Steve Kaless

ChemX Materials has secured a funding package worth up to $6 million from US-based investment firm Mercer Street Global Opportunity Fund. Management says the fresh funding will go towards the company’s high-purity manganese play on South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula and its high-purity alumina project in Perth. ChemX has also promoted Peter Lee to the role of chief executive officer.

ABx Group’s 83 per cent-owned subsidiary Alcore has captured a research-and-development tax offset of $522,715 from the Australian Tax Office for work undertaken last year on its world-first process to recover hydrogen fluoride. Management says it also expects to receive an additional tax offset for the R&D activities it undertook at its Deep Leads-Rubble Mound rare earths project in Tasmania.

Ora Banda Mining has unveiled a swag of new drilling results, including an 8.1m hit at 13.4 grams per tonne gold from 515m, expanding its Riverina project beyond its current resource boundaries to the south and at depth. Management says separate exploration at the company’s Siberia project is also targeting below the current pit floors of the Missouri and Sand King open-pit mines.

An independent technical review of Gold Mountain’s Wabag project in Papua New Guinea has highlighted its potential for more copper exploration and recommended extra work across several prospective zones. Management says the comprehensive report’s author, Dr Steve Garwin, has already identified a series of targets using the company’s database for its Wabag tenements.

American West Metals’ stock touched an all-time high of 31 cents during today’s intraday trading, up from last night’s close of 20c after making a fresh copper discovery at its Storm project in Canada – including 45.5m of visual sulphides in one hole. It says the discovery exhibits similarities to many of the world’s major sediment-hosted copper systems.

After a successful $4 million capital raise, Reach Resources is set to test its Morrissey Hill lithium project with a maiden drilling program to target areas that returned high-grade lithium from rock chips. Management says its 4500m campaign will be split between reverse-circulation and diamond drilling at its project in Western Australia’s emerging Gascoyne region.

Legend Mining believes it is getting closer to unearthing a “Nova-style” nickel-copper deposit after finding encouraging signs in its latest diamond drillhole at its Octagonal prospect within Western Australia’s rugged Fraser Range. Management says it identified visual sulphides at regular intervals between 848m and 1661m in the hole which ran to a depth of 1700m.

Higher zircon grades and increasing demand for heavy mineral concentrate (HMC) has had Image Resources ringing its till, with a bottom-line boost of nearly $12.5 million revealed in its quarterly report today. The company also increased HMC production quarter on quarter by six per cent at its Boonanarring minerals sands project near the Western Australian town of Gingin.

Cancer fighter Chimeric Therapeutics has expanded its patent protection in Japan for certain cell therapy clinical and preclinical stage applications using chlorotoxin, which is derived from deathstalker scorpion venom. Management says the patents will expand the company’s intellectual property portfolio and underpin important assets in its development pipeline. Japan has recently been dubbed the world’s third-biggest pharmaceutical market.

Askari Metals has put the full stop on an extensive field work program after collecting 800 soil samples at its Red Peak project in Western Australia’s Gascoyne region in its mission to test anomalous areas of lithium and rare earths. Management says the results of the program will help shape further exploration plans, including a maiden drill campaign.

The natural hydrogen exploration program run by Buru Energy ’s 100 per cent-owned hydrogen and helium business, 2H Resources, has been substantially boosted by a new research agreement with the CSIRO. Management says the resulting study will focus on developing autonomous monitoring sensors to detect real-time surface occurrences of natural hydrogen in the same way mineral explorers use geochemical sampling.

ASX-listed mining software provider K2fly has unveiled revenue of $4m for the final quarter of the financial year – a 38 per cent rise from the same period last year and up 18 per cent on the previous quarter. Management says the strong results wrapped up a solid year of growth, which saw revenue grow 28 per cent compared to the previous 12 months.

Lithium chaser Gold Mountain plans to use a fresh cash injection of $2.25 million from the company’s latest capital raise to turbocharge its exploration efforts in the mineral’s burgeoning Brazilian hotspot. Management says its exploration to date has identified 250 pegmatites, with multiple soil and rock-chip sample results pending as it eyes a maiden drilling program by years end.

A reassessment of exploration data by Askari Metals has revealed a “corridor of interest” about 15km long and 5km wide and with visible lithium mineralisation at the company’s Uis project in Namibia. Management says planning is now underway to focus its exploration activity on the intriguing new area, as the explorer also evaluates recent acquisitions near its project.

Horizon Minerals has revealed fresh mineral resource estimates for its Golden Ridge North and Monument gold prospects in Western Australia’s Goldfields region, to take its total resource to 23.22 million tonnes at 1.69 grams per tonne gold for 1.26 million ounces. Management says further drilling is now underway at its Monument prospect, while both deposits will soon be the subject of scoping studies.

ASX-listed Classic Minerals has ticked off another key milestone for its Kat Gap gold mine in Western Australia, after using its Butchart table separator to produce gold concentrate that will now be processed into gold dore. Management says smelting its concentrate will generate revenue that will fund stage-one mining at the Kat Gap pit and targeted exploration in an effort to build more ounces.

Soil sampling by WA-based explorer Alma Metals at its Briggs project in Queensland has expanded its soil copper anomaly out to 2300m long and 1000m wide, with readings of more than 500 parts per million copper. Management says the work has allowed it to revise its target of 480 million tonnes to 880 million tonnes at between 0.20 per cent and 0.30 per cent copper.

Auric Mining is a step closer to a maiden gold pour from its Jeffreys Find project near Norseman, with the first 30,000 tonnes of gold ore set for processing once it is transported to Greenfields Mill in Coolgardie. The company says mining at the site has been ongoing for six weeks and it has secured triple road trains to haul its first ore to Coolgardie.

Alma Metals was up 70 per cent after tabling a resource upgrade at its Briggs copper project in Queensland that smashed through the million-tonne contained copper mark and added molybdenum for the first time to the tune of 28.6m pounds. Alma says Briggs has now clawed its way into the top 10 largest undeveloped copper plays in Australia in terms of contained metal.

Thick pegmatites, including one stretching more than 120m, have boosted St George Mining’s lithium search at its Mt Alexander project in WA, as it attempts to define a bigger lithium system. Management says its project confidence is growing after assay results from its recent drilling program at its Jailbreak prospect also confirmed multiple lithium-bearing pegmatites, with a peak value of 1.28 per cent lithium.

American West Metals’ Storm project in Canada has continued to deliver high-grade, near-surface copper intervals at its 4100N zone. Its latest assays results include 15.3m at 1.6 per cent copper from 59m, containing 3.1m going 4.8 per cent copper from 64m. Management says its expanding copper footprint remains open in all directions and a diamond drilling campaign will start soon.

Askari Metals has increased the size of its Uis project in Namibia by 68.2 square kilometres by securing full ownership of a new tenement in an area known for lithium, tantalum, tin and rubidium mineralisation. Management says its strategic purchase takes the company’s total landholding in the area to about 380sq km … and it is still on the lookout for more acquisitions.

European-focused Altech Batteries has engaged a group of suppliers with extensive backgrounds in automation and robotics to help power its move into the next phase of plant construction as part of its Cerenergy battery project in Saxony, Germany. Management says the design of the plant is aimed at completing one battery cell every 45 seconds as the project’s definitive feasibility study continues to gather momentum.

Classic Minerals’ Kat Gap processing plant in Western Australia’s Wheatbelt region has secured a key endorsement for its efficient approach to gravity gold recovery after an independent evaluation of the company’s circuit design. An independent reviewer found that the company’s bench and pilot-scale tests indicate its current configuration is well suited to maximise the recovery of gravity-recoverable gold.

ABx Group’s 83 per cent-owned subsidiary Alcore has been boosted by the arrival of a second $2.7 million instalment of funding from the Australian Government’s Modern Manufacturing Initiative. Management says the funding will go towards the company’s planned $16.4 million aluminium bath recycling plant at Bell Bay in Tasmania, in addition to supporting its pilot plant on the NSW Central Coast.

Alma Metals has expanded the reach of its Briggs copper project in Central Queensland, with its latest assays extending the known limits by more than 150m from the boundary of its current inferred resource. The company has revealed its latest drillhole produced a 366m intersection going 0.23 per cent copper and 28 parts per million molybdenum from just 6m.

Globe Metals & Mining has launched into its next stage of processing and testwork after extracting a 12-tonne bulk sample from its Kanyika niobium project in Malawi and trucking it to Johannesburg. Management says it has also selected six separate vendors to undertake key operational tasks as the project reaches its next stage of development.

Northern Minerals has kicked off its mission to establish a rock-solid financial structure behind its 100 per cent-owned Browns Range rare earths project in northern Western Australia. Management says the Federal Government’s Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility has completed a strategic review of its project and will now begin a detailed due diligence process as it considers a potential funding arrangement.

ASX-listed Valor Resources has signed an earn-in agreement with global copper and gold producer Barrick Gold Corporation at its Charaque project in Peru. Under the deal, Barrick has a five-year option to acquire 70 per cent of the operation for a cash payment of $1.2 million. Valor says the agreement allows it to focus on the upcoming drill campaign at its flagship Picha copper project.

ASX-listed explorer Gold Mountain’s stock doubled from 0.0035 cents to 0.007c after it unveiled a massive land acquisition in prime lithium real estate in Brazil. Management says its 3921sq-km package gives the company the biggest footprint of any Australian explorer in the region as it looks to transform from gold explorer to lithium player.

ABx Group has hit some “major milestones” through its 83 per cent-owned subsidiary Alcore by finalising the preliminary engineering design phase for its pilot facility and ordering a laboratory reactor. The alumina technologist and rare earths explorer is developing a pilot plant in NSW to recover fluorine from an aluminium smelter waste product to produce hydrogen fluoride.

Askari Metals has expanded its lithium foothold in Western Australia’s Pilbara region by finalising its purchase of Greenstone Lithium’s 60-square-kilometre Hillside lithium project after fully acquiring the now former owner. Management says the acquisition takes the company’s total landholding in the promising region to 2300sq km. The Hillside project covers two granted tenements considered prospective for lithium, tin and tantalum mineralisation.