Announcements

Lithium Australia has formalised an option agreement to acquire the three exploration licences that comprise the Youanmi lithium project about 100km southwest of Sandstone from private exploration firm Diversity Resources Pty Ltd. The project could be a feed source for the company’s upcoming third generation SiLeach pilot plant trial.

Southern Gold has signed a new agreement with Northern Star to acquire two strategic mining tenements at no cost, in order to facilitate development of the company’s Cannon underground gold resources near Kalgoorlie in WA. The agreement optimises the combined assets for a standalone mining operation or simple monetisation, as the gold mineralisation at Cannon plunges into the existing Northern Star lease.

Sky and Space Global has signed a reseller MoU with India’s Globe Teleservices and MoUs with BT LATAM Brasil and the Blue Power Group covering the potential use of its nano-satellite narrow-band communications network. Globe has also agreed to distribute a minimum number of devices and services.

Bellevue Gold is accelerating an updated resource estimate for its namesake gold project near Leinster in WA to the first quarter of 2019 thanks to ongoing high grade drilling results such as 2.4m @ 26.1g/t gold from 269.89m and 1.3m @ 35.2g/t gold. Drilling has also extended the Bellevue lode by a further 230m to the south of historic underground workings where mineralisation remains open in that direction.

Graphite developer BlackEarth Minerals has generated a high grade 95% graphite concentrate product from its Razafy graphite deposit in southern Madagascar, with nearly 50% reporting above the premium large flake size. Results from the recent test work will be used to finalise the project’s processing flow sheet and ongoing scoping study, ahead of a BFS which is due to kick off in the first quarter of 2019.

Sometime in the next few weeks, ASX listed tech company, Aurora Labs, is expected to officially launch its game changing, multi-level, 3D printer that is capable of printing about 30 layers in a single pass. The company says the new printer could drastically lower the cost of 3D printing. In the next six to twelve months, Aurora is also planning to introduce a full-sized, large format 3D printer that could print up to 100 layers in a single pass.

Mongolia focussed coal developer Aspire Mining has completed a $15m financing package for its Ovoot coking coal project in the northwest of the country and is now debt free and fully funded to complete the required feasibility work. Upcoming studies will focus on a high quality, low ash, low strip ratio carve out from the Ovoot ore reserve, concentrating on extraction and processing of the premium Ovoot upper seam.

Phylogica’s biological “peptide” vaccine has performed the best in coaxing an immune response against HSV during animal testing, with 75% of the mice treated with its peptides mated to a common HSV antigen showing no detectable signs of the virus. The company will now pit its peptide vaccine against Swiss company Amal Therapeutics’ zebra CPP with results expected in the first quarter of 2019.

Southern Gold says that JV partner Bluebird Merchant Ventures has produced high recoveries of gold up to 80% and around 60% for silver, from simple gravity separation met test work at the Kochang project in South Korea. The company also said that a low CAPEX option for initial processing could result in early cash flows from the proposed Kochang operation, based on recoveries of precious metals via gravity techniques.

Calima Energy is now tantalisingly close to drilling its exciting oil and gas play in the revered Canadian Montney formation with the access road to the drill pad for its planned three well program now complete. Calima’s share price has held steadfast over the last year with only one brief foray below its floor price of 4.5c as investors choose to stay the course and await the moment of truth.

Affinity Energy and Health has signed a non-binding heads of agreement with St John of God Hospital Subiaco to identify and undertake medical cannabis research and development projects. St John has a strong focus on research and medical excellence that is expected to help Affinity underpin the commercialisation of its Australian medical cannabis strategy.

Ironbark Zinc has kicked off a helicopter-borne electromagnetic survey to gain a better understanding of the large-scale Jerangle prospect at its Captains Flat multi-element project in New South Wales. Earlier drilling by the company returned significant base metal intercepts such as 4.4m @ 12.05% zinc , which follows up on historic drill results.

Coziron Resources’ rock chip sampling program at the Croydon Top Camp project in WA’s Pilbara region has returned up to 12% copper, 2g/t gold and 0.34% cobalt at the newly named Martin prospect, which represents a drill-ready target. Sampling at the Top Camp prospect has also highlighted areas that are ready for an initial RC drilling program to delineate the subsurface rock-types and down-hole geochemistry.

Calidus Resources has confirmed that its existing 654,000 ounce Klondyke mineral resource still has legs, this week reporting significant depth extensions at the impressively mineralised gold deposit. All deep drill holes from the recent campaign returned mineralisation, peaking at 12.65 metres grading 3.25g/t gold from 253.3m down-hole. Others results were 6.97m @ 4.33g/t gold from 224m down-hole and 6.5m @ 3.43g/t from 207.8m down-hole - in separate holes.

Fraser Range explorer, Legend Mining, has unearthed two new targets from aircore drilling at its emerging Rockford project in the revered Fraser Range. The first new target defined at Rockford South returned encouraging results peaking at 3m @ 0.71% nickel and 0.04% cobalt from 40m down-hole. About 9.5km to the northeast, the company intersected anomalous copper-zinc-silver mineralisation at the Area S prospect above an electrically conductive geophysical anomaly.

Tyranna Resources has confirmed the presence of a high grade ore shoot beneath the existing pit at its Eureka gold project near Kalgoorlie, after drilling returned results including 1m @ 41.8g/t gold. Management will now complete an updated JORC mineral resource estimate before making a decision on whether to start a mining study into the feasibility of mining and toll treating at nearby mills.

UltraCharge has received further validation of its unique, cobalt-free, lithium-ion battery solution after signing a purchase agreement with Israel-based three wheel electric scooter manufacturer Roadix Urban Transportation. The company is contracted to provide a total of 16,500 batteries over a three-year period with the initial 2000 to be delivered in the first year.

Coolgardie Minerals’ first near-mine exploration hole has intersected a new gold mineralised zone at its operating Geko gold mine near Kalgoorlie, confirming the company’s new structural interpretation of the Geko project. The 10m intersection has a grade of 2.62g/t gold, which is higher than the average grade of 1.8g/t gold within the pit reserve. This indicates that the grade of the orebody may increase at depth and to the west.

Biotech company Phylogica has successfully used its first generation “peptides” to deliver a protein used for gene editing into the nucleus of a cell line that is normally difficult for genetic material to penetrate. The company will now determine the best conditions for peptide assisted delivery of the CRISPR/Cas9 protein before assessing its relative effectiveness and safety compared to other delivery methods.

Image Resources has completed wet commissioning of its flagship Boonanarring heavy mineral sands project just 80km north of Perth and the company has started to ramp up production. Management has set an aggressive schedule aimed at achieving the feasibility study target processing rate of 500 dry tonnes of ore per hour in just six months.

Affinity Energy and Health is now one of just a handful of companies that have received approval to establish a medicinal cannabis cultivation and manufacturing facility in Malta. The company plans to use its proven RotoGro technology used in Canada to develop a facility capable of producing 3000 kilograms of cannabis bud per annum once all expansions are completed.

TNG Ltd has locked down haul road and borefield/water access at its rapidly advancing Mount Peake vanadium-titanium-iron project in the NT, just weeks after securing the key mineral leases. With these major milestones ticked off, the company will now focus on securing project financing.

Northern Minerals has generated exploration targets for its Dazzler and Iceman heavy rare earth prospects, located near its operating Browns Range mine in the Kimberley region of WA. The company recently discovered wide, rare earth mineralisation, rich in dysprosium at the deposits and is completing maiden mineral resource estimates for both. Management said the valuable high grade deposits could materially impact the longevity of its Browns Range operation.

PharmAust has confirmed that its flagship anti-cancer drug, Monepantel, produced using the recently determined “GMP” process, continues to demonstrate the drug’s expected ability to kill cancer cells while having little or no impact on non-cancerous cells. Further pre-clinical molecular pathway targeting studies will now be carried out to improve the company’s understanding of how the drug kills cancer cells.

Artemis Resources has secured a $5.4m funding package from a UK-based institutional group to underpin development activities at its Carlow Castle project near Karratha and exploration in the emerging Paterson Range area to the east. Funding will be used for resource development activities and metallurgical test work at the Carlow Castle gold-copper-cobalt project and to initiate regional geophysical surveys at the company’s prospective Paterson Range Armada prospect.

Precious metals explorer Emu NL has commenced its exploratory field program at the Vidalita project in northern Chile with a comprehensive campaign of shallow aircore drilling planned for its Peon 4, Vidalota D and Jotahues areas. The campaign will also target higher grade gold mineralisation at its main Vidalita project, vectoring towards a prospective fault zone it has interpreted from existing drilling data.

Lithium Australia is looking to use its proven technologies that can turn lithium mica mineralised waste into lithium-ion battery cathode powders at its Sadisdorf project in Germany and for similar resources elsewhere in Europe. The company will now include its proprietary technologies, such as its SiLeach process for extracting lithium phosphate from micas, into the scoping study for Salisdorf.

St George Mining has hit a 5.25m drill intersection going 6.95% nickel, 2.67% copper and 0.23% cobalt from 185m down-hole at its Investigators prospect near Leonora in WA. Another impressive 6.39m long intersection in a separate hole showed 6.48% nickel, 2.77% copper and 0.21% cobalt from 184.42m down-hole. The impressive results from massive sulphide intercepts continue to expand the footprint of mineralisation at the prospect.

Myanmar Metals’ drill campaign at its Bawdwin base metals project in Myanmar, has intersected high grade mineralisation of up to 45m @ 6.7% lead, 5.6% zinc and 113g/t silver from 76m down-hole in an area previously considered to be waste. The results could significantly add to the Bawdwin resource estimates and the economics of the China Pit pre-feasibility study, both of which are expected in early 2019.

Tyranna Resources’ partner Alliance Resources has returned some impressive high-grade intersections including a long 20m intersection going 12.44g/t gold from the Weednanna gold prospect within the Wilcherry JV project in South Australia. More RC drilling will take place in December to upgrade resources in the eastern optimised pit area from the inferred to indicated confidence level.

Infinity Lithium says its proposed AUD$395m Spanish lithium project could potentially churn out AUD$172m a year before tax in annual operating free cash flows for at least 24 years. The lovely set of numbers were contained in the company’s lower level scoping study announced to the market this week that details the preliminary economics of building a lithium hydroxide plant along side its lithium mine.

Strike Energy’s all-scrip takeover offer for Perth Basin oil and gas company UIL Energy is now unconditional after it received acceptances for about 56% of UIL’s shares on issue. Strike will now appoint its directors Andrew Seaton and Stuart Nicholls to the board of UIL while all of UIL’s directors save for Stephen Bizzell will step down.