Announcements

Australian rockers Cold Chisel made Bow River famous way back in 1982 with their song of the same name. Now Lycaon Resources wants to do the same by unearthing a nickel-copper monster at its Bow River project in Western Australia’s Kimberley region. The project is the flagship operation for a discovery-focused company more than willing to get its hands – and drills – dirty.

Neometals’ joint venture company Primobius has received an order from Mercedes-Benz to supply a 10-tonne per day lithium-ion battery shredding plant for the global vehicle manufacturing giant’s new recycling operation at Kuppenheim in southern Germany. The “spoke” plant is designed to recover materials that will be recycled into a planned 50,000 battery modules that will be installed into new Mercedes vehicles.

Gold Mountain’s recent trial soil sampling at its Casa Nova project in Brazil has revealed a zone it believes is anomalous in several critical elements including lithium, caesium, beryllium, tin and gallium. The company says it may represent components of a classic pegmatite-hosted lithium, caesium, tantalum (LCT) mineralised system. The trial was conducted on only a small part of the project.

Terrain Minerals has joined the frenetic exploration and drilling fray in Western Australia’s up-and-coming, clay-hosted rare earths province near Esperance. The company has joined the ever-growing rare earths search party in the area by launching a maiden proof-of-concept drilling program after securing heritage approval at its 100 per cent-owned, 320-square-kilometre Lort River project, just 50km north-west of the town.

Buru Energy will assume full ownership of the 500-barrel per day Ungani oilfield in Western Australia’s Canning Basin from next month after JV partner Roc Oil decided to withdraw from its 50 per cent interest. Roc Oil will remain liable for its share of costs associated with both the near-term staged suspension of Ungani operations and the future decommissioning of all wells and remediation costs.

Sri Lankan government legislation designed to promote its mineral sands industry and exports has delivered a major boost for Titanium Sands and its bold development plans for its project on Mannar Island in the country’s north-east. The recent legislation was brought in to ensure local participation in adding value to related products earmarked for export.

Classic Minerals will begin trial mining at its Kat Gap project in Western Australia’s goldfields as it looks to calculate an ore reserve prior to moving into full-scale gold mining and production. The company says the pit will take about two months to complete, cost about $1.5 million and will target fully-oxidized high-grade ore, representing about half the indicated resource, to about 45m.

Newly-appointed Lithium Australia managing director Simon Linge has vowed to fast-track the company’s development as the Perth-based battery innovator moves to commercialise its patented technologies. Mr Linge has more than 25 years of global manufacturing, recycling and engineering services experience and as the company’s chief executive officer, contributed to the landmark development agreement signed earlier this month with mining heavyweight Mineral Resources.

Phase-one construction of Galan Lithium’s first 205,000-square-metre solar evaporation pond has kicked-off at the company’s Hombre Muerto West project in Argentina’s renowned “Lithium Triangle”. Management expects the pond to be complete and filled with brine by next year’s first quarter and then to be producing a 6 per cent lithium chloride concentrate by the first half of 2025.

Strickland Metals has begun an induced-polarisation (IP) survey at its Great Western project, about 85km north-east of Wiluna in Western Australia, to explore a promising, but untested coincident magnetic, geochemical and gravity anomaly. The company says the structural setting at the site, which is largely masked by transported cover, is considered favourable for large, high-grade orogenic gold deposits.

Perth-based explorer Si6 Metals has promoted its executive director Jim Malone to managing director as the company matures rare earths and lithium projects in Brazil, in addition to other operations in Botswana and Australia. It comes after it moved to acquire about 178 square kilometres of tier-one Brazilian rare earths and lithium ground in the Jequitinhonha Valley – which is fast becoming known as “Lithium Valley”.

Buru Energy says a surprise State Government policy update has fortified its development strategy for its 100 per cent-owned Rafael gas field in WA’s onshore Canning Basin, confirming its right to export gas. The updated “Domestic Gas Policy” confirms that fields such as Rafael, which are not connected to existing pipelines, must reserve only 15 per cent of their export volumes for the domestic market.

American West Metals has continued a winning streak at its Storm project in Canada, striking an 18m intercept of visual copper sulphides in its latest diamond drillhole. The hit extends copper mineralisation 2km from its recent Thunder zone discovery hole that yielded more than 76m of visible copper sulphide mineralisation, hinting that the company has tapped into a major belt-scale sediment-hosted copper system.

Terrain Minerals has identified multiple zones of gallium mineralisation at its Smokebush project in Western Australia’s Mid West region, less than a month after the metal sent another explorer’s share price rocketing. Drill results at the company’s Rabbit Warren and Paradise City prospects were of comparable grade to the Arizona assays that saw Gold 50’s stock jump 146 per cent.

Reimagined explorer Lithium Universe Limited will use artificial intelligence to assimilate imagery and data to assist development and optimisation of its exploration strategy at its Apollo lithium project in Canada. The company will use its AI information in concert with other geological data as part of an initial goal to fast-track exploration in its high-latitude project environment, where field-time has traditionally been restricted by the seasons.

ABx Group has started a new 18-hole campaign to see if it can expand on a recent 11m-thick hit at 1700ppm total rare earth oxides at its promising Deep Leads prospect in Northern Tasmania. It says the RC program will target the northern section of its exploration area near the recent rare earths hit in a bid to find similar thickness and enrichments.

Venture Minerals has engaged Curtin University to start stage-two metallurgical testwork on its tin-rich Mount Lindsay borates. The testing follows the CSIRO’s stage-one investigation into the extraction of tin, boron and iron from tin-iron borates, conducted in a bid to enhance tin recovery and produce a high-value boron byproduct to add another revenue stream to the project.

Everest Metals has planted its foot on an extensive multi-commodity area of ground with its recent grant of six new exploration licences covering 3421 square kilometres. They are part of 15 applications in two new project areas, which have distinct but complementary polymetallic characteristics in the Georgina and Amadeus Basins, centred on Alice Springs in the Northern Territory.

Surefire Resources has sealed a pivotal memorandum of understanding with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where it will now process ore from its Victory Bore vanadium and high-purity alumina project in WA.

Positive new data has renewed the confidence of Chimeric Therapeutics in its pathway towards treating multiple types of cancer with its next generation armoured natural killer cell platform, “CHM0301”. The platform, which is being evaluated in its first clinical trial, has shown positive in vitro results in modelling human acute myeloid leukaemia and colorectal cancer by overcoming the resistance created by a tumour’s microenvironment.

Recent surveys by PolarX at its Humboldt Range claims area in Nevada have identified several geophysical anomalies coinciding with surface gold anomalies and faults within both its Black Canyon and Fourth of July projects. At Black Canyon, the survey has extended the priority drill target out to 2.7km of strike, coincident with the Rochester Rhyolite Formation – a known gold-silver host.

Buru Energy is $5 million richer after selling the remaining share of its Carnarvon Basin acreage to Energy Resources and will now move towards developing its Rafael gas-condensate field in the Canning Basin. The company plans to develop its field with a two-phased approach and will supply gas to the Kimberley, in addition to blue-methane and ammonia.

Lithium Universe has made a roaring start to listing on the ASX, with its share price touching 6.3 cents during intraday trading after it raised its maximum subscription of $4.5 million and opened at just 2c. Nearly two-thirds of the money the company raised in its IPO changed hands throughout the day with a volume of almost 57 million shares being moved.

Just a week into its pivotal deal with global IVF provider Vitrolife, reproductive biotechnology company Memphasys has already received its first order to put its patented Felix system into clinics in Japan. Last week, Memphasys revealed it had opened a new door by signing an exclusive five-year distribution deal with Vitrolife Japan KK – a subsidiary of the world-renowned Vitrolife Group.

On the back of a strong scoping study last year, Perth-based company Toro Energy has commissioned a pilot processing plant design and added vanadium to its Wiluna uranium project in Western Australia’s Goldfields region. The study into a standalone operation at its Lake Maitland deposit holds a pre-tax net present value of $610 million and a total capital cost of $270 million.

Reach Resources’ maiden drill campaign for lithium has begun at its Bonzer pegmatite field in WA’s Gascoyne region, with some 2500m of reverse-circulation drilling and about 2000m of diamond drillhole work. The campaign has been designed to target soil sampling and rock chip lithium anomalies, the lithium grade, the size of the mapped surface pegmatites and any others that may occur in the sub-surface.

Terrain Minerals has been given the all clear for a maiden drill campaign this month to target clay-hosted rare earths at its Lort River project near Esperance, after receiving heritage clearance. Last year, a review of soil samples from historical gold exploration at the site returned positive results, including 580ppm TREO, with 25 per cent of the total grade magnet rare earths.

From the sometimes dark and dingy bedroom corners that play home to online gaming, to the searingly bright lights of one of the world’s hottest commodities, Lithium Universe has orchestrated a remarkable ASX transformation. Lithium Universe confirmed last Friday it had raised its maximum subscription of $4.5 million at a share price of 2 cents each, announcing itself a new lithium industry player.

Askari Metals has completed a follow-up probe to test the copper-nickel potential indicated by rock sampling results at its promising Callawa project in Western Australia, about 90km north-east of Marble Bar. After running an 18-square-kilometre drone magnetics survey last year, it has now finished an 864-sample auger program to test rock-sample geochemistry that included anomalous copper, silver, nickel and chromium.

Everest Metals believes it is hot on the trail of another DeGrussa-style deposit as it launches a new campaign of three deep diamond holes for 1000m of drilling at its Revere project in Western Australia’s Murchison region. The program will follow up highly-encouraging geological indications and geophysical targets from its recent phase-one deep diamond drilling work at the volcanic-hosted massive sulphide play.

Strickland Metals has officially kicked off a new 40,000m air-core (AC) drill campaign, with a primary focus on its Horse Well gold project about 85km north-east of the Western Australian town of Wiluna. The aim of the program is to define new shear zones and extend known shear zones further north where regional magnetic surveys suggest the structures may extend for more than 20km.

Octava Minerals’ recent geochemical soil-sampling program has identified extensive nickel, copper and cobalt anomalism at the company’s Yallalong project, about 220km north-east of the Western Australian regional city of Geraldton. Management believes the early signs show it may be a precursor to unearthing another significant nickel-copper-PGE discovery in the virgin and mostly unexplored West Yilgarn mineral province.