Michael Philipps

Lithium Universe has made a roaring start to listing on the ASX, with its share price touching 6.3 cents during intraday trading after it raised its maximum subscription of $4.5 million and opened at just 2c. Nearly two-thirds of the money the company raised in its IPO changed hands throughout the day with a volume of almost 57 million shares being moved.

Just a week into its pivotal deal with global IVF provider Vitrolife, reproductive biotechnology company Memphasys has already received its first order to put its patented Felix system into clinics in Japan. Last week, Memphasys revealed it had opened a new door by signing an exclusive five-year distribution deal with Vitrolife Japan KK – a subsidiary of the world-renowned Vitrolife Group.

Terrain Minerals has been given the all clear for a maiden drill campaign this month to target clay-hosted rare earths at its Lort River project near Esperance, after receiving heritage clearance. Last year, a review of soil samples from historical gold exploration at the site returned positive results, including 580ppm TREO, with 25 per cent of the total grade magnet rare earths.

Strickland Metals has officially kicked off a new 40,000m air-core (AC) drill campaign, with a primary focus on its Horse Well gold project about 85km north-east of the Western Australian town of Wiluna. The aim of the program is to define new shear zones and extend known shear zones further north where regional magnetic surveys suggest the structures may extend for more than 20km.

ABx Group has pocketed a cool $1.25 million in research-and-development tax rebates after receiving more than $503,000 from the Australian Tax Office for rare earths activities in Tasmania throughout last year. Earlier this month, the company’s 83 per cent-owned subsidiary Alcore took home a similar tax offset of $522,715 for work undertaken last year on its world-first process to recover hydrogen fluoride.

Xanadu Mines is on track to produce a prefeasibility study resource update for its Kharmagtai copper-gold project in Mongolia before the end of the year after completing phase-one infill drilling at the site. Management says the infill program has defined and expanded the volume of higher-grade mineralisation within its Stockwork pit, indicating both grade uplift and resource expansion potential.

White Cliff Minerals’ incoming executive chairman and mining veteran Roderick McIllree has vowed to mark his new role by immediately focusing on the company’s exploration and business development programs. Technical director Ed Mead will transition to the role of executive director of exploration and business development and the pair will work together to build a global development business of critical metals in low-risk jurisdictions.

St George Mining has picked up seven new hard-rock lithium projects in Western Australia through its wholly-owned subsidiary Lithium Star, including five operations in the renowned southern Yilgarn Craton area. The company has secured a total of 14 licenses covering a significant 653 square kilometres, with exploration programs already planned this year across each of its projects.

Auric Mining has notched a major milestone with all of the gold from the first 36,000-tonne parcel of ore from its Jeffreys Find project near Norseman delivered to the Perth Mint for its final refining process. A total of seven doré bars have been transported to the Perth facility, where the semi-pure alloy will be refined into its purest form of the precious yellow metal.

A new deal locked away with mining heavyweight Mineral Resources has sent Lithium Australia’s share price flying this morning, MinRes has agreed to help progress Lithium Australia’s lithium extraction technology, “LieNA” by solely funding the development and operation of a pilot plant up to the value of $4.5 million, in addition to providing the raw materials.

Strickland Metals has moved quickly to make use of the $61 million it pocketed from selling its Millrose gold project, with the company set to launch an exploration blitz at its Yandal and Earaheedy operations. Management says ongoing work in the Earaheedy Basin has identified a new lookalike prospect to its Iroquois project that has been dubbed Rabbit Well.

TSX-listed Novo Resources is aiming to join the ranks of ASX mineral explorers after lodging a prospectus with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission amid plans for an initial public offering. It has secured the support of giant neighbour De Grey Mining as a cornerstone investor and potential joint venture partner in a deal worth up to $35 million at its Becher project.

Infinity Lithium subsidiary Extremadura New Energies has entered into a joint venture with Spanish energy firm Enalter to potentially deliver low-cost green energy to its San José lithium project in Spain. The creation of the “Extremadura Energy H2 Hub (EEHH)” allows a first right to secure a long-term green energy power purchase agreement for the San Jose project.

Lindian Resources has hailed its Kangankunde rare earths project in Malawi as “one of the greatest in the world” after recording a massive 853.6m hit at 2.73 per cent TREO from 52m. Two deep diamond drillholes were sunk to 980m and one returned 156m at 3.61 per cent TREO from 124m and a 56m hit grading 3.83 per cent TREO from 289.1m.

Everest Metals Corporation has kicked off a second phase of drilling at its Mt Edon project in Western Australia’s Mid West region as it looks to follow up on positive lithium and rubidium results from its previous campaign. The company plans to sink up to 10 reverse-circulation drillholes to test pegmatite targets highlighted from a deep ground penetration radar geophysical survey carried out in April.

Lindian Resources is one step closer to owning its Kangankunde rare earths project in Malawi after completing the third of four tranche payments needed to acquire the site’s current owner, Rift Valley Resources Developments. With the latest $US10 million transaction, a total of US$20 million has been paid to Rift Valley, with the final tranche payment of $US10 million still to come.

Strickland Metals has filled its coffers to the tune of about $61 million after officially completing the sale of its Millrose project near Wiluna to neighbouring gold-mining giant Northern Star Resources. Strickland received an initial cash deposit of $2 million before getting an additional $39 million and 1.5 million fully-paid ordinary Northern Star shares upon the completion of the sale.

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.

Galan Lithium says it has produced a premium-quality lithium chloride concentrate from its Hombre Muerto West project pilot plant in Argentina, with samples ready to distribute to potential offtake partners. The company’s concentrate product contains 6 per cent lithium – comparable to 13 per cent lithium oxide or 31.9 per cent lithium carbon equivalent.

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).

TSX-listed Novo Resources is set to kick off a combined 8000m drill campaign across its key Pilbara prospects and its Belltopper project in Victoria following the company’s success at its Becher gold play. The exploration program will target Novo’s Nunyerry North, Balla Balla and Bamboo-Strattons projects in Western Australia’s Pilbara region, while it also has plans for a diamond drill campaign at Belltopper.

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.

Xanadu Mines is pushing to enhance the current resource at its Kharmagtai project in Mongolia after a new zone of high-grade copper-gold emerged from infill drilling at the company’s White Hill deposit. Management has four diamond drill rigs focused on infill drilling at the operation, with 27,000m of a planned 30,000m campaign completed at its Stockwork Hill and White Hill deposits.

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.

Middle Island Resources has officially increased its tenure in the Northern Territory and expanded its Barkly site after completing the acquisition of the East Tennant project from Strategic Energy Resources. The purchase covers six exploration licenses, taking its total landholding in the East Tenant region to an impressive 6753 square kilometres, with exploration programs set to be planned to identify new priority targets.

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.

Lindian Resources expects to reveal a maiden rare earths mineral resource for its emerging Kangankunde project in Malawi in just a fortnight, on the back of what it says are some world-leading numbers. The company’s latest drilling results include a standout 58m hit going 4.5 per cent total rare earth oxides (TREO) from just 2m, including 29.2m at 6.6 per cent TREO from 6m.

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.

Horizon Minerals has launched a new drill campaign in a bid to expand the footprint of its Cannon gold project near Kalgoorlie from a single planned underground operation to a mining hub with potential open-pit mines. The Cannon deposit hosts a mineable ore reserve of 135,000 tonnes at 4.1g/t gold for 17,680 ounces and forms part of the company’s 1.15-million-ounce Kalgoorlie-Boulder gold resource.

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.

Infinity Lithium says its battery training and development programs offered through its subsidiary Extremadura New Energies have been declared a “strategic” qualification by the local regional government. The Extremadura Public Employment Service (SEXPE), part of the Regional Government of Extremadura, will now provide grants through public funding in coming months to advance the company’s training initiatives.

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.