Announcements

A bold new idea by Terrain Minerals about the location of Cobalt and Nickel on the Yilgarn Craton has been rewarded with positive assay results from the very first reconnaissance visit. The junior explorer, best known for its work to develop the Great Western gold deposit north of Leonora, recently applied for three tenements about 170 km north-northeast of Geraldton.

Underwater drone innovator Aquabotix has taken its business ambition up a few pegs with the appointment of a US-based CEO whilst founding CEO Durval Tavares will move into the role of Chief Technology Officer to focus on product innovation. New CEO David Batista has a 20 year background in small caps and was most recently the Managing Director of financial services firm Viriathus Holdings.

Plymouth Minerals are busting the myth that Europe is barren when it comes to Lithium deposits with their emerging behemoth at the San Jose project in western Spain. The project is moving ahead rapidly after a scoping study in September delivered impressive results for an operation that will go all the way through to battery-grade Lithium Carbonate on site.

Auroch Minerals have ended their maiden drill program at the Tisova project in the Czech Republic with yet another intercept of multiple sulphide zones and are waiting eagerly for the first assay results to arrive in early December. The historic Tisova mine was in service for centuries as a Copper producer, but could have a new lease of life as a Cobalt producer in the heart of Europe.

Northern Minerals are looking at the potential for a bigger, longer life project at Browns Range after new exploration insights suggested the company had barely scratched the surface of their heavy rare earth resource near Halls Creek. Management has more confidence about mineralisation at depth and a host of new targets that have returned samples with grades well above the existing average.

ASX-listed Kalia Ltd have sourced and dusted off a number of historical geological reports related to Bougainville where the company has secured the first exploration licenses in decades.The company said that the combination of all reports secured represented the equivalent of a first pass exploration program that has effectively identified targets for Kalia to pursue.

Blackham Resources are cashed up and well positioned to complete planning work on their stage 2 expansion of the Wiluna gold project after securing a $60 million funding package and a new quality cornerstone shareholder in Pacific Road Capital. The package includes a $7.3 million placement to Pacific Road, a $12.3 million entitlement issue and a refinancing of the company’s debt facility.

Hammer Metals have commenced drill activity on another front on their vast Mt Isa tenement holdings, this time at their highly prospective Mt Frosty Copper-Gold joint venture with Glencore. Hammer is hoping to repeat recent successes that built on drill results of previous explorers and aims to establish a resource at the Jubilee prospect with minimal drilling.

MGC Pharmaceuticals have executed another major new medical marijuana deal, this time with a European medicinal cannabis product manufacturer and distributor that has signed on for annual sales worth at least $1m. New customer Mabsut Life says the deal is just the first in a series of agreements it expects with MGC Pharmaceuticals under a strategic partnership.

PharmAust’s acquisition last month of a library of compounds from a major Japanese pharmaceutical company is looking like a shrewd move. Initial tests show some of the newly acquired compounds can kill cancer cells grown in-vitro up to six times more effectively than the parent compound, Monepantel, which is Pharmaust's flagship anti-cancer drug.

CVCheck, has bolted down its second partnership in a week for the company’s unique software platform that alerts HR managers to the credibility or otherwise of a job seekers resume. In an announcement this morning, the junior tech company said that major New Zealand human resources software provider SnapHire, had agreed to integrate CVCheck’s resume verification system into their platform.

It seems that almost everyone is looking for a smarter, faster and cheaper way to do things these days. Aerial drones represent an irresistible and abundant opportunity for the technically minded to achieve these goals for us. But what of underwater drones ? Recently ASX listed company Aquabotix say the underwater drone business will eventually catch up to the aerial drone market.

Calidus Resources are unleashing a barrage of hi-tech exploration techniques on their newly expanded ground at Warrawoona near Marble Bar. They have already been rewarded with multiple, high-grade gold targets. The CSIRO are being brought to the task and will work with Calidus over the next six months to unlock the secrets to further gold discoveries in the region.

Auroch Minerals have topped up their healthy cash balance by banking another $1.1m from from Xtract Resources last year’s sale of the Manica gold project and expect a final $0.5m instalment within weeks. The company has now added to their already impressive $4.2m bank balance and will use the funds to continue with their clean-tech metals exploration plays in Europe.

Northern Minerals continue to make rapid progress with construction of their Browns Range heavy rare earths pilot project in the East Kimberley, with fast-modular construction of the processing plant in China proving its value. Site works are racing ahead and mining of ore has already been completed. The company will stock pile 3 years worth of ore for the initial pilot stage.

ASX-listed Sky and Space Global has inked a deal with leading UK software services company SCISYS PLC to develop a simulator for its planned constellation of up to 200 nano-satellites. The “Pearls” network of nano-satellites are planned for rollout in orbit by 2020, with the build of a system simulator an important step in validating the innovative telecommunications technology ahead of launch.

MGC Pharmaceuticals have signed a distribution deal with local pharmaceutical distributor HL Pharma to launch its cannabis-based epilepsy treatment, CannEpil, in Australia. MGC wants to target the more than 70,000 Australian sufferers of the condition and sees it as a significant additional revenue stream ahead. The company says it now has a pathway to deliver the drug to patients from 2018.

CVCheck has teamed up with leading Australian HR software company PageUp in a partnership that will see major blue-chips like Telstra, Programmed and Linfox have access to the Perth-headquartered company’s online screening and verification services. PageUp will now integrate CVCheck's resume verification services into their own software platform that is used by about 25% of Australian majors.

Whilst most mining types had written Bougainville off, Perth mining entrepreneur Nik Zuks was quietly travelling back and forth to the Pacific island to assist landowners to prepare for the new mining act which opens Bouganville up for mining for the first time in decades. Zuks' ASX listed Kalia Ltd has just locked down exploration licenses in Bougainville that cover about 1/3rd of the lucrative Island.

DroneShield has secured an order for its drone-jamming device, "DroneGun" from Paraguay’s defence department, which will undertake in-field evaluations on the counter-drone device ahead of a potentially larger order. DroneShield’s first-ever South American DroneGun order comes after the Queensland opposition said it wants the state’s police force to be equipped with them too.

ASX-listed Sky and Space Global has hit another critical milestone on its march towards full commercialisation of its game-changing nano-satellite network, receiving official approval from the UK’s communications regulator. The tick of approval from the regulator, known as Ofcom, is validation of the successful operation in orbit of the Perth-listed company’s three demonstration nano-satellites.

ASX-listed biotech PharmAust continues to bolster its IP safeguards around its portfolio of anti-cancer treatments, securing a key patent in the US. The latest patent, which secures PharmAust’s IP in the major North American market, relates to the use of a library of cancer fighting compounds owned by Perth-based PharmAust after being developed by Japanese pharma Nihon Nohyaku.

Alterra has welcomed the sale of one of WA’s oldest dairy operators to China’s Shanghai Ground Food Tech. Alterra, who are pursuing a new style of dairy farming known as System 5 in WA, says the sale of the iconic Brownes Dairy will likely be a positive development for the state’s dairy sector. The sale of Brownes to the Chinese may open up export opportunities and fix local oversupply problems say Alterra.

ASX listed Connected IO has bagged an order for 1,000 of its cutting-edge wireless modem like devices from Rosco Vision Systems as the Perth-listed company cements its links with the US-based in-vehicle video market player. Connected IO has already sold thousands of its devices to Rosco and expects a flurry of new orders from the in-vehicle video company in 2018.

Elon Musk once famously said of his Lithium-ion batteries; “our cells should be called nickel-graphite because primarily the cathode is nickel and the anode side is graphite with silicon oxide”. With the steel industry undergoing a resurgence, Lithium-ion battery demand getting stratospheric and Chinese graphite plants closing due to enviro concerns, it's no wonder the graphite price has jumped 30%.

Calidus Resources are easily pulling their weight amongst the spate of recent gold hopefuls in the Pilbara with new high-grade hits at their Warrawoona gold project of up to 22 g/t Gold. Latest drill results also include 18m @ 4.35 g/t from just 46m down hole and 16 metres at 3.52 g/t. Calidus say they are now dealing with a large mineralized system that remains open along strike and at depth.

Real-time testing of Peppermint Innovation’s mobile-phone bill payment technology is delivering significant customer insights that will assist the ASX-listed fin-tech company to fully commercialise its unique APP. Almost 500 representative agents of Filipino businesses MyWeps, Metro Gas and SUNMar Express have been conducting ‘live’ pilot programs with their customers using Peppermint's APP.

Nzuri Copper have begun diamond drill testing a number of exciting Copper-Cobalt prospects that could extend the life of their fast-tracked Kalongwe development in the Central African Copperbelt. Drilling will include a follow up to last month’s Cobalt discovery at Monwezi 7, which returned a 7-metre intercept with more than 1% Cobalt.

The giant German engineering firm that will build Altech Chemicals High Purity Alumina plant in Malaysia has gone all in with Altech by agreeing to take a A$19.5m stake directly in the company ahead of the building of the plant in Malaysia that will be fed by Kaolin mined from Meckering in W.A. Dusseldorf-based engineering goliath SMS Group have annual sales in the order of 3.3b Euros.

Reedy Lagoon are set to drill a high-impact Lithium brine well in the first quarter of 2018 at their US project after locking in $3.5m via a rights issue that will now be fully underwritten by Patersons. The well will test a potentially Lithium rich groundwater zone in Nevada in the same district as the only Lithium brines producer in the US. Historical geological reports from the 70's indicate there may be Lithium present.

New assays from Neometals’ 100%-owned Barrambie titanium-vanadium deposit suggest it could be an emerging giant of even higher grade than previously believed. The news coincides with work by Neometals on a number of fronts to accelerate a fast-tracked development program based on direct shipping high-grade ore to China. Recent drilling returned stunning intercepts of nearly 32% titanium dioxide.

Geopacific are off and running with the giants in PNG with their Woodlark project that sits dead centre in the middle of some of the largest gold and copper resources in the world. Woodlark Island is surrounded on every side by amazing projects that range from 17m ounces of gold up to Freeport's stunning 63m ounce project. Geopacific picked up the majority of it for a song from Kula Gold who spent $150m on it.