Bulls N' Bears (Commercial Content)

Image Resources has increased the forecast value for its Boonanarring mineral sands project in Western Australia by $38 million to $235 million on the back of higher zircon price forecasts by consulting company TZ Mineral International. The pre-tax rate of return is up to 125 per cent while payback is now expected in 13 months, down from 16 months.

Draig Resources’ metallurgical tests have resulted in gold recoveries of up to 98.8% using conventional gravity and cyanide processing on ore from the Tribune Lode discovery just 2km from the historical Bellevue gold mine in W.A. Draig will test deeper extension targets below the Bellevue mine and it expects to complete a resource estimate for the project in the third quarter of 2018.

Southern Gold has scored a bullseye with a new geological model for an area south of the historic Transfind pit, with first-pass drilling hitting gold in all 13 holes and producing a best result of 1m @ 133.67 g/t. The results have backed up hopes for shallow, very high-grade gold that could be trucked to a nearby plant and add to cashflow from the Cannon mine.

King River Copper has announced more high grade gold results from the Mt Remarkable gold project, 200km southwest of Kununurra in the Kimberley region of W.A. The company is targeting the Trudi Vein system with close spaced drilling to delineate multi-ounce, plunging ore shoots. Exploration drilling is underway east of the main Trudi lode too, at the intersection with the Grahame vein system.

Kopore Metals is starting a maiden 3,000m drilling program targeting the KM3 and GW3 targets at its Ghanzi West project in Botswana in search of regional scale copper silver anomalies. The project is located close to major development projects such as Cupric Canyon Capital’s Zone 5 resource and MOD Resources’ T3 copper project within the highly prospective but under-explored Kalahari copper belt.

Venus Metals has reported a significant increase in its near surface gold resource inventory at its Youanmi project to 10.1 million tonnes grading 1.65g/t gold for 533,000 ounces. When combined with the Youanmi Deeps underground resource, the global mineral resource at Youanmi now sits at just under 1.2 million ounces. The company is now looking at the viability of creating one “super pit” at the project.

Galena Mining has announced some outstanding results in a scoping study for its Abra lead project in WA. With an initial mine life of 11 years, a base case scenario produces a pre-tax, post-royalty net present value of $394 million and a 61 percent internal rate of return. When fully operational, Abra will produce 1 million tonnes annually and generate free cash flows of up to $110 million a year.

Reedy Lagoon will conduct sophisticated geophysical surveys at its lithium brine projects in southern Nevada to produce an accurate 3D picture of potentially lithium-rich groundwaters and boost its chances of a discovery. The survey technique, known as audio magneto tellurics, shows the location of highly conductive zones within the subsurface that could represent volcanic ash layers laden with lithium brines.

Hammer Metals is selling its 75% interest in the Millennium cobalt project in Queensland’s Mt Isa district to partner Global Energy Metals in exchange for a 19.9% stake in the Canadian company. This replaces the previous joint venture agreement and allows Hammer to focus on its exciting copper-gold exploration projects in Mt Isa.

King River Copper’s first trial with an alternative processing flow sheet for its giant Speewah deposit has produced vanadium pentoxide with a purity of 99.47% and could open the door to the production of a high purity vanadium product. The new process has become the focus of testing because it produces material that is more readily upgraded into electrolytes for vanadium redox batteries.

Southern Gold’s Gubong JV gold project in South Korea could have low capital and operating costs if results from preliminary metallurgical testwork carried out by partner Bluebird Merchant Ventures is any indication. A study into the economic feasibility of re-opening the historic high-grade mine is due to be completed in July 2018. With samples going an ounce to the tonne Gubong is looking interesting.

Legend Mining has extended the strike length of the third mineralised intrusive body at its Rockford project in Western Australia’s Fraser Range region to more than 100m. It will start regional aircore drilling on selected targets in the southern Rockford project and carry out a full geological and geochemical assessment of Area D drilling results.

Strike Energy expects its Jaws-1 deep coal seam gas well in South Australia’s Cooper Basin to potentially come online in early July. Production testing will confirm the commercial viability of Strike’s Southern Cooper Basin Gas Project which has conditional gas off-take agreements already in place with substantial domestic gas consumers.

Aquabotix has been awarded USD$78,000 from the US Navy to develop an unexploded ordnance detection solution that will be used to detect, locate and neutralise unexploded subsea ordnance. The company will incorporate the solution into its “SwarmDiver” miniature submarine drones or other unmanned underwater vehicles as it seriously strengthens its ties with one of the world’s most powerful militaries.

Neometals Ltd has reported a major increase to its nickel mineral resources at the Mt Edwards project courtesy of four new deposits, nearly tripling metal inventories to 7.4 million tonnes grading 1.7% nickel for just over 123,000 tonnes. The company recently completed the acquisition of the Mt Edwards tenements from Apollo Phoenix Resources and with them, the assignment of further nickel rights.

Vonex has started beta development of its Oper8tor communication aggregator application with a focus on system designs and platform architecture. Controlled testing is expected to start in October 2018 and the company is planning to soft-launch the app in Western Europe next year, to take advantage of its significant population and mobile phone usage.

Artemis Resources and Novo Resources have commenced a major exploration program aimed at proving up grades and tonnages at the Purdy’s Reward conglomerate and paleoplacer gold deposit, 35km southeast of Karratha, in the west Pilbara of W.A. The work will generate a mineralisation report to underwrite the application for a mining lease and the company also reported its 3.3km super-deep drill hole has reached 163m depth.

St George Mining has increased the footprint of high grade nickel-copper sulphide mineralisation at the Stricklands prospect with intersections that include 6.25m @ 2.36% nickel, 1% copper, 0.15% cobalt and 1.25g/t total PGEs from 67.2m down-hole. Mineralisation is open to the west, north and east of the prospect and the company is planning a follow-up drill program.

King River Copper is thinking about a serious upsizing of its proposed mine at Speewah after an initial pit study found a monster-sized pit could be the best approach to mining the giant vanadium-titanium-iron deposit. The latest study has lowered the strip ratio to just 0.4 to 1, taking full advantage of the large, flat-lying and evenly-distributed mineralisation.

Adriatic Metals has announced more stunning drill results from its Rupice prospect in Bosnia. High grade results were retuned from two ore lenses intersected in the same drill hole, including 36 metres grading 4.4g/t gold, 463g/t silver, 0.5% copper, 4.3% lead, 5.7% zinc and 55% barite from 196m down-hole and 22m @ 4.1g/t gold, 258g/t silver, 0.8% copper, 7.5% lead, 12.8% zinc and 56% barite from 244m down-hole.

New spectacular drill results from King River Copper’s Mt Remarkable gold project in the East Kimberley have extended a very high grade epithermal gold zone and shored up the company’s view there could be other gold-rich zones nearby. Best results from the latest assays include 3m @ 41.75 g/t gold, including 1m @ 81.5 g/t, from a downhole depth of just 16m.

New assays have confirmed Nzuri Copper’s high hopes for a cobalt-rich zone just 800m along strike from its proposed Kalongwe copper project. Resource drilling is already being planned with expectations of a JORC resource in the near term. Drilling at Monwezi II just 2.5km along strike has also produced some very encouraging signs of copper and cobalt, including massive sulphides.

Kopore Metals has announced that a regional soils program at its KM1 EM anomaly has produced two impressive copper-lead-zinc targets in geologically and structurally favourable locations at the Ghanzi West prospect area in Botswana. The coherent anomalies are identified over a12 square kilometre area, coinciding with airborne and ground EM geophysical anomalies. The company considers the new anomalies to be high value drilling targets.

Australian Potash’s Yamarna gold project could host a northern extension of Gold Road Resources’ high grade gold targets to the south. This includes an anomaly similar in scale to Gold Road’s Ibanez prospect. The company is now finalising a second stage drill program that will include reverse circulation drilling to test the depth and primary mineralised structures.

Geopacific has initiated a major exploration program at its Woodlark gold project in PNG. The company recently raised $10m and will channel the funds towards increasing its mineral resource inventory with a view to extending the proposed mine life beyond 10 years. Drilling will focus on under-explored, high grade structural corridors and historical targets between and adjacent to the large Kulumadau and Busai gold deposits.

Legend Mining has unearthed a third nickel-copper mineralised intrusive of magmatic sulphides within a host rock similar to the famed Nova-Bollinger deposit, at its Rockford project in the Fraser Range. The new result of 37m @ 0.25% nickel and 0.03% copper from 78m depth, was substantiated by rock petrology identifying nickel sulphides in a highly prospective olivine rich gabbronorite rock mass.

Calidus Resources has achieved success in a major resource drill out at its Warrawoona gold project in the Pilbara. Results of up to 10m @ 3.84g/t gold from 27m down-hole at the Coronation prospect have confirmed a strike length of about 250 metres for the prospect. The company also reported it had extended the Klondyke mineralisation another 150m down-plunge with strategic deep diamond drilling.

Capricorn Metals expects to secure financing for its Karlawinda gold project in the Pilbara in the September quarter after optimisation work increased the project net present value from $144m to $243m. Other improvements include an IRR of 36% from 31%, payback in just 2.5 years instead of 3 years, a 10% reduction in capital costs to $132m and a 2 year increase in mine life to 8.5 years.

Aquabotix will have the opportunity to bid on research and development projects after joining the Innovative Undersea Prototype Development Consortium. The Consortium supports a US Navy program that seeks to address the endurance and data transmission challenges faced by unmanned underwater vehicles.

St George Mining has announced 4 new drill ready electromagnetic conductor targets at its Investigators prospect, 100km west of Leonora in the northern Goldfields of W.A. The best target is interpreted to be 120m down-plunge of an intersection of 5.3 metres grading 4.95% nickel, 2.75% copper, 0.16% cobalt and 4.55 grams per tonne total PGE’s from 157.9m down-hole.

Sky and Space Global, has signed a deal with China’s Beijing Commsat Technology Development Co. that provides a fast entry into China’s burgeoning “internet of things” market for the Perth listed upstart telco. The parties will explore how Sky and Space’s nano-satellite technology can be incorporated and used to advance and enhance the current network offering from Commsat Technology.

Hammer Metals has made its best ever intercept of 41 metres @ 0.18% cobalt, 0.11g/t gold and 0.23% copper from 14m down-hole representing the true width of the mineralisation at the Millennium project near Cloncurry in QLD. Drill results will now be reviewed before carrying out further exploration on the higher grade southern portion of the resource ahead of preliminary metallurgical studies.