Announcements

DiscovEx Resources says three reverse-circulation drillholes for 702m completed recently within its Sylvania project near Newman in Western Australia intersected banded iron mineralisation grading up to 48.2 per cent iron. The maiden drilling program was undertaken by Rio Tinto Exploration under the terms of DiscovEx’s Sylvania iron ore option agreement with the company. The longest intercept was 88m going 34.5 per cent iron.

A cashed-up Image Resources is focused on relocating its mining and ore processing operations to its wholly-owned Atlas project in Western Australia’s North Perth Basin after making significant progress with approvals. Atlas is a high-grade mineral sands mine containing 5.5 million tonnes of ore reserves at 9.2 per cent total heavy minerals (HM) and 96 per cent contained HM in the proven category.

Buru Energy rounded out the past financial quarter with no debt and $18.4 million in the till as it prepares to drill an appraisal well at its 100 per cent-owned Rafael gas field in WA’s Canning Basin. The company is eyeing a final investment decision in the second half of next year and first gas production in the last half of 2027.

Buru Energy rounded out the past financial quarter with no debt and $18.4 million in the till as it prepares to drill an appraisal well at its 100 per cent-owned Rafael gas field in WA’s Canning Basin. The company is eyeing a final investment decision in the second half of next year and first gas production in the last half of 2027.

Xanadu Mines has hit paydirt with results from its most recent drilling at the Kharmagtai project in Mongolia it shares with China’s Zijin Mining Group. The company says it has expanded the new, higher-grade copper-gold mineralised zone at its White Hill deposit and doubled the mineral resource grade at its Golden Eagle prospect – and now believes it may be onto a significant copper-gold system.

Perth-based petroleum producer and explorer Triangle Energy finished the past quarter with $5.24 million in the bank as it homes in on the onshore North Perth Basin, where it will drill for oil this year. The company is currently producing crude from its Cliff Head field off Dongara, with that operation netting it $15 million as part of a sales deal with Pilot Energy.

Venus Metals Corporation says it has discovered petalite mineralisation assaying up to 4.6 per cent lithium oxide in multiple pegmatites at its Deep South prospect at Youanmi in Western Australia’s Murchison region. Petalite is an important ore mineral of lithium and the new pegmatite discoveries comprise several small outcrops up to about 60m across that are scattered through a 450-square-metre footprint.

American West Metals has unveiled a maiden mineral resource for its Storm project in Canada of 17.5 million tonnes at 1.2 per cent copper and 3.4g/t silver after just one season of resource drilling. The JORC-compliant estimate holds 205,000 tonnes of copper and 1.9 million ounces of silver at the operation on Somerset Island in the Canadian province of Nunavut.

Minerals exploration and development company GreenTech Metals has suddenly found itself next to a new power-play among lithium giants right next door to its own developing West Pilbara lithium project in Western Australia. Significant corporate activity is targeting the region, including global lithium giant SQM’s joint venture (JV) with Novo Resources and separately, SQM and Hancock Prospecting’s $1.7 billion bid for Azure Minerals.

Auric Mining has recorded multiple high-grade intercepts from grade control drilling at its Munda gold project near Widgiemooltha in Western Australia’s Goldfields region, including a 1m hit at a stunning 184.6g/t gold. The company has drilled 351 holes to complete the campaign, with assays already received from 244 holes sunk representing about 70 per cent of the program back from the laboratory.

Cashed up and ready to drill – Legend Mining has $14 million in the bank and is preparing to dive into a bag of targets at its Rockford project in Western Australia’s Fraser Range. The company is looking for magmatic nickel-copper, volcanogenic massive sulphides hosting zinc, copper and silver and structurally-controlled gold in ground that has recently returned some tantalising geophysical hits.

The Nunuvut Planning Commission has given White Cliff Minerals the go-ahead to kick off exploration at its Coppermine project in Canada, where it will follow up on high-grade historical copper results. The company says it marks a major step in the permitting process and allows it to appoint contractors for this year’s exploration initiatives in the Canadian province of Nunavut.

Alma Metals has revealed a new 32.8m diamond drill hit of 0.78 per cent copper mineralisation across the contact between the granodiorite intrusion and enclosing volcanics at its Briggs project in Queensland. The hole tested the south-eastern margin of the Briggs Central resource zone and management says it further validates its concept of elevated copper grades in the near-surface zone straddling the two rock types.

Infinity Lithium is charging ahead with fieldwork at its San José lithium project in Spain as it prepares to lodge an exploitation concession application for the operation with local authorities. The company says its recent work will support its environmental impact assessment that will form part of its application to mine and process the 111-million-tonne orebody grading 0.61 per cent lithium oxide.

Aurum Resources has appointed experienced African gold miner Caigen Wang as its new managing director as the company works-up the shallow, wide gold-bearing orebody at its Boundiali project in Côte d'Ivoire. Wang is no stranger to maturing African gold discoveries, taking Tietto Minerals from a market cap of about $30 million to nearly $700 million at its Abujar gold mine, also in Côte D’Ivoire.

Buxton Resources’ 100 per cent-owned Graphite Bull Project in WA’s Gascoyne region has ticked another milestone with testwork confirming its product is suitable for the manufacture of lithium-ion battery anodes. The testwork verified that uncoated purified spherical graphite (uPSG) made from Graphite Bull deposit concentrate exceeded the 350 mAh/g charging values considered to be ‘good’ for uncoated graphite achieving charging values as high as 370 mAh/g.

Bookbuilds & Banter with Boz: WA State Manager of Shaw and Partners Davide Bosio waxes lyrical about the lessons learnt from the twentieth century’s most successful day trader Jesse Livermore in Reminiscences of a Stock Operator. Livermore was once considered to be one of the richest people in the world and is generally thought to be the pioneer of day trading.

Surefire Resources has developed a “breakthrough” metallurgical process which has yielded extraction rates of 91 per cent vanadium and 88 per cent titanium from its Victory Bore magnetite concentrate in WA’s Midwest. The company says its provisionally patented technology alleviates the need for standard vanadium industry pre-treatment processing and will be incorporated into its developing Victory Bore operations where its economic, operational and environmental benefits will be evaluated.

Octava Minerals will pick up the Byro rare earths and lithium project in WA’s Gascoyne after agreeing to purchase 100 per cent of the shares in private company Byro Mining. The conditional agreement will see Octava undertake due diligence on two exploration licenses at the project which has some tantalising historic exploration hits from drill cuttings peaking at 388ppm lithium oxide and 501ppm total rare earth oxides.

Buxton Resources says it has seen intense porphyry style veining along with evidence of copper mineralisation in outcrop at its 100 per cent owned Sun Devil prospect in Arizona. The prospect is part of the larger Copper Wolf project and remains undrilled but has historic rock chips as high as 76,800 ppm copper and 93ppm molybdenum.

Larvotto Resources has kicked off a 2000m diamond drilling program to test previous high grade gold intercepts at its recently acquired 100 per cent owned Hillgrove project, 23km east of Armidale in NSW. Drilling will focus on the Bakers Creek area, which was the first locality opened up in the Hillgrove area by miners in 1877 who concentrated on the extraction of gold rather than the accompanying antimony.

Strickland Metals has kicked off drilling at its Earaheedy and Yandal projects in WA’s Pilbara region with a rig already operating on-site to focus on the company’s large-scale Rabbit Well base metals prospect. Management says a 6000m reverse circulation drill program has been designed at Rabbit Well to map out the mineralisation and geology of the target in preparation for follow up diamond drilling.

Galan Lithium says it is just two weeks away from beginning the evaporation process at its Hombre Muerto West lithium brine project in Argentina with the initial filling of its first pond underway. The move marks the first major step of the long-term production schedule for the project where Galan is aiming to produce high-grade concentrate of up to 6 per cent lithium by the first half of 2025.

Auric Mining has hit the ground running in 2024 with toll mining set to recommence at its Jeffreys Find gold mine near Norseman in Western Australia as soon as March following a successful finish to last year. The company produced more than 9740 ounces during two mining campaigns with joint venture (JV) partner BML Ventures in 2023, returning a total gold revenue of $29.28 million for the first stage of the two-year project.

Askari Metals says its first exploration licence has been granted at the company’s Yarrie lithium project, just 100km east/north-east of Pilbara Minerals’ giant 214.2 million tonne Pilgangoora lithium resource. The entire project area comprises nine contiguous exploration licences which enclose a total of 1711 sq kms across ground adjacent to and along strike from other significant hard rock pegmatite-hosted lithium deposits.

ABx Group has revealed high grade critical rare earths in drilling at its Wind Break prospect, only 15km northeast of the company’s 52 million tonne Deep Leads-Rubble Mound rare earths resource in Tasmania. Seventeen of the holes yielded samples where more than 4.5 per cent and up to 6.7 per cent of the total rare earth oxide content is made up of the more lucrative heavy rare earths dysprosium and terbium.

Assays from the first eight diamond drill holes at Aurum Resources’ Boundiali gold project in Côte d'Ivoire, West Africa suggest wide, shallow gold mineralisation with more assays on the horizon. The best results were 16m at 1.24 grams per tonne from 117m including a 6m thick section grading 2.44g/t from 127m, 7.39m at 1.94g/t from 139.34m including 5.35m at 2.53g/t from 141.37m.

Xanadu Mines has entered into a binding term sheet to earn up to 80 per cent of the Sant Tolgoi project in Mongolia which hosts multiple shallow copper-nickel targets over several kilometres of strike. The deal adds to the company’s already significant presence in Mongolia which is home to its flagship Kharmagtai copper-gold project and its highly prospective Red Mountain operation.

Gold Mountain has moved closer to locking-down drill targets at its Custodia hard-rock lithium project in Brazil with stream sediment sample assays backing-up soil sampling results. Steam sampling has identified a total of 15 target areas and only two of those areas have seen overlapping soil sampling programmes to-date. The company says it will be back on the ground shortly to conduct more sampling before getting a drill-bit in the ground.

Ora Banda Mining has increased gold production and the head grade from its Davyhurst plant in WA’s Goldfields region for the third consecutive quarter while lifting its gold sales by 15 per cent. According to its December quarterly report, the company produced 16,340 ounces at a head grade of 2.1 grams per tonne and sold 15,387 gold ounces from its Davyhurst operations for the three-month period. All-in sustaining costs reduced by 15 per cent compared to the previous quarter.

Everest Metals Corporation will develop the 48,545 ounces of gold and 89,011 ounces of silver at its 100 per cent-owned Mt Dimer Taipan gold and silver project in WA’s goldfields as the gold price continues to trade near record highs above $3000 an ounce. The company will now lean into the project which contains recent intercepts as high as 8m at 13.55 g/t gold from 80m – including a 4m slice at a 23 g/t.

St George Mining has expanded its footprint on the Ida fault in Western Australia’s Goldfields region after picking up a new exploration licence alongside its Destiny rare earths and lithium project. The recently acquired Prince of Wales tenement is considered prospective for lithium, nickel and gold mineralisation and covers about 8km of the Ida fault next door to Destiny’s 90km stretch of the geological feature.