Announcements

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.

West Perth-based gold explorer DiscovEx Resources says assay results from its air-core drilling at the company’s Spartan prospect at its Edjudina project in WA’s Eastern Goldfields have confirmed bedrock gold mineralisation, generating three high-priority drill targets. The company believes it has also discovered significant gold within transported overburden and now plans to determine the connection between the bedrock and transported gold.

Perth-based company and USA focused explorer American West Metals has posted a maiden resource for its multi-commodity base metal West Desert deposit in Utah which the company says continues to ill

WA-focused explorer Infinity Mining has been granted a five-year extension for an exploration licence that constitutes the largest component of its Hillside gold-copper-lithium project that lies over the Coongan Greenstone Belt in the Pilbara. Hillside covers almost 400 square kilometres and is located roughly 50km south-west of Marble Bar and 185km south-east of Port Hedland.

White Cliff Minerals has generated numerous targets after completing detailed geophysical surveys looking for rare earth elements at its Yinnetharra lithium and rare earths project in the world-class Gascoyne province of WA. The company says it has uncovered multiple strong and discrete thorium anomalies, which are well-known pointers to rare earths mineralisation in the region.

Kairos Minerals’ flagship 1.1-million-ounce Mount York Pilbara gold project looks set for a serious growth spurt after high-grade gold intersections below the existing resource over much of the strike length paves the way for an increase. Best results include 5m at 4.25 g/t gold from 73m, 7m going 3.35 g/t from 172m and 8m at 3.67g/t gold from 185m. The Mount York project is located in the emerging Pilbara Craton gold region of WA.

Valor Resources has identified four priority drill targets for its 2023 field season at the company’s Cluff Lake uranium project in Canada in the world-class Athabasca Basin, home to many of the world’s richest uranium mines. The Perth-based explorer describes two of the project’s four prospects as walk-up drill targets and they have been prioritised for drill testing later this year.

Galan Lithium has secured 100 per cent ownership of the Candelas lithium brine project in Argentina, only 40kms from its developing Hombre Muerto West project. The company has completed the payment for the final instalment of a options agreement. A preliminary economic assessment completed in late 2021 tabled a stunning set of numbers that shows its Candelas project will make $270m a year for 25 years for a net present value of $1.76b.

Lithium Australia has entered into a binding agreement to sell its 30 per cent share in the Lake Johnston lithium project to Charger Metals as the company concentrates on its battery recycling portfolio. The agreement will see Charger take 100 per cent control of the project to the west of Norseman in WA and grants Lithium Australia first right of refusal for offtake of up to 30 per cent of lithium produced at the site.

West Perth-based and WA-focused explorer Terrain Minerals has started what the company expects to be a very busy year with boots on the ground at its Smokebush gold project in WA’s Yalgoo minerals field. Two programs at Smokebush spearhead a major exploration and drilling campaign across its portfolio of projects with the ultimate objective a maiden mineral resource within 12 months.

Altech Chemicals believes the commissioning of its Silumina lithium-ion battery anode pilot scale plant in Germany is destined for the third quarter of 2023. The plant will be scaled up to a 10,000 tonne per annum production facility for which a Definitive Feasibility Study is progressing in tandem with the plant’s construction. The company is racing to meet the demand of the white-hot battery technology market.

Coda Minerals is putting the finishing touches on a scoping study for its Elizabeth Creek copper project in South Australia with final test work currently underway before the report’s expected release in April. The company says it has now completed work to assess all material inputs into the pending study up to the point of production of a copper-cobalt concentrate from a centrally located on-site flotation plant.

NSW-based reproductive technology specialist Memphasys has received another feather in its cap with a supportive paper published for its patented Felix system which aids IVF procedures in a renowned scientific journal. The paper praises Felix as a “positive technical development”, citing the speed of the Felix process and the low level of DNA damage in sperm samples as two of the system’s key features.

Askari Metals has confirmed high-grade lithium and tin mineralisation in rock samples from one of two promising tenements the company acquired recently in Namibia. Headline results from the samples, analysed as part of due diligence for the acquisition, include 3.3 per cent lithium oxide, 3.2 per cent tin, 4280 parts per million tantalum and 7980ppm rubidium.

BMG Resources’ metallurgical testing has confirmed that it achieved a 93 to 95 per cent gold recovery using typical gravity and cyanide carbon-in-leach processing at its Abercromby gold project near Wiluna in Western Australia. The ore was found to be free milling with the majority of the gold leached in the first eight hours with low reagent consumption. The gravity circuit recovered between 34 and 41 per cent of the gold.

Oil explorer 88 Energy is set to get the drill bit spinning at its Hickory-1 well target on Alaska’s North Slope after the state’s Oil and Gas Conservation Commission handed the company an all-important Permit to Drill. The bore is now on track to be spudded early next month and is tipped by the enterprise to hold 647 million barrels of oil within six key reservoir targets.

St George Mining has recommenced lithium exploration at its emerging WA Mount Alexander lithium pegmatite field covering 15km by 5km. Latest rock chip assays to 2.8 per cent lithium oxide and 1.26 per cent rubidium oxide build excitement for the assays from its first 23 RC drill holes, due within weeks, lithium minerals were logged in 20 of the drill holes. More drilling is set to recommence later this month.

Lindian Resources has recorded its best drill hit to date after its latest assays confirmed a 35m intercept at a whopping 3.94 per cent total rare earth oxides at its Kangankunde project in Malawi. The impressive section was part of a wider 179m intercept going 2.2 per cent TREO from surface and also included a 4m hit at a massive 7.82 per cent TREO.

WA-based producer Triangle Energy has squared away a cool $4.5 million after receiving payment for its second oil shipment to a refinery in Thailand over the December period. The shipment is part of the company’s Cliff Head joint venture with Pilot Energy which sees the duo complete production at the Cliff Head oil field about 270km north of Perth before mobilising it to buyers in Asia.

Surefire Resources is eyeing a rapid return to drilling at its promising Yidby Road gold prospect in WA with a drill rig locked in to start exploration later this month. 2500m of RC drilling is planned to follow up on the company’s recent discoveries at Marshall and Fender and the campaign will step out to the north and the south on both gold mineralised structures.

Quantum Graphite has completed the design of its pilot thermal energy storage and power generation system as it moves one step closer to producing long-duration energy devices at an industrial scale. The finalised design of the systems follows the company’s successful high-temperature testing in November that was introduced to mimic the conditions inside a thermal energy cell throughout its charging and discharging stages. Testing was completed alongside the operation’s project engineers, ProTherm Systems.

Test work on rare earths samples collected from ABx Group’s Deep Leads and Rubble Mound deposits in northern Tasmania have delivered Australia’s highest reported clay-hosted rare earths extraction rates with returns of up to 83 per cent. In addition, the program unearthed a wave of potential extensions to the zones’ mineralisation and the company has now mobilised a drill rig to test the newly identified zones.

Green energy metals explorer and developer Octava Minerals and its JV partner Future Metals have received an early boost from their freshly minted joint venture. Future Metals has identified broad zones of disseminated magmatic nickel-copper and platinum group elements sulphides at its Panton project that crosses into the tenement they share, Panton North, which is located in a Tier 1 nickel sulphide-PGM province in the East Kimberley region of WA.

Perth-based minerals explorer Surefire Resources has appointed as managing director a highly experienced resources executive with a 30-year career in exploration and mining. Paul Burton is a geologist with an MSc in Mineral Exploration from McGill University, Canada and was recently the MD of Tivan, formerly TNG. His experience in vanadium will be welcome at Surefire which has massive vanadium resources in WA.

St George Mining has entered into a binding agreement for an option to pick up the Woolgangie critical metals project that covers around 1200 square kilometres in the Goldfields region of WA. The company says Woolgangie is prospective for lithium, nickel-copper sulphides and ionic clay-hosted rare earths mineralisation. The package includes nine granted or in application exploration licences and extends south-west of Coolgardie and west of Kambalda.

Askari Metals has commenced a project wide mapping and sampling program across part of its Uis lithium project in Namibia after its first phase of drilling hit visible lithium in addition to tantalum and tin. The company says most of the project remains unexplored, something the current program will be looking to rectify before the company launches its second phase of drilling.

Legend Mining has declared a maiden nickel-copper-cobalt resource at its Mawson deposit in the Fraser Range that it says still has plenty of room to grow and is currently comparable to about a year’s worth of production from heavyweight Fraser Range neighbour IGO’s Nova discovery. The initial estimate clocks in at 1.45Mt at 1.14 per cent nickel, 0.74 per cent copper and 0.07 per cent cobalt.

DiscovEx Resources’ JV partner, Carnaby Resources continues to kick goals in Queensland announcing a suite of prominent precious and battery metal strikes at the duo’s Greater Duchess project in the Mt Isa region. The campaign was headlined by a 6m parcel grading a sky-high 6.7 per cent copper and 1.2 grams per tonne gold from 77m at the emerging Burke & Wills discovery.

Brightstar Resources is set to kick off a fresh 6300m RC drilling campaign at its flagship Cork Tree Well project as it looks to extend its gold mineralisation along strike to the north and at depth. The company says the 30 hole program will also include infill drilling at the project’s main structure as it looks to convert inferred mineralisation into indicated JORC resource status.

Queensland-based and WA-focused explorer Infinity Mining has wasted little time getting boots on the ground for what promises to be a big year of drilling, opening its 2023 campaign in the Central Goldfields. On the look-out for gold, lithium and rare earths, Infinity has about 2000m of RC drilling planned for this year across several of its WA tenements.

Minerals explorer Godolphin Resources is pocketing a handy $100,000 grant from the NSW Government to help fund its next drilling campaign at its promising Cyclops copper prospect north of Yeoval in the state’s central west. The grant comes from the Government’s New Frontiers Exploration program as part of the NSW Government’s Critical Minerals and High-Tech Metals Strategy.