Michael Philipps

Ora Banda Mining has hailed a strong finish to the financial year after mining a record 16,700 gold ounces at its Missouri open-pit mine in the June quarter – a 49 per cent increase from the previous period. The company churned through more than 229,000 tonnes at a grade of 2.3g/t gold, with higher volumes after exposing and mining its WMC and Monarch lodes.

White Cliff Minerals has recorded significant extensions to its maiden rare earths discovery at its Hines Hill project near Merredin in Western Australia, in addition to completing a sampling blitz across five other sites. Follow-up air-core drilling shows a 5m hit going 2066ppm total rare earth oxides (TREO) from a relatively shallow depth of 16m that included 434ppm magnetic rare earth oxides (MREO).

Toro Energy says geochemical analysis of assays from a hole drilled at its Dusty nickel project show two additional zones of nickel sulphides that extend its existing mineralisation closer to the surface. It has reported a 4.6m massive nickel sulphides intercept going 1.61 per cent nickel and 0.22 per cent copper from 194.2m at the base of the Dusty komatiite.

Infinity Lithium has secured a long-term land lease from local owners for the development of its San José lithium project in Spain, for a minimum of 35 years through its subsidiary, Extramadura New Energies. According to the agreement, the leased land is already zoned industrial, located within a granted exploration permit and includes the San José lithium deposit.

Ardea Resources and Brightstar Resources have agreed to a tenement swap as the former looks to expand its Kalgoorlie nickel project Goongarrie Hub, while the latter builds its Menzies gold-lithium operation. Brightstar will acquire all mineral rights to 10 prospecting licenses immediately adjacent to or along strike at its existing holdings, in addition to gold and lithium rights to another exploration license.

Reproductive biotechnology company Memphasys been granted two new patents by the Australian Patent Office for its flagship Felix system, ensuring that the integrity of the device is protected in all markets. Felix is a medical device that gently separates high-quality sperm from semen for use in IVF programs that combines membranes and a process involving an electrical charge called electrophoresis.

Classic Minerals has successfully completed the commissioning of its Kat Gap processing plant in Western Australia’s Goldfields region and has declared it will have its first bar of gold doré smelted this month. The company is set to start processing its 6504 tonnes of bulk sample ore at an average head grade of 6.06g/t, using a combined modular-designed “Gekko” and conventional processing plant.

Venus Metals says it has identified a strong lithium anomaly at its Youanmi lithium project in Western Australia’s Murchison region that may indicate pegmatite-hosted lithium-caesium-tantalum (LCT) mineralisation. The discovery was made from a reconnaissance soil sampling program in an area not previously explored for LCT mineralisation where several pegmatite outcrops are located.

Infinity Lithium says recent meetings with newly-elected regional political leaders have emphasised and reinforced the continued collaboration driving the advancement of its San José lithium project in Spain. The project, near the town of Cáceres in the Extremadura region, boasts one of Europe's leading JORC-compliant hard-rock lithium deposits, with an indicated and inferred resource base of 111 million tonnes at 0.61 per cent lithium oxide.