Michael Philipps

White Cliff Minerals has contracted Expert Geophysics to complete an airborne geophysical survey over its entire Coppermine project in the Canadian province of Nunavut as soon as next quarter. The company says the campaign will use mobile magnetotellurics to image subsurface resistivity and it is expected to highlight and define structural trends to optimise future drill targets.

Classic Minerals appears set for a significant financial boost as it pushes towards production at its Kat Gap gold project after executing a binding term sheet with an international fintech for an initial US$10 million. The agreement with Swiss-based AuResources also provides for the advance of a further US$50 million in five tranches of US$10 million each.

Lithium Universe has secured a prime location for its proposed battery-grade lithium carbonate refinery in Canada after executing an option agreement to purchase a commercial property in the province of Quebec. The location for the facility is between Quebec City and Montreal at the Bécancour Industrial Waterfront Hub, with heavyweight engineering firm Hatch to undertake a comprehensive study for the refinery’s design.

Ora Banda Mining is on track to achieve steady-state production at its Riverina underground gold mine near Kalgoorlie in the June quarter, with capital projects complete and first stopes to be mined next month. First ore from the underground operation was processed as a single batch through the company’s nearby Davyhurst processing plant and returned 16,727 tonnes at 2.74g/t to produce 1383 gold ounces.

Novo Resources’ earn-in partner De Grey Mining has recorded significant gold hits from an ongoing air-core and reverse-circulation drill campaign at their shared Becher gold project in WA’s Pilbara region. De Grey has completed 10,500m of a 39,000m drill program at the operation, with initial assays returning positive results including an 8m intercept at 4.74g/t gold from 96m at the Lowe target.

This week’s Bulls N’ Bears top ASX runner is … Kula Gold. Its share price rose 100 per cent to join fellow movers and shakers Tali Digital, Bioxyne and Venture Minerals.

Ora Banda Mining’s Sand King deposit near Kalgoorlie is firming as the preferred site for its second underground gold mine following significant high-grade results from its first-phase drill campaign. Assays from the first 17 holes sunk at the operation produced grades considered favourable for underground mining after drilling extended the mineralised system to 1km of strike and 300m below surface.

Javelin Minerals has renewed the exploration licences for its Husky and Malamute projects in New South Wales for an additional three years after getting the green light from the State’s resources regulator. The Perth-based explorer considers both projects to have excellent prospectivity for scandium and rare earths, in addition to precious, base and battery metals.

AVZ Minerals has increased the resource at its Manono project in the Democratic Republic of Congo to an extraordinary 842 million tonnes at 1.61 per cent lithium oxide, representing a massive 47 per cent rise. The remarkable resource expansion comes after the company generated results from a 53-hole diamond drill campaign across 15,684m along strike from known mineralisation at its Roche Dure deposit.