project in NSW’s Lachlan Fold Belt region and kicked off a major drilling campaign in and around the resource area. The resource now stands at 6.2 million tonnes of ore grading 2.0 g/t gold, 80 g/t silver, 2.7 per cent zinc, 1.6 per cent lead and 0.2 per cent copper.

Smart tech healthcare developer, InteliCare has clinched a five-year master supply agreement with Optus Networks that paves the way for Optus to pitch InteliCare’s smart monitoring systems to its health and aged-care sector clients. InteliCare’s system learns the daily behavioural patterns of the sick and the elderly and reports back to family or a healthcare professional if there is a departure from normal behaviour.

PolarX has tabled a treasure trove of high-grade gold and silver results from the first-pass sampling program at its Humboldt Range project in the western United States, with several samples returning assays grading over an ounce to the tonne gold. They include assays of 37.7 grams per tonne gold, 31.2 g/t gold and a stunning 1590 g/t silver.

Todd River Resources has hit the ground running with exploration over its Berkshire Valley project north of Perth defining anomalous nickel, copper and PGE mineralisation over more than 8 kilometres of strike. Recent geophysics have also added some more colour to the picture, with moving loop electromagnetics detecting an anomaly associated with a key geochemical target.

Novo Resources has received a further cash instalment totalling $5 million from fellow aspiring East Pilbara gold producer, Calidus Resources for the staged sale of the uber high-grade historic Blue Spec gold mine and surrounding leases. Calidus now has 25 per cent of the project and if it moves to 100 per cent, Novo will pick up a handy $19.5 million in total.

Australian Bauxite is hoping for a clear run this year after its development activities were curtailed at its advancing Sunrise “metallurgical-grade” bauxite project in Queensland due to pandemic-related travel restrictions in the December quarter. The company did manage to notch up a major milestone late last year having lodged a mining lease application for the proposed development of a bauxite mining and beneficiation operation.

Mining software-as-a-service provider, K2fly will buy the software assets developed by an offshoot of Wesfarmers subsidiary, CSBP in an all-scrip deal that will see CSBP emerge as the major shareholder of K2fly with just over 10 percent of its register. The deal, which involves K2fly picking up the business assets of CSBP offshoot, Decipher Mining, is valued at $3.7 million.

Surefire Resources is set to ramp up its exploration across WA, with the multi-metal explorer looking to begin realising the true value in its diversified project portfolio. Whilst the company’s Yidby gold project has stolen the limelight in recent months, Surefire is also keen to launch into exploration over its nearby Perenjori iron ore project and the Kooline silver project in WA’s Ashburton region.

Estrella Resources is tapping into the deeper potential of its Carr Boyd nickel discovery in WA, with drilling intersecting a broad zone of sulphide mineralisation at around 590 metres down-hole. The drilling confirms the down-dip extensions to the previously intersected mineralisation, with other recent intervals including 3.7m at 1.14 per cent nickel and 0.74 per cent copper from 516.8m down-hole.

With more than 20 million ounces of historical gold production, the Zuleika Shear west of Kalgoorlie is tiger country and Dampier Gold would appear to have the tiger by the tail. The company is about to plough 30,000m of targeted air core and RC holes into its gaggle of gold projects around the Goldfields region that are headlined by the Zuleika gold project.

White Cliff Minerals has unearthed some encouraging copper results from an extensive soil sampling program at its early-stage Midas copper-gold project in WA’s revered Paterson Province. The company says its maiden reconnaissance program comprising just over 500 samples identified a 3km long copper-bearing structural corridor containing around three dozen copper hits of above 830 parts per billion under transported cover.

Calidus Resources has tied up the remaining 30 per cent interest in eight exploration tenements and three application areas surrounding its rapidly developing Warrawoona gold project in a deal with co-owner and fellow Pilbara gold developer, Novo Resources. The final consideration for Calidus to lock up 100 per cent-ownership of the ground was a one per cent net smelter royalty across the tenements payable to Novo upon production.

A week after new US President Joe Biden sent a shudder through the petroleum sector by temporarily halting future oil & gas property leasing, Australia’s 88 Energy is preparing to commence a critical drilling campaign on its already secured leases on Alaska’s prolific North Slope. The company is ticking all the boxes as it prepares to spud the first well at its exciting Project Peregrine.

Gold hopeful, Kingwest Resources has turned in the first assays from its inaugural aircore drilling campaign at the Goongarrie gold project and they have not disappointed. The initial report card reads well with one of the best hits returning a stellar 38m at 3.1 g/t gold from 62m, including 6m at 17.2 g/t from 94m downhole. The project sits almost on the main highway between Kalgoorlie and Menzies.

Okapi Resources is onto extensive gold anomalism at its Lake Johnson project east of Norseman in WA. Soil sampling across the company’s Mt Day gold prospect has thrown up three priority gold targets, the largest of which covers close to 2,000 metres of strike. Management is now planning further sampling across the targets as it looks to drill test them in the coming months.

ASX-listed clinical-stage biotech group, PharmAust has put out a call to pet owners who have dogs with B-cell lymphoma to allow their pets to participate in a Phase IIb trial to help the company evaluate its newly formulated anti-cancer drug Monepantel. PharmAust says recent trials have shown the drug is a safe and effective treatment for dogs that have not undergone any treatment for this type of cancer.

Deep Yellow has been recognised by OTC Markets as one of the premier performers on its OTCQX platform. The aspiring uranium producer made OTCQX’s Top 50 listing, which acknowledges the company’s annual share price performance and its commitment to international regulatory and compliance standards. Deep Yellow continues to develop the Tumas uranium project in Namibia with its PFS for the project set to be delivered in the coming weeks.

ASX-listed aged-care and healthcare technology outfit, InteliCare continued to produce steady sales growth in the December quarter, highlighted by the recent order from Eremea Home Care Services in NSW, while having increased its distributor sales channels by 45 per cent. At the end of the quarter, the Perth-based company was sitting on a solid cash pile of $3.1 million.

Anglo Australian has extracted high gold recoveries from initial metallurgical test work conducted on oxide and fresh rock ores from its historic Mandilla gold project near Kambalda in WA. Gold recoveries predominantly in the high-90s percentage range were recorded, which the company says supports a conventional gravity and CIP processing pathway to gold production. The company is edging closer to a mineral resource estimate for the project’s Mandilla East deposit.

ASX-listed Venus Metals has unearthed fresh rare earth element exploration targets on its ground east of Carnarvon in WA. Assays of reconnaissance stream sediment and rock chip samples exceeding 1,000ppm Total Rare Earth Oxides were recorded at two new sites less than 2km west of eMetals’ Cairn Hill Rare Earth Element anomaly which recorded a peak of 2,700ppm Total Rare Earths.

ASX-listed manganese producer in waiting, Element 25 has nailed a binding take-or-pay offtake agreement with OM Materials covering the first five years of projected manganese ore production at Element’s developing Butcherbird mine about 130 kilometres south of Newman in WA’s southern Pilbara. OM Materials is a wholly owned subsidiary of ASX-listed, Singapore-based integrated manganese and silicon group, OM Holdings.

Dual ASX and London-listed aspiring Balkans polymetallic project developer, Adriatic Metals has cleared one of the final major regulatory approval hurdles taking it a step closer to starting construction at its advancing Vares silver-zinc-lead project in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Receipt of the project’s Veovaca exploitation permit now paves the way for the company to crank up development at Vares later this year.

Ardiden has ploughed into its winter drilling campaign at the South Limb prospect in Canada where the company has designed a seven-hole program across the prospect, which lies only 500 metres along strike from the high-grade Dona Lake gold mine. The drill rig is scheduled to head back to the company’s flagship Kasagiminnis deposit following the completion of drilling at South Limb.

ASX-listed high purity alumina player, Altech Chemicals says it has kicked off battery performance testing of graphite particles that have been coated with HPA using its alumina-coating technology. It comes after what the Perth-based company described as the successful demonstration of the technology to coat graphite particles, typical of those used in anode applications within lithium-ion batteries, with a nano layer of HPA.

Wiluna Mining continues to hit paydirt, with the most recent results from drilling across its namesake operation in WA delivering a multitude of gold-rich intercepts including 34 metres at 4.88 grams per tonne gold and 13.37m at 7.03 g/t gold. The sampling of historic drill core has also turned up some intriguing results including intercepts grading over 10 g/t gold.