Announcements

Novo Resources is upbeat about the latest mechanical ore sorting test results at its Beaton’s Creek conglomerate gold project in WA’s Pilbara region. The crushing and screening tests on one bulk sample have delivered a calculated head grade of 5.72 grams per tonne gold, according to the company. Three size fractions were tested and an impressive 90.2% of gold was recovered in 54.5% of the mass of the +18/-50mm fraction.

Image Resources’ positive 2019 cashflows have provided for a significant expansion to its exploration budget and the company has since ploughed nearly 13,000m worth of drilling into its WA Boonanarring mineral sands project in WA in a bid to add additional reserves to its mining inventory with the out wide possibility of a new discovery. Best numbers include 4m at 27.1% HM from 8m downhole.

Adriatic Metals has secured full clarity on its mineral rights and royalty arrangements at the massive Vares polymetallic project in Bosnia & Herzegovina by successfully negotiating for the inclusion of gold, silver and copper in an update to its concession agreement. Whilst not entirely clear, the original concession agreement only referred to lead, zinc and barite. The requirement to commence mining by May 2020 has also been removed.

Classic Minerals has been busy drilling at its Kat Gap project near Southern Cross in WA, with the latest RC program hitting some high-quality numbers highlighted by 6m @ 11.54g/t gold from 20m and 3m @ 13.18g/t gold from 144m. It looks as if the mineralised system is favourably shallow – and importantly, still open at depth. As the drilling metres increase across Kat Gap, the mineralisation could reach around 900m in strike according to the company.

Altech Chemicals is on the verge of breaking into the lucrative high purity alumina market after setting a furious pace for the construction of its high purity alumina plant in Malaysia that will draw almost pure kaolin clay feedstock from WA. The company says that construction is well ahead of schedule and that the electrical substation structure is due for completion by May 2020.

Development drilling at Ora Banda Mining’s Callion gold project has delivered some impressive initial results including a 4.8m underground intercept going well over an ounce to the tonne gold from 232 metres, including 0.3m at 498.2g/t. Delineation drilling at the North Eastern goldfields deposit also focused on the open pit development area with one drill hole grading 10.0m at 8.0g/t from 76m.

St George Mining’s Fish Hook prospect within its Mt Alexander nickel project looks to be living up to its name after another two EM conductors were hooked along trend. The two new conductors that coincide with a nickel/copper soil anomaly, were found lurking within shouting distance of a string of discoveries along the nearby Cathedrals nickel-copper sulphide mineralization trend in the North Eastern Goldfields.

MGC Pharmaceuticals has established a distribution agreement to produce and supply its cannabis based medicines to Anden Bio Naturals, giving the ASX listed company access to South American networks containing over 7,500 pharmacies, private clinics and an oncological private insurance system that has over one million listed clients. MGC’s pharmaceutical-grade phytocannabinoid products are emerging as an alternative to conventional drugs.

Trading of Volt’s USD$15m worth of loan notes for its Tanzanian graphite play could commence on the Stock Exchange of Mauritius as soon as Feb 20th. The company also has an option of raising another USD$15m by way of a private note placement on the SEM, with both funding sources to be potentially made available to start building the plant and infrastructure for its multi-generational, Bunyu graphite development that shows a whopping pre-tax NPV of US$1.31b.

Buru Energy was sitting on a $32.4m pile of cash at the end of 2019 with $5.4m worth of oil net production cash flow still expected in the current quarter, representing a three-fold increase on the previous two quarters. The forecast is due to the favourable timing of oil liftings out of the port of Wyndham and the recent successful development drilling at its Ungani oil field in WA’s Canning Basin.

K2fly has added another significant resource company to its rapidly growing, blue chip client list after West Australian miner, Gold Fields Ltd, signed on for a multi-year deal to use K2fly’s innovative software package known as “RCubed”. The contract is worth in excess of $580,000 across the initial five years and comes on the back of a total of $1.67m worth of record invoicing in the December 2019 quarter.

Legend Mining has discovered an EM conductor lurking within shouting distance of its impressive recently announced nickel/copper/cobalt drill hole at the Mawson prospect in the Fraser Range. The latest exploration work at Mawson unearthed over 70 meters of sulphide mineralisation, including 14.9 meters with solid nickel-copper-cobalt grades. A newly modelled “off-hole” electromagnetic anomaly that points to a possible extension of the mineralised zone will now be targeted.

A Federal Government co-funding grant from the Advanced Manufacturing Growth Centre of up to $185,000 has been awarded to Lithium Australia’s subsidiary, VSPC, to assist in developing its lithium battery recycling capabilities. VSPC takes spent lithium-ion battery metals and/or mine waste and produces lithium-iron-phosphate metal oxides that can be commercialised in the rapidly growing environmentally friendly renewables space.

Neometals has confirmed the technical feasibility of its Barrambie titanium-vanadium deposit located in the Murchison region of WA following successful metallurgical pilot test work. The work, that was aimed at optimising hydrometallurgical recoveries, produced a high purity “titanium hydrolysate” from the titanium processing phase. The company has now shipped samples of its new titanium bearing concentrate to potential offtake customers to evaluate.

Black Rock Mining is a step closer to developing its mammoth Tanzanian graphite mine, inking a framework agreement with a Chinese firm to act as head EPC contractor. A deferred payment schedule will result in over 30% of the contract being paid only after the plant passes certain performance hurdles. The agreement is with Chinese Government-owned China Railway Seventh Group Co.

Mid-tier, ASX-listed gold developer, Horizon Minerals, is continuing to scrub up its Boorara gold project with exciting pockets of high-grade ore just 10km east of the Kalgoorlie super-pit. After 18 kilometres of infill drilling, some excellent assays from parallel mineralized lodes have been identified at the Regal and Crown Jewel deposits with individual assay grades as high as 12.62 grams per tonne gold.

Big River Gold is looking to lock down a finance package for its 100%-owned Borborema gold Project in Brazil that boasts a 2.43 million-ounce resource and a reserve of 780,000 ounces at a grade of 1.22 grams per tonne gold. The project is showing an initial projected mine life of ten years and solid economics at a gold price of US$1,400/oz.

Dual-listed Adriatic Metals was always going to have a problem at its Vares multi-metals project in Bosnia – but it is a nice problem to have. With such a smorgasbord of different high-grade minerals present at Vares, Adriatic’s biggest problem is working out which metals will lead the project economics, which will be mere credits and which ones will gel together well metallurgically to produce highly payable concentrates.

King River Resources’ plans to push its giant Speewah vanadium-titanium-iron deposit in Western Australia towards a definitive feasibility study have taken a strategic change of direction. The company is now firmly focusing on the opportunity around the aluminium oxide that is also contained within the deposit. Test work is pointing towards a small-scale start-up operation with a view to creating early cash flows from converting the aluminium oxide to high purity alumina.

Drilling at Ora Banda Mining’s Davyhurst gold project in WA has provided a substantial boost to the company’s confidence in its Waihi deposits with new assays showing a haul of impressive results including a 34-metre intercept grading 3.8 grams per tonne gold from just 30m. After a difficult period under previous management, Davyhurst looks to be on a solid footing now. A resource update is expected soon.

Classic Minerals has continued its newfound success at Forrestania in WA with a 71% resource boost to one of its deposits. The Lady Ada deposit now stands at 1.35 million tonnes grading 1.38 grams per tonne for 59,700 ounces of gold. The broader project at Forrestania now holds 311,050 ounces of gold. Classic’s Forrestania gold project is located about 120km south of Southern Cross.

Medicinal cannabis company, MGC Pharmaceuticals, has inked a new supply agreement that will generate an immediate revenue stream from THC Global Group Limited who will white label MGC’s pharmaceutical-grade phytocannabinoid, or “CBD” products to the Australian and New Zealand markets. The products will be sold under THC’s “Canndeo” brand and are not expected to compete with MGC’s existing cannabis-based product lines.

ASX-listed PolarX’s Alaska Range project in the US is starting to look interesting with recent boots on the ground work identifying a potential 600-metre extension to the Zachly East Skarn, which already plays host to a one kilometre long mineralised system and a resource of 41,000 tonnes of copper, 213,000 ounces of gold and 1.5 million ounces of silver, right from surface.

The Grace prospect is holding up as potentially a stand-alone discovery for JV partners, Rox Resources and Venus Metals, with assay results hot off the press of 8m going 37.25g/t, including a 4m zone grading 73.81g/t gold from 48m. Rox and Venus recently identified Grace at their Youanmi South project in the Goldfields, a prospect that literally sits right between the historically mined Youanmi pit and the mothballed mill.

Blackstone Minerals has revealed the most impressive drill result to date at its Ta Khoa nickel project in Vietnam with 60m grading 1.3% nickel and another 11.9m at 1.09% nickel contained within another 142m intersection further down in the same drill hole at the King Cobra prospect. The 60m intersection also showed 0.22% copper and 0.29g/t PGM plus gold.

After lighting a fire under its Chilean Cortadera copper-gold project in late 2019, the first intersection in the latest step-out drilling program for Hot Chili has continued the company’s extraordinary run of ultra-deep drilling success. Latest numbers include a 649m mineralised zone going 0.4% copper and 0.1g/t gold. The latest hole in the current eight-hole program also intersected 440 meters grading 0.5% copper and 0.2 g/t gold.

Norwest Energy has topped up its cash box in readiness for the drilling of its Lockyer Deep prospect in the Northern Perth Basin. The final payment of A$630,000 was received this week for the sale of its interest in production licence L14 in the North Perth Basin. Norwest is getting set to drill Locker Deep in partnership with uber-successful resources house, Mineral Resources who is not known for backing duds.

Private equity firm, Ibaera now holds a relevant interest in Azumah Resources of 88.85% following last year’s off-market takeover bid. Azhuma’s sole independent director has encouraged remaining holders to accept the offer before the official closing date of the 17th January. If Ibaera acquires 90% or more of Azumah’s shares, it will likely move to compulsorily attain any remaining shares and/or delist the company from the ASX.

Troy Resources is back on track at its Karouni gold mining operation in Guyana, South America, with mining now in full swing again after a death on-site last year closed the operation down. The company is also experiencing considerable and sustained success with the drill bit and expects ore processing to re-commence in late January as ore stocks are built up. Gold sales will commence soon after in February.

Novo Resources has picked up 10 million shares in ASX listed Kalamazoo Resources at $0.40 cents per share. Novo Director, Eric Sprott, has also personally taken up 10 million shares in the placement that raised a total of $8 million for Kalamazoo. Novo now holds a strategic 8.17% stake in the Victorian explorer. Kalamazoo recently tabled an exceptional grade result from its Castlemaine prospect of 1.42m @ 261.3g/t gold.

Middle Island Resources has started a major, multi-phase drilling campaign at its 100%-owned Sandstone gold project in central WA. The company says the campaign, slated for completion by the end of the March quarter, has the potential to add significant open pit mineral resources to the gold project and take it a step closer to the recommissioning of the old mothballed mill on-site.

AVZ Minerals’ has inked a deal with the DRC Government to probe a potential refurbishment of a hydro-electric power station near its giant Manono lithium project. The old power station has been mothballed for years but potentially presents as a future power source for AVZ’s rapidly advancing lithium project that boasts possibly the largest undeveloped lithium resource in the world today.