Matt Birney

Godolphin Resources is set to kick off a maiden drilling program at its Copper Hill East project located 35km north of Orange in NSW and only 60km south of Alkane’s venerated Boda copper-gold discovery. A recent soil sampling program defined a coherent gold and copper anomaly at the project with copper assays grading up to 817 parts per million.

Coziron Resources will soon have an RC rig spinning up a storm at its Croydon gold project in WA’s Pilbara region after the company’s maiden drill program hit some notable results, including 8m grading 10.2 grams per tonne gold with a one metre interval running at over two ounces to the tonne from the Top Camp discovery.

Hammer Metals has nailed down additional strategic tenure in the revered Yandal gold belt of Western Australia. The company has added the Bronzewing North project to its already impressive ground holding in the region and extended its footprint across the world-class terrane to over 260 square kilometres, adding two near-term exploration targets at Sword and Sam Well in the process.

Classic Minerals looks set to deliver early cashflows from the high-grade Kat Gap gold deposit in WA. The company has flagged the early delivery of its modular Gekko gravity processing plant which is now slated to be on the ground in Perth in second half of August 2020. The modular gold plant looks set to deliver Classic a clever short-cut through the development process and a rapid pathway to early cashflows.

ASX-listed aspiring gold developer, Middle Island Resources, appears to have another satellite deposit unfolding at its Sandstone gold project in the central Goldfields of WA as it works towards building a mineable resource inventory to support a strategy of recommissioning the mine site’s mothballed processing plant. The new McIntyre deposit recently returned better intersections of 13m grading 1.94 g/t gold and 9m at 3.53 g/t.

ASX-listed bauxite hopeful Lindian Resources has snared the services of 45-year bauxite and alumina veteran, Yves Occello, pictured, appointing him as a Non-Executive Director as the company looks to beef up its board to execute a plan to advance its high-grade Gaoual conglomerate bauxite project in Guinea towards production. Occello has been a Director of Compagnie de Bauxite de Guinee, Guinea’s largest bauxite producer for 30 years.

With its Browns Range pilot plant in WA’s north set to re-start heavy rare earths production any day now, ASX-listed Northern Minerals has moved quickly to replace its former MD, George Bauk, by promoting long-serving Chief Financial Officer and Company Secretary, Mark Tory, to the role of Chief Executive Officer. Tory is a Chartered Accountant with over three decades of mining industry experience.

ASX-listed gold explorer, Great Southern Mining, looks to have struck paydirt in its first diamond drill hole at its Cox’s Find gold project about 65km north of Laverton in WA, underlining the high-grade aura of the historic project. The Perth-based company returned a bonanza intercept of 1.1m going a whopping 404.0 grams per tonne gold, or an eye-watering 13 ounces to the tonne gold.

Legend Mining believes it is onto the northern extensions of its Mawson nickel discovery in the revered Fraser Range with a down hole EM survey lighting up a booming off-hole conductor adjacent to a recent RC drill hole. The conductor is perfectly positioned along strike from the previously drilled nickel sulphides at Mawson’s with a diamond rig now scheduled to be onsite next week to test the enticing target.

Kingwest Resources is about to embark on a maiden RAB and aircore drilling program at its Goongarrie gold project 40km south of its flagship Menzies project and 90km north of Kalgoorlie. The gold hopeful, who recently completed an encouraging scoping study on the Goongarrie Lady deposit, has decided to sink the drill bit into what it describes as “an overlooked gold exploration opportunity”.

Great Southern Mining has moved to tie up more ground adjacent to its Cox’s Find gold project about 65km north of Laverton in WA, applying for 50sqkm of new tenements along structural trends that host gold deposits within the Duketon greenstone belt. Cox’s Find is located along strike and about 12km from Regis Resources’ Garden Well open pit gold mine.

Barton Gold has kicked off drilling at its Tarcoola gold project in South Australia, targeting high-grade strike and depth extensions to the Perseverance open pit. The current program is expected to plough more than 10,000 metres of drilling into a range of lucrative looking, near mine targets and is aimed at proving up the additional resources needed to underwrite a restart of the Challenger mill.

Venus Metals and Rox Resources have continued to put meat on the bones of the exciting Grace discovery at the Youanmi gold project south of Sandstone, with more high-grade hits rolling off the drill bit. The JV partners are not quite at the halfway mark of a 126-hole, 16,000m RC drilling campaign, which is focused on Grace, underlining the importance the partners place on that prospect.

ASX-listed agribusiness developer, Alterra Ltd, has elevated Non-Executive Director John McGlue to the Chairman’s role as the company advances towards completing feasibility studies on its Carpenters, 300-hectare avocado development in Pemberton. McGlue replaces well known farmer, Trevor Stoney, who served as Chairman from 2012 but remains on the Board as a Non-Executive Director as the company moves forwards with its new business model.

ASX-listed Proteomics International has locked up patent protection throughout much of Asia, Europe and the Americas for its predictive diabetic kidney disease test known as “PromarkerD”. Proteomics said granted patent and trademark protection now covers areas where 59 per cent of the 463 million adults living with diabetes reside after it recently secured patents for Brazil and Canada.

Emerging gold developer, Wiluna Mining, is on course to deliver an updated mineral resource at its historic Wiluna project by September and a new reserves statement by the end of the year as it advances towards fulfilling its stage one expansion plans to become a 120,000-ounce-a-year producer in WA’s Goldfields region.

Image Resources continues to revel in the current market conditions, pushing ahead with an accelerated development program and attracting new buyers for its inventory of zircon-rich, heavy mineral sands concentrates. The company has garnered increasing interest in its high-grade, heavy mineral sands concentrates and is pushing ahead with selective trial mining of the ‘ultra-high -grade’ core of the Boonanarring deposits.

ASX-listed dynamic duo Venus Metals and Rox Resources are at it again, this time at the Sovereign discovery within their historic Youanmi gold project in WA’s Murchison region. The Sovereign target continues to throw up some solid numbers including 10m going 3.64 grams per tonne gold from 79m. Venus recently finished three RC holes at Sovereign for a total of 530m.

Fresh from successfully raising more than $4 million from a rights issue and share placement, ASX-listed gold explorer, Kairos Minerals, is ready to fire up the drill bit as part of a multi-pronged exploration blitz across its flagship Pilbara gold project south of Port Hedland. Interestingly, the project is in the neighbourhood of De Grey Mining’s exciting Hemi discovery.

Recently listed healthcare technology player, InteliCare, has muscled its way into the east coast healthcare market after inking a binding sales agreement for 120 “InteliLiving” units. The commercial breakthrough comes from entering into a heads of agreement with CCNB Limited, a North Sydney based independent health and community services organisation.

Horizon Minerals has achieved a significant milestone at its Boorara gold mine, 10km east of Kalgoorlie-Boulder, producing its inaugural gold bar less than six months after its stage one feasibility study and some two months after breaking first ground at the Regal East pit.

Lithium Australia’s 50 per cent-owned lithium battery subsidiary, Soluna Australia, has installed its first residential modular lithium battery storage units in Perth. The lithium battery systems, which can be connected to roof mounted solar panels, store energy for later consumption – particularly at times when the sun is not shining. Soluna said the installations took place in the northern and southern suburbs over the past week.

ASX-listed aspiring gold developer, Middle Island Resources, is steadily building towards a mineable resource inventory at its historic Sandstone project in the central Goldfields in WA after recently reporting an increase in the total mineral resource that pushed it above 650,000 ounces of gold. The new resource now stands at 17.97 million tonnes going 1.13 grams per tonne for a contained 650,600 ounces of gold.

St George Mining is exploring for nickel-copper depth extensions at its Mt Alexander project in Western Australia, with a diamond hole currently around 795m below the surface. The hole is planned to target an exciting conductive feature below the Investigators prospect. Encouraging geology points to the potential for another nickel belt, parallel to the prolific Cathedrals Belt, according to St George.

Barton Gold’s due diligence on about 15 years’ worth of geological data may start to pay off shortly with a razor focused drill rig set and ready to test the more exciting geological targets at its Tarcoola gold project in South Australia. The company’s maiden exploration program will comprise up to 6,000 metres of RC drilling and will test for “mine-ready” extensions.

Kingwest Resources has lifted the total mineral resource at its historic Menzies gold project about 130km north of Kalgoorlie by a further 37 per cent after updating the estimate for the Lady Shenton deposit and unveiling a maiden estimate for the Stirling deposit. The revised global inferred and indicated resource for Menzies now stands at 4.78 million tonnes going 2.08 g/t for 319,900 ounces of contained gold, with much of it near surface.

Hot Chili is now a copper and gold producer and whilst it has spent a lot of time, money and effort proving up its Chilean projects, it spent nothing on CAPEX to start mining. Spurred on by fabulous copper and gold prices, Hot Chili has hit a big milestone with the start of mining at Productora four months ahead of schedule.

ASX-listed base metals hopeful, Blackstone Minerals, continues to put runs on the board in northern Vietnam as its company-owned drill rigs continue their run of success at the Ban Chang deposit within the Ta Khoa nickel-copper-PGM project with more lucrative looking sulphide nickel mineralisation presenting in the samples. Blackstone is chasing massive sulphide veins similar to its nearby Ban Phuc deposit, where previous owners produced 20,700t of nickel, 10,100t of copper and 67,000t of cobalt between 2013 and 2016.

Impact Minerals now has around $5.5m in its war chest after raising $3.24m in a heavily oversubscribed placement to follow up on past drilling that unearthed possibly the best platinum group result ever produced in Australia near Broken Hill in NSW. The project boasts a smorgasbord of mixed metals headlined by platinum, palladium, gold, nickel and copper.

Podium Minerals has kicked off on a resource drilling program at its Parks Reef platinum group metals deposit near Cue. The company aims to link up and fill in the gaps in the Parks Reef resource where there is little to no existing drilling and extend the total modelled resources over a combined length of 8.5 kilometres.

Godolphin Resources is gearing up for the second phase of drilling at its Mount Aubrey project in the revered copper-gold Lachlan Fold Belt in NSW, as it looks to join the plethora of gold hopefuls clamouring to transform historic mothballed mining projects into lucrative money makers once again. Earlier this year, Godolphin ploughed in 14 RC drill holes at Mt Aubrey, most of which intersected gold mineralisation.

ASX-listed Perth based Delecta Ltd has boots on the ground now at its REX uranium-vanadium project in the US where its field team has picked up some interesting rock chips grading up to 0.53 per cent U3O8. The samples also returned up to 1.36 per cent vanadium pentoxide, underscoring the historical uranium-vanadium occurrences in the region.