Matt Birney

ASX-listed gold explorer Kairos Minerals has ratcheted up its multi-prospect exploration blitz across its flagship Pilbara gold project hub in WA. The company has now kicked off a follow-up RC drilling program totalling 5,000m, with the large greenfields Fuego prospect within the Croydon tenements first in its sights followed by the historic Mt York deposit.

Podium Minerals has continued its winning streak as it races towards proving up Australia’s first economic PGM deposit at the Parks Reef project in WA. Ongoing drilling has extended the footprint of the company’s discovery to nearly 7km of strike with results returned including intercepts of 19m at 2.11 g/t platinum group metals. The company is presently modelling its latest drill results for inclusion in an updated resource scheduled for release in October 2020.

Aspiring gold developer Barton Gold has started the ball rolling on evaluating its unexploited 558,000-ounce Tunkillia gold project in the Gawler Craton region in South Australia. The company is looking to formulate a future development plan beyond an early production pathway at its historic Tarcoola gold mine.

Aruma Resources innovative approach to exploration is already paying dividends at its Melrose project on the southern margin of the Pilbara, with the explorer racing to peg two new tenements after identifying new zones of gold mineralisation in the region. The company’s project surrounds Northern Star’s revered Paulsen’s gold mine, with Aruma hoping to unearth a similar company-making deposit.

PharmAust’s cancer fighting drugs continue to inhibit COVID-19 in its testing of the effects of the drugs on cultured cells infected by the virus. Preliminary results from lab studies undertaken for PharmAust by the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne show the virus can be suppressed by up to about 95 per cent following treatment with the company’s monepantel and monepantel sulfone products.

Fuelled by rising commodity prices, Horizon Minerals’ high-grade Nimbus silver-zinc project near Kalgoorlie is back in play, with all options on the table, according to the company, and a few sniffs from interested third parties having already been received. Horizon, which this month launched a massive 70,000m drilling campaign at its adjacent flagship Boorara gold project, has kicked off a strategic review of Nimbus designed to maximise value from the historic mine.

ASX-listed gold developer, Calidus Resources, has cleared the critical final ministerial environmental approval hurdle for its planned $116 million Warrawoona mine 20km south-east of Marble Bar in WA’s East Pilbara region. The company is now progressing debt financing negotiations and says it has plenty of interest from debt providers as it looks to short-list potential lenders next month ahead of the project’s definitive feasibility study being tabled.

The Australian Taxation Office has thrown Northern Minerals a $10 million cash lifeline and wiped out a further $9 million in potential debt after settling a protracted research and development grant dispute that has played havoc with the company’s finances. The dispute related to which aspects of Northern Minerals’ Kimberley-based, heavy rare earths pilot plant were technically considered R&D.

Cobre Limited has pulled off something of a coup, securing 8,100 square kilometres of ground over the emerging Kalahari Copper Belt in Botswana. Cobre joins a star-studded cast of explorers and developers now hunting in this rich copper jurisdiction, with neighbours including Sandfire Resources and Cupric Canyon Capital, both of whom are currently developing nearby mining operations - exploration over the new project is already underway.

All eyes will be on Gawler Craton-focused aspiring gold developer, Barton Gold, next month as the results from its 5,328m phase one drill program around and below the old Perseverance open pit at its Tarcoola project in South Australia start to roll in. The program involved 37 RC holes that targeted along strike and depth extensions of the pit.

Impact Minerals has jumped back into drilling at its high-profile Broken Hill nickel-platinum group element project in New South Wales. The current program of RC drilling will follow up on previous high-grade palladium drill results and geochemical surveying across the project area, with work set to focus on the company’s Platinum Springs and Little Broken Hill Gabbro prospects in addition to the stunning Red Hill discovery.

ASX-listed explorer, Venus Metals, has successfully farmed out the Curara Well project in WA to AIC Mines but maintains a minority interest in the highly prospective joint venture ground that lies in the vicinity of existing successful gold and copper-gold mines. Venus now holds a 20 per cent free carried interest in Curara Well, about 170km north-east of Meekatharra.

ASX-listed manganese hopeful, Element 25, has hopped aboard the fast train to production, committing to the purchase of long-lead-time plant and equipment items for its proposed low CAPEX Butcherbird manganese project in the Pilbara. The company is on a rapid-fire project development schedule, which it says is advancing on time and budget.

Blackstone has charmed yet another nickel discovery out of the jungle in Vietnam, with geophysics lighting up the Viper Discovery Zone, just 200 metres east of the current exploration focus, the Ban Chang prospect. The company’s exploration and development program over the Ta Khoa nickel-copper project continues to gain pace with both a maiden resource and scoping study on the horizon.

Deep Yellow has teamed up with engineering heavy-weight Ausenco to oversee the latter half of the company’s Pre-Feasibility Study in Namibia. Ausenco will work closely with the company providing specialist process design, engineering, equipment lists and capital estimates as the company fast-tracks the development of its Tumas uranium deposits.

Aruma Resources has built on its already enviable ground position at its Saltwater gold project on the southern margin of WA’s emerging Pilbara goldfield. The company has added three new exploration licences to the project with its tenure now covering over 65km of highly prospective and under-explored stratigraphy. Exploration is expected to kick off in the coming weeks with drilling planned for later in 2020.

ASX-listed aspiring WA gold developer, Middle Island Resources, is on the verge of receiving government approvals for multiple exploration licences that collectively make up its big greenfields Barkly copper-gold play in the Northern Territory’s newly identified East Tennant mineral province. The NT Government has given the nod to the company’s applications for licences spanning a whopping 3,253sqkm and they can now be granted at Middle Island’s option.

Ardiden has cleared the way for drilling to commence at its 110,000-ounce Kasagiminnis gold deposit in Canada. The company has now received a permit to undertake exploration, completed its consultation with the first nation groups and engaged a drilling contractor to kick off its exploration program over the under-explored gold deposit during the current summer season.

If there are any major gold deposits left lurking within cooee of Kalgoorlie, Horizon Minerals will most likely find them after it announced this week it is about to launch a massive, 70,000m drill campaign on an axis around Kalgoorlie that will leave no stone unturned. It will cost $7 million and feed into Horizon’s much anticipated definitive feasibility study.

ASX-listed Lithium Australia’s proprietary processing technologies continue to demonstrate that metal dust from old lithium batteries, discarded low-grade spodumene and mine waste can be converted into lithium ferro phosphates for the manufacture of high-performance lithium-ion battery cathodes.

Terrain Minerals is off and running at its promising Smokebush gold project in WA. Drilling is now underway over the Monza and T13 prospects following up on a historical drill hits and high-grade sampling, including 2 metres at 11.3 g/t gold. Terrain farmed into the project in December 2019 and can earn an 80 per cent interest in the tenure by spending $250,000 over a two-year period.

Eclipse Metals is ready to launch into the second phase of diamond drilling at its high-grade Amamoor manganese project in Queensland. Initial exploration over the historic mining area has established that the ore system consists of multiple, steeply dipping high-grade lenses that remain untested by drilling and with demand for the battery metal looking set to sky-rocket the timing is good for Eclipse.

Wiluna Mining looks set to bank more than $110 million over the next 12 months after it secured a $21 million drawdown facility repayable in gold and hedged a further $90.9 million of gold at near record prices. The nine-figure windfall comes at an opportune time for the company as it begins the expansion of the Wiluna processing plant and gears up for an innovative transition into sulphide concentrate production.

ASX-listed base metals explorer Legend Mining has encountered more significant nickel-copper sulphide mineralisation at its exciting Mawson prospect at its Rockford project in WA’s Fraser Range district that looks to be shaping up as a possible extension to the original discovery.

TNT Mines has expanded its strategic uraniferous ground holdings in Utah, pegging the southern strike extensions of its historic high-grade ‘None Such’ and ‘Bonanza’ mines at East Canyon. The tactical move comes on the back of recent sampling in the old underground workings that has returned a plethora of high-grade results and highlighted the untapped potential of the Uravan mineral field.

ASX-listed aspiring gold developer, Middle Island Resources, continues to steadily build its global gold resource based on a host of satellite deposits at its historic Sandstone gold project in WA. The latest update comes courtesy of an increase of about 7,000 ounces, or 13 per cent, for the Two Mile Hill open-pittable resource that is now estimated at 1.25 million tonnes going 1.36 grams per tonne for 55,000oz of contained gold.

ASX-listed base metals developer, Blackstone Minerals, has further strengthened its drilling and geophysics armoury on the ground in Vietnam as it ramps up exploration at its 90 per cent-owned historic Ta Khoa nickel-copper-PGM project 160km west of Hanoi. The company has added a second geophysics crew and three drill rigs to its fleet, effectively doubling its exploration capacity.

St George Mining’s deep drilling program at Mt Alexander in WA has continued to meet with success. Initial results from the Investigators and Cathedrals targets confirm the nickel-bearing Cathedrals structure extends to more than 500 metres depth, according to the company. Diamond drilling is continuing across the project area with a flow of results expected over the coming weeks.

Ardea Resources has received plenty of encouragement from the first RC drilling the company has undertaken at its Aphrodite North gold project, 80km north of Kalgoorlie, with significant gold hits encountered in newly delineated mineralised lodes. Notable intersections from a seven-hole program were 6m going 3.60 grams per tonne gold from 44m including 2m at 9.99 g/t and 8m at 4.94 g/t from 172m including 4m at 9.42 g/t.

Barton Gold’s re-appraisal of the Tarcoola goldfield in SA is pulling back the veil surrounding the historical mining centre with recent magnetic and 2D seismic studies revealing that the Perseverance deposit may just be the tip of the iceberg. According to the company, the re-interpretation of old geophysical data points to the possibility of multiple repetitions of the lucrative Perseverance pit along a 14km mineralised gold trend.

ASX-listed explorer Great Southern Mining has received more high-grade gold sniffs from a new round of drilling at its second-string Mon Ami gold project near Laverton in WA. The new results follow on from its encouraging high-grade drill hits at the project a couple of years ago. Notable intersections from the latest drilling were 11m grading 7.9 g/t gold from 26m including 4m at 15.9 g/t, and 4m at 12.4 g/t from 80m.

ASX-listed 3D metal printing technology player, Aurora Labs, has now confirmed the appointment of Peter Snowsill as the company’s new Chief Executive Officer after he served five months as the Acting CEO. Snowsill, who has more than 25 years of tech-based executive, engineering and project management experience, took the reins during a period of restructuring and cost cutting largely brought on by the economic fallout of COVID-19 restrictions.