Announcements

ASX-listed Valor Resources has expanded its ground in the uranium rich Saskatchewan area in Canada, expanding its Surprise Creek tenure by 20 square kilometres. One of the new tenements comes with a historical showing of 1.2 per cent copper. Despite both new additions being highly prospective for uranium and copper, very little modern exploration has been completed since the 1980s.

A comprehensive exploration campaign has paid off for Ora Banda Mining with the company revealing it has doubled the underground mineral resource at its Riverina gold system to more than 300,000 gold ounces. The gold producer also announced a maiden ore reserve for the Riverina system near Kalgoorlie of 73,000 ounces at a solid grade of 4.3 grams per tonne gold with an additional reserve only limited by drilling density at the site.

Venus Metals has launched an RC drilling program at new targets at its wholly owned Youanmi lithium project in WA’s Murchison region, about 480km north-east of Perth. The drilling will test recently identified lithium anomalies in soil samples and rock chips for pegmatite-hosted lithium-caesium-tantalum mineralisation in the bedrock. The rock chips returned up to 2.11 per cent lithium oxide.

Regional air-core drilling on Horizon Minerals’ tenements 25km southeast of Kalgoorlie has returned multiple shallow clay-hosted rare earths and scandium anomalies. Results of up to 2437 parts per million total rare earth oxides were obtained with magnet rare earths up to 718ppm as scandium oxide results grading up to 445ppm formed a linear zone. Ongoing metallurgical testing will guide future work at the zone.

Auric Mining is pressing ahead with its ambition of a Jeffreys Find gold mine after commencing a grade control drill program at the project. The company plans a short mine life at Jeffreys Find, first with a starter pit and then a full pit. Grade control drilling is designed to give certainty by defining information on the ore grades and blocks.

Infinity Mining will launch a new survey technique at its Tambourah South lithium project in the Pilbara region of WA that uses real-time data processing to model a 3D map of the underlying geology of the site. The Ambient Noise Tomography survey technology allows the explorer to map in 3D down to several hundred metres where lithium, caesium and tantalum-rich pegmatites identified at surface have grown at depth.

Octava Minerals has identified a new lithium prospect on its Talga project in WA’s Pilbara region. The newly identified “Nimerry” prospect has pegmatites outcrops hosted within greenstones close to the granite greenstone contact. Pegmatites of various sizes have been sampled and sent for analysis with the results expected by the end of February. The largest being 30m wide and 60m long – located 3km from the company’s other lithium prospect Pinnacle Well.

Askari Metals has kicked off a fresh RC drilling program at its Uis lithium project in Namibia. More than 40 drill holes as part of 3,000m campaign aim to confirm high grade rock chip samples and new targets. The company says the project sits within a highly mineralised, spodumene rich pegmatite belt with a history production. Six drill holes have already been completed.

BMG Resources has bagged a patch of prime Eastern Goldfields real estate near Coolgardie in Western Australia that houses a 4km corridor of lithium-rich pegmatites along with a clutch of high-priority gold prospects. Historic rock chip sampling has kicked up multiple anomalous lithium values, peaking at 1.9 per cent lithium oxide. The tenure is located a stone’s throw from the multi-million-ounce Bullabulling gold mine.

White Cliff Minerals has returned its highest-grade rare earths results so far at its Yinnetharra project with a headline reading of 3912 parts per million total rare earth oxides. The company also believes that lithium results up to 400 parts per million in the northwest of the project indicate that it is getting closer to lithium bearing pegmatites as it continues to pore over its patch in the Gascoyne region of WA.

Venture Minerals is lining up its drill rig on a compelling three-kilometre-long electromagnetic conductor at the company’s flagship Mount Lindsay project in Tasmania. A strong nickel-in-soil anomaly has been etched out over the conductor coinciding with a sequence of prospective ultramafic rocks. The company believes the conductor could outline buried nickel sulphide mineralisation. The project already boasts one of the world’s largest undeveloped tin-tungsten deposits.

Coda Minerals has completed four Ambient Noise Tomography surveys across key prospects at its Elizabeth Creek copper project in South Australia with early results highlighting new areas of interest. The surveys are designed to use an advanced passive seismic technique to produce a detailed sub-surface velocity map to assist in the identification of iron-oxide copper gold mineralisation close to the company’s Emmie deposits.

Aruma Resources is set to up the ante in its pursuit of rare earths at its Saltwater project in the Pilbara in Western Australia. The company holds 80km of strike and has tabled previous assays of up to 11 per cent rare earths. Aruma plans to use surface mapping and sampling before geophysical surveys to better define drill targets for unconformity hosted heavy rare earths similar to those in the Athabasca Basin in Canada and the Tanami based Browns Range project.

Classic Minerals has made significant progress on the construction of its Kat Gap gold processing plant with both internal and external concrete foundations completed. The company says the external foundations will support the beneficiation plant whilst the internal concrete slab will be used to support the gold room.

ASX-listed biotech Chimeric Therapeutics, a clinical stage cell-therapy company has pocketed a research and development tax refund worth more than $3 million. The company says the refund is in recognition of its activities during the 2022 financial year and the rebate will provide important funding for continued development of its portfolio of cell therapies that tackle cancer.

Valor Resources has racked up an enviable list of high-priority polymetallic prospects at its Picha and Charaque projects in Peru. The company has been toiling away in the rich Peruvian mountains proving up a clutch of new targets as it prepares to wheel the drill rig in for a maiden diamond drilling program across its prospective acreage.

Godolphin Resources has sent 31 diamond drilling core samples from its latest program at the company’s Narraburra project to Australia’s leading authority on mineral and metallurgical testing. The samples form part of Narraburra’s updated mineral resource estimate to JORC 2012 standards which is expected in March. The test work will provide a better understanding of the NSW project’s rare earth elements and rare metals composition.

ASX-listed Valor Resources has finalised a review of historical exploration results on its three recently staked mineral claims immediately west of its Canadian Surprise Creek uranium project and has delineated three new significant copper targets. The company says the area has had surprisingly minimal modern exploration in the last 40 years. The company’s new mineral claims cover an area of 44 square kilometres and were acquired in November 2022.

Infinity Mining has bagged a five-year extension for its Tambourah South tenement in the Pilbara where previous rock chip sampling has latched on to a pegmatite swarm grading up to 2.65 per cent lithium oxide. The project sits in the evolving Pilbara pegmatite province home to Pilbara Minerals’ 305 million tonne Pilgangoora lithium project averaging 1.1 per cent lithium oxide.

Toro Energy has landed its thickest massive nickel sulphide intersection so far at its Dimma project in the Yandal greenstone belt in WA. The company says its latest diamond drilling campaign unveiled a 4.5m of continuous massive nickel sulphide from 194.3m downhole. All three drill holes drilled so far at Dimma have intersected massive nickel sulphides indicating the discovery remains open in all directions. Toro has now discovered four nickel sulphide zones and tested less than half of the 7km strike of its host Dusty komatiite rock unit.

Radiopharm Theranostics is aiming for the Big Apple. The Melbourne-based medical technology company that specialises in developing radiopharmaceutical products to diagnose and treat cancers is applying to list on the Nasdaq. If successful, the company expects to be given the ticker RADX. The Nasdaq listing will complement the existing primary listing of its ordinary shares with the ticker RAD on the ASX.

Billionaire geologist Robert Friedland’s Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold discovery in Mongolia is of biblical proportions and just 120kms to its north west, ASX-listed Xanadu Mines is onto a copper-gold discovery that has already ticked over a billion-tonne resource and counting. Xanadu’s Kharmagtai deposit is now taunting the market with its potential in a region that is capable of brewing ridiculous sized mineral deposits like Oyu Tolgoi.

Origin Energy has agreed to assign its interests in joint venture exploration permits in WA’s Canning Basin, including the massive Rafael gas and condensate discovery to Buru Energy for no upfront payment. Origin will also pay Buru up to $4 million to fund a 3D seismic survey for its gas and condensate discovery Rafael 1.

Budding silver miner Adriatic Metals has drawn down its second $30m tranche, along with accessing an additional $22.5m from a $142.5m debt package to steer development of its high-grade Vares silver mine in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is all systems go as the company passes the halfway mark of construction with production of the first concentrate slated for the third quarter of 2023.

Gold explorer Godolphin Resources and its joint venture partner Orange Minerals have announced a maiden ore resource for the Calarie project in central New South Wales. The maiden resource contains 870,000 tonnes of mineralisation, with some 50,796 ounces of gold at an average grade of 1.83 grams per tonne and a cut-off grade of 0.3 g/t.

Construction of Classic Minerals’ gold mine at Kat Gap in WA is moving closer to becoming a reality with the tailing storage facility 45 per cent complete and the Turkey’s Nest pipeline edging towards completion. The company says tailings facility liners will be installed in early March. Kat Gap boasts a 2.96 g/t gold head grade and Classic’s Gecko gravity processing plant is expected to recover over 73 per cent of the gold at low cost.

Minerals explorer Surefire Resources NL’s optimism about its massive vanadium resource in WA’s Mid West has been boosted by a detailed study that concludes its Victory Bore-Unaly Hill project can provide clean vanadium concentrate. Surefire’s next step includes further investigation of its resource to determine its suitability for the burgeoning vanadium redox flow batteries sector for clean energy storage.

Everest Metals has signed a binding joint venture agreement with Stelar Metals covering all of its large Broken Hill NSW projects and giving Stelar a 90 per cent interest. Everest Metals will receive $250,000 cash and a similar value in Stelar shares upfront. Milestone payments add a further $500,000 in cash or shares. The company says it retains a 10 per cent free-carried interest.

A strategic land grab by Reach Resources has resulted in the company building a dominant presence in the Gascoyne region after picking up the Morrissey Hill lithium project, the Camel Hill rare earths project in addition to the White Castles manganese project. The three projects cover a total of four tenements and build on the company’s two established operations with the Skyline and Critical Elements projects in the region.

The gentle hum of the RC drill rig can be heard at Auric Mining’s Chalice West project near Norseman. Auric is plumbing the depths of its prime goldfields tenure to seek the source of significant gold, nickel and rare earths anomalism. The rig will also be wheeled to the company’s Miitel South prospect where a compelling gold target lies beneath a smattering of historical alluvial workings.

ASX-listed Aurum Resources is another step closer to launching exploration on its flagship Ryan’s Find gold project, north-east of Southern Cross in WA. The company says once it receives heritage clearance, which has now been scheduled it will immediately kick off an air-core drilling campaign. A gradient array induced polarisation survey is also planned for its Penny South gold project.

Ora Banda Mining is on track to deliver an updated mineral resource estimate at its Riverina gold system near Kalgoorlie this month after positive results from phase 1 drilling at the site. Assay highlights from exploration at the company’s Main Lode East prospect showed some impressive grades including a 2m hit at 49.8 grams per tonne gold from 163m.