Bulls N' Bears (Commercial Content)

Pilot Energy has identified a further 27 million tonnes of carbon storage capacity at its Cliff Head carbon storage project following recent technical assessments by the company’s sub-surface consultant. CO2Tech undertook the review of Pilot’s WA 31-L licence area in anticipation of the next phase of regulatory approvals, increasing the 2C/P50 storage resource from its previous capacity of 45.6mt to 72mt.

Lindian Resources has appointed seasoned businessman Robert Martin as chairman to assist with the development of its mammoth Kangankunde project in Malawi, one of the largest rare earth deposits in the world. Martin, who sits on a number of other ASX-listed company boards has a track record of experience across a broad range of sectors, including mining and mining services, manufacturing and capital markets.

BMG Resources has bored three diamond holes at its Wiluna Abercromby project in WA. The company began drilling 19 days ago and has booked 1076m drilled so far in a phase one program on the Capital deposit to expand and upgrade Capital’s maiden 518,000-ounce gold resource. The resource had previous hits of 1.45 g/t gold with high-grade zones up to 5.94g/t gold.

Aurum Resources has confirmed some impressive high gold recoveries from its flagship Boundiali gold project at Côte d'Ivoire peaking at 97.1 per cent while also reducing reagent costs significantly. The company managed the twin achievements of high recoveries at reduced cost with lime use dropping by 32 per cent and cyanide requirements slashed by 40 per cent during leaching. Additionally, gravity recovery alone accounted for 50-60 per cent of gold recovery, a testament to the free-milling nature of the ore.

This week’s Bulls N’ Bears Runner of the Week is… icetana. The video analytic solution provider inked a three-year Malaysian security deal for 1 Utama, Malaysia's largest shopping mall which saw its shares peak more than 100 per cent higher during the week. Patriot Lithium also had a nice time in the sun following a transformative deal to buy into the highly prospective Zambian Kitumba copper project while a huge cheer went up for Mesoblast after it landed FDA approval for its cell therapy treatment. There was also Black Dragon taking out the silver… but we’ll get to that.

Larvotto Resources has received US$4 million (A$6.2m) as pre-payment from Wogan Resources’ sister and financing company Xcelsior Capital under an exclusive antimony off-take agreement with Wogan. The agreement, signed on December 2, will see Wogen provide exclusive global off-take sales for Larvotto’s antimony concentrate produced at its Hillgrove project.

Latitude 66’s diamond core drilling at its key KSB gold project in Finland has extended its K8 prospect in both strike directions, with latest results including a best run of 3.1m assaying 6.1g/t gold from 41.8m. The top-shelf result, coupled with the second best hit of 3.2m going 1.3g/t gold from 25m, points to extension potential at the southwestern and northeastern extremities of the mineralised trend.

Thunderbird Resources is poised to launch a maiden on-ground exploration program at its recently acquired Rockvale-Kookaburra antimony-gold project immediately north of Larvotto Resources’ storied Hillgrove project in NSW. The preparation included detailed desktop analysis with encouraging results covering more than 100 years of exploration and mining history at the site, with boots now expected to be on the ground in January.

Aurumin is betting on striking gold at its Central Sandstone gold project in Western Australia, with results from its latest reverse-circulation (RC) drilling program to be revealed early in the ne

ABx Group and its subsidiary ALCORE are redefining the circular economy by turning waste into opportunity and have garnered the Tasmanian Government’s support along the way. Tassie will provide indicative terms and conditions for a $1 million, zero-interest loan to fund the construction of a continuous pilot plant to trial its world-first proprietary process that produces industrial chemicals from waste generated during aluminium smelting.

Ora Banda Mining has extracted first ore at its new WA Sand King underground gold mine, just four months after opening the portal. Full-scale mining is set for March, with 60,000 ounces of gold per year expected by mid-year. The Sand King mine is a key piece of the company’s ambitious Drive to 150 plan, aiming to produce up to 160,000 gold ounces annually by mid-2026.

Altech Batteries has sealed a third offtake agreement with Axsol GmbH, a defence market renewable energy solutions supplier for NATO based in Germany. The partnership is set to provide Axsol with up to 120MWh of energy storage over the first five years from Altech’s groundbreaking lithium-ion battery alternative Cerenergy solid-state salt batteries.

Meeka Metals’ infill drilling at its WA Murchison project has revealed high-grade gold at the Turnberry and St Anne’s prospects, boosting plans to expand its production schedule. The key results at Turnberry included 9m grading 16.83g/t gold, including 5m at an eye-catching 29.02g/t gold while at St Annes the best hits included 11m grading 13.01g/t gold, with a sizzling 4m section running at 30.66g/t gold

Aurum Resources has unveiled spectacular gold intercepts at its Boundiali gold project in northern Côte d'Ivoire with one 1.19m hit grading 277.54 g/t gold from 31m depth at its BM prospect. The drilling program included 76 diamond drill holes at the Boundiali BM and BD prospects, covered more than 21,700m of drilling and delivered a plethora of high-grade finds.

First-pass air core drilling by Kalgoorlie Gold Mining on a blind target at its Kirgella West prospect, 140km northeast of Kalgoorlie, has been rewarded with good hits up to 3.66g/t gold over a 1200m strike. The 63-hole, 3518m program is adjacent to KalGold’s Kirgella Gift and Providence deposits, with their combined 76,400 ounce gold inferred resource, and produced strong gold anomalism and potentially economic gold grades over a wide area.

Horizon Minerals has tabled a solid set of numbers from a prefeasibility study into its Penny's Find gold play, 50km northeast of Kalgoorlie, in WA, predicting a free cash flow of $24m at a gold price of $3600 per ounce. The study reveals a profitable underground mining scenario with a production target of 329,900 tonnes of ore at a grade of 3.2 grams per tonne gold for 33,500 ounces.

GreenTech Metals has launched a 4000m stage two diamond core drilling program at its Whundo copper-zinc-silver project in WA’s West Pilbara region. The program aims to test electromagnetic conductors generated from previous surface fixed-loop and downhole electromagnetic geophysical surveys of previous drill holes to identify and potentially expand the project resource.

Octava Minerals has wound-up drilling at its Yallalong antimony project in WA’s Gascoyne region, confirming visual signs of antimony mineralisation and unlocking the next phase drilling of 14 high-priority targets, to follow assay results expected early next year. Octava completed 41 reverse circulation drill holes for a total of 2748m across its Discovery and Central antimony targets.

Larvotto Resources continues its winning run with its final five drillholes at Clarks Gully deposit at its Hillgrove project in NSW, jagging broad high-grade gold-antimony intercepts, including 22m at 9.87g/t gold equivalent. The 59-hole program for 4469m of RC drilling was designed to infill and extend the current 266,000t Clarks Gully mineral resource, grading 3.8 per cent antimony and 2.0g/t gold for 10.6g/t gold equivalent.

Triangle Energy’s well pad for its upcoming Becos-1 exploration well in WA’s Perth Basin is in the final stages of construction. The pad’s completion is set for the end of December, ahead of a March spud of the highly anticipated onshore Becos-1 wildcat well, which is targeting a resource of between 1 million and 21m barrels of oil.

Estrella Resources has received encouraging responses from its first geophysical survey line across its recently discovered Ira Miri manganese zone at Lautém in Timor-Leste, prompting its maiden drilling campaign. The low resistivity anomaly is interpreted as a potential target for supergene manganese and aligns with previously reported outcrop mapped onsite, although more work is required to gauge the potential scale of the anomalism.

Javelin Minerals has completed 2921m of a phase one maiden drilling program at its Coogee copper-gold project near Kambalda in Western Australia, with phase two slated to kick off early in the New Year. The 18-hole reverse circulation program recovered 1698 samples sent for assay and identified a copper-gold mineralised trend extending from about 270m south of the southern open pit rim to about 450m north of the northern rim.

American West Metals has unveiled an impressive 117% increase in indicated copper resources at its flagship Storm project in Nunavut, Canada, noting multiple recent discoveries remain to be included in the substantial resource inventory. The upgrade propels the total resource to 20.6 million tonnes at 1.1% copper and 3.3 grams per tonne silver, representing some 229,000t of copper.

Novo Resources has options to buy two exceptionally high-grade, drill-ready gold projects in New South Wales, including the John Bull prospect that has walk-up drilling targets in an area with seven historical shafts including one sunk in the mid-1880s. Novo said the acquisitions align with its strategy of identifying standalone projects that could host at least one million ounces of gold.

Christmas has come early for Lindian Resources, with it wrapping up the year with a US$50 million (A$78.6 million) funding agreement with US-based commodity trader Gerald Metals Group. Funds are earmarked to kick off development of its world-class Kangankunde rare earths project in Malawi. A feasibility study on the stage one development shows a whopping annual EBITDA of US$84m (A$132m) in a 45-year mine life.

This week’s Bulls N’ Bears Runner of the Week is… Tasman Resources. The South Australian mineral explorer has a series of impressive targets to follow up with a drilling program. Bridge SaaS received some love from a substantial shareholder keen to increase its stake in the firm, while other movers and shakers this week were New Frontier Minerals and Axel REE.

Javelin Minerals has slotted the next golden arrow into its quiver with the completion of its much-heralded acquisition of the brownfields Eureka gold project, 54km northwest of Kalgoorlie. Eureka’s current mineral resource estimate remains at 2.45 million tonnes at an average grade of 1.42g/t gold for a total of 112,000 ounces of gold, as announced in June 2021.

St George Mining has signed two memoranda of understanding with Latin America’s biggest scientific and technological agency SENAI looking to develop critical minerals opportunities flowing from its Araxá project in Minas Gerais, Brazil. SENAI collaborates with businesses to develop innovative technologies capable of driving business growth and efficiencies and has a strong record of collaboration with the private sector to advance businesses through those technologies.

Aurumin has kicked off its latest 1600m drill program and will launch into its prospective Plum Pudding deposit where a mouth-watering 18m drill hit graded 25.8g/t gold at its Central Sandstone project about 520km northeast of Perth. The company also plans to target extensional and infill drilling at its Shillington deposit and aims to crash through the million-ounce milestone at the project shortly.

88 Energy has reinforced its position on Alaska’s North Slope after securing four new, highly promising petroleum leases adjoining the existing 10 blocks it already holds at the company’s Project Leonis grounds. Seismic data revealed the discovery of significant oil potential at the new prospect, which covers 43 square kilometres and contains a sizable target up to 102m thick.

Octava Minerals has found 14 key structural antimony targets along a 10km antimony corridor at its Yallalong project in WA’s Gascoyne region, identified via a recent surface gravity geophysical survey. The targets look similar to its Discovery prospect that was the only site drilled out of four prime areas identified in historic exploration, and which assayed up to 7m at 3.27 per cent antimony along a 300m strike.

Meeka Metals has posted a massively improved definitive feasibility study that places its Murchison gold project in WA firmly on the road to almost doubling its total free cash flow to $1 billion over the mine’s expected 10-year lifespan. It also outlined a 31% boost in reserves and a 40% rise in production to 544,000 ounces over the decade with peak annual sales reaching 76,000 ounces in year five.