Announcements

This week’s Bulls N’ Bears Runner of the Week is … PhosCo. The phosphate explorer was awarded a critical exploration permit and signed an important agreement to collaborate on developing Tunisia’s northern phosphate hub. Paradigm Biopharmaceuticals ran hard after being given the green-light for its phase-three drug trials, while other movers and shakers this week were AVJennings and Errawarra Resources.

Pilot Energy has entered into a joint development agreement with Capture6 Corporation to progress Capture6’s direct carbon-from-air capture technology at Pilot’s Mid West carbon capture project in WA. The first activity under the binding agreement with California-based Capture6 will be a demonstration of Capture6’s novel water processing and direct carbon capture technology, which Pilot plans to deploy next year at its existing Cliff Head-Arrowsmith operation.

After a stellar run with the drill bit Latitude 66 is set to wrap some updated financials around its exciting KSB gold-cobalt project in Finland where it is aiming for a standalone development with scalable options. The company has appointed Como Engineers to run a scoping study based on the existing resource that will also allow it to scale easily if the resource can be grown.

ChemX Materials has locked-in an agreement to provide private firm Vytas with high-purity assay services on quartz and synthetic silica samples and expects revenue of between $15,000 to $30,000 per month. The firms will explore the potential to utilise ChemX’s equipment and facilities when the company’s 24tpa pilot plant in the Perth suburb of O’Connor is completed.

Gold Fields Ltd and a number of financial institutions in addition to management and directors of Great Southern Mining have all piled into a $2.5m capital raise that will see Great Southern fire up its WA gold search. $153,000 was committed to by Great Southern directors and management subject to shareholder approval at a general meeting early next year, in the placement priced at 1.7c.

Meeka Metals is gearing up for gold mining to begin in March with significant progress made with its processing infrastructure and accommodation village at the company’s Murchison gold project in WA. Its much larger “game-changing” processing plant equipment is on site and expected to dramatically increase its pre-feasibility numbers in the upcoming definitive-feasibility-study due in December.

Latitude 66’s Kuusamo Schist Belt gold-cobalt project in Finland will participate in a EUR €5 million (A$8 million) geophysics research scheme funded by the European Union that will focus on deep mineralisation. The initiative aims to focus efforts on three key regions that include Lattitude’s project area, together with areas of the Iberian Pyrite Belt in Portugal and the Kalahari Copper Belt in Namibia.

Chariot Corporation is pummelling its near-surface lithium spodumene targets with drilling at its flagship Black Mountain project in Wyoming, USA. Armed with a cutting-edge Boart Longyear reverse circulation drill rig, the company is targeting high-grade spodumene resources to fast-track its small-scale lithium mining strategy to service the burgeoning US electric vehicle market.

Empire Energy is now well on its way to being the first to produce gas out of the NT’s biblical scale Beetaloo gas basin after Macquarie Bank put up a $65m funding package for it, avoiding the need

Javelin Minerals has kicked off maiden drilling at its brownfields Coogee gold-copper project near Kambalda where it is looking to drill test a curious magnetic anomaly discovered near an old open pit. The drilling contractor, Topdrill, will accept shares in Javelin instead of cash for its drilling work that involves a two-phase reverse circulation program.

Strickland Metals has nailed a 41m drill hit grading 4 grams per tonne gold in Serbia that was part of a massive 272m intersection going 1.8 g/t gold equivalent. The broader intersection also showed copper, zinc, lead and silver. The new results are from Strickland’s Shanac deposit within its wholly-owned 5.4-million-ounce gold-equivalent Rogozna project in the Balkan country of Serbia.

Estrella Resources’ trial of induced polarisation technology at its manganese project in Timor-Leste has proved highly responsive and will be a critical tool for identifying supergene mineralisation. The trial was designed to run a survey line across ground Estrella could see was likely to host supergene mineralisation and then, by pairing up the results with visual observations, confirm the exploration method as valid.

Altech has locked in a second offtake agreement, this time with Reflau, a renewable energy project in Germany, to supply it with 158MWh of storage energy capacity over 5 years from its salt powered batteries. Only a few days ago Altech revealed it has received interest to fund its manufacturing facility in Germany.

Terrain Minerals’ recent drill success at its Wildflower gold project in WA’s Midwest has caused it to create a new geological model which it will put to the test with the drill bit in a planned December drilling blitz. The company says it will plough another 2150m of drilling into the Wildflower discovery next month that is located 150km east of Dongara in WA.

American West Metals has unveiled a wave of new copper targets at its Storm project in Nunavut, Canada. The latest slew of greenfield copper prospects underscores what the company says is the “vast greenfield potential” of its 110km-long copper belt at Storm. New prospects, including Seabreeze and Hailstorm, include lab busting copper rock sampling grades of more than 50 per cent copper, the upper limit for the lab testing technique.

Aurum Resources has hit some of its best exploration numbers yet, jagging an impressive 17.31m hit grading 5.9g/t gold including 6m at 16.07g/t gold from diamond drilling at its Boundiali gold project in Côte d'Ivoire. The new hit has increased the depth of mineralisation by a further 100m below the previously deepest hit of 11.46m grading 6.67g/t gold from 162m.

This week’s Bulls N’ Bears Runner of the Week is … Petratherm. The critical mineral explorer discovered titanium and heavy minerals in historical South Australian core library samples. InFocus Group Holdings ran hard after nabbing a potential multi-million dollar agreement to develop a digital gaming product, while other movers and shakers this week were Noviqtech and Narryer Metals.

Altech Batteries has received interest from debt funders for its cutting-edge proposed sodium chloride battery project that it plans to build using a mix of debt, equity, government grants and offtake agreements. The company is planning to produce its “Cerenergy GridPack” batteries courtesy of a 120MWh manufacturing facility in Germany. Remarkably, the active ingredient in the batteries is plain table salt.

Aurumin non-exec director and businessman Daniel Raihani has moved into the managing director’s chair at the gold and iron ore explorer after the departure of company founder Brad Valiukas. Raihani has been a non-executive director at Aurumin for the past year and is an experienced accountant and businessman with various property and commercial interests.

Aguia Resources will shortly kick its uber high-grade Santa Barbara gold project into production. The Columbian project was worked by previous operators years ago and is now only weeks away from a restart. Previous bulk samples from Santa-Barbara went through the pilot plant at an impressive 20 grams per tonne gold and some veins are grading an ounce to the tonne gold.

Kalgoorlie Gold Mining is set to hammer further gold targets with its fourth air-core drill program at its Pinjin project in WA’s renowned 30-million ounce Laverton Tectonic zone, one of the state’s biggest gold endowment regions and host to several producing gold mines. The program will target the company’s prospective Kirgella East gold prospect with a planned 4000m maiden drill campaign.

A project-scale geophysical survey at White Cliff Minerals’ Rae project in Nunavut, northern Canada, has lit up a massive vein hosted conductive anomaly stretching 14km long by 2.2km wide. A second conductor was also picked up next to an existing prospect, pushing the total extent of that target to 10.5km by 23km.

Reach Resources has intercepted thick rare earth hits at its 100 per cent owned Wabli Creek project in WA’s Gascoyne region, scoring a whopping 109m running 1109 parts per million total rare earth oxides. Initial assays from 18 holes drilled at the company’s Pelops target returned significant intersections of rare earths from surface, with multiple holes ending in mineralisation.

Larvotto Resources latest reverse-circulation drill campaign at its Hillgrove project has kept the gold-antimony party going with further big high-grade hits rolling off the drill bit at the company’s Clarks Gully deposit, some 23km east of Armidale in northern NSW. Larvotto also struck visible gold in diamond core drilling at its Bakers Creek prospect within the Hillgrove project area.

GreenTech Metals has secured firm commitments for $2.3 million via a placement to institutional and sophisticated investors to assist with staged drilling of the company’s Whundo project in WA. The funds will be raised via the placement of 28,750,000 million new, fully paid ordinary shares at an issue price of $0.08 per share.

Xanadu Mines has unearthed four new copper targets from geological mapping, rock-chips and geophysics fieldwork at its Sant Tolgoi copper project in Western Mongolia with assays of up to 2.1 per cent copper. The new key drill targets stretch across a four kilometre east-west shear on a western extension of the controlling Khangai Fault system with all tests pointing to mineralised intrusions.

Surefire Resources has received a formal expression of interest for its Victory Bore vanadium and titanium project from German independent commodities trading company HMS Bergbau AG. The expression of interest in Surefire’s WA operation, extends to the company’s processing facilities in Saudi Arabia and seems to also contemplate a long-term strategic resource partnership.

Novo Resources has bolstered its bank balance with the sale of its remaining 20 per cent interest in the Quartz Hill joint-venture project, along with the company’s gold and silver rights, for $850,000. Novo is now laser-focused on developing its prospective gold and base metal projects in Western Australia’s Pilbara region.

Pilot Energy has big plans to liquify and then store carbon emissions from WA industrial emitters in its depleted sub-sea oil well near Dongara in WA. It is also looking to lever its oil and gas assets to build a world class clean hydrogen and ammonia facility in WA’s Mid-West. The remarkable project has received a shot in the arm after a Korean energy consortium raised $2.2m to conduct a study on the project.

Radiopharm Theranostics has received approval from the Australian Ethics Committee for the inclusion of additional tumour types into its ongoing phase one clinical trial of a new cancer treatment drug. The trial is the first in-human study to assess the safety and tolerability of Radiopharm’s new drug in patients living with some advanced solid tumours, extending the trial beyond just patients with non-small cell lung cancer.

In this edition of Bulls N’ Bears Big Hits we examine some notable drill intercepts revealed on the ASX last week, including Australian Gold and Copper’s Achilles discovery at its South Cobar gold-silver-copper project near Cobar in NSW. We also take a close look at other interesting drill hits from last week as reported by Laramide Resources’ from its Westmoreland uranium project in Queensland and PolarX from its Caribou Dome project in Alaska, USA.

With antimony prices hitting an all time high and the Chinese government banning exports of the valuable military metal, Octava Minerals is cranking up the drill rig at its Yallalong antimony project 200km east of Kalbarri in Western Australia. The drill bit is set to touch down this weekend for a highly anticipated 3000m reverse circulation drill program just as the silvery metal hits an all-time high of $33,000 a tonne.