Bulls N' Bears (Commercial Content)

Horizon Minerals has bumped up its resource estimate for the company’s 100 per cent-owned Penny’s Find gold mine project 50km north-east of Kalgoorlie by nearly 50 per cent to 63,000 ounces. The latest estimate is based on a compilation of all drilling results below the 260m relative level and a lower cut-off grade of 1.5g/t gold, yielding a total resource estimate of 429,000 tonnes at a grade of 4.57g/t gold.

Aurumin has cleared the final outstanding amount owing on a convertible note and is now debt free having completed the sale of its suite of thirteen Mt Dimer tenements to Beacon Minerals for $3 million. Executed as part of a series of financial and corporate deals, the company is now squarely focused on further developing its recently acquired Sandstone Gold Project, 520km north-east of Perth.

St George Mining has completed a soil sampling and rock chip program over a previously untested area of its flagship Mt Alexander project with assay results expected about mid-January. The company also has plans in place for a new year drill program at its Lithium Star group of projects and at Destiny - a 3,000 square kilometre landholding south-west of Kalgoorlie where a high-grade rare earths discovery, announced just weeks ago, identified numerous potentially lithium-bearing pegmatites.

Radiopharm Theranostics is poised to open a second site for conducting human trials of its RAD 204 treatment for advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) having received the green light from Perth’s Hollywood Private Hospital’s Human Research Ethics Committee. The approval follows its successful Brisbane site initiation visit at Princess Alexandra Hospital prior to trials which are slated to begin as soon as next week.

With the uranium price touching US$80 a pound, up from a low of US$20 just a few years ago, a bevy of ASX-listed small caps are lining up for a piece of the action. Geoscience Australia says Australia boasts almost half (46 per cent) of the global uranium resources which screams opportunity. Dollar Bill pontificates on potential for law changes and the future for uranium mining in Australia.

Radiopharm Theranostics has stepped closer to kicking off what it says could be a “game-changing” trial for patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) after a successful initiation site visit to Brisbane’s Princess Alexandra Hospital. The visit was made ahead of the trial that will evaluate the safety and efficacy of the company’s treatment for advanced NSCLC – the most common type of lung cancer.

This week’s Bulls N’ Bears profiled ASX runner is … MTM Critical Metals. Its shares tripled this week to join fellow movers and shakers Culpeo Minerals, Novo Resources and Millennium Services Group.

Novo Resources has committed to stepping up its hunt for gold in 2024 within several priority targets at its Egina Gold Camp and Balla Balla project that both sit in Western Australia’s Pilbara region. The company is awaiting assays from more than 10,500m of drilling at its Becher project and says it gleaned positive shallow results in a maiden RC program at Nunyerry North.

Neometals has revealed plans for its 50 per cent-owned subsidiary Primobius to deliver a fully-integrated hydrometallurgical refinery hub to Stelco, offering recycled battery metal products to the electric vehicle market. Primobius’ option to acquire up to a 50 per cent equity in the Stelco special purpose vehicle has been extended until June 30 in 2025 to align with the fully-integrated plant offer.

Ora Banda Mining has received an early $10 million Christmas present as part of its Goldfields project farm-in agreement with Wesfarmers subsidiary Davyston Exploration – and another $16 million is on the way. Davyston will get 65 per cent of the lithium rights at the Davyhurst gold project north of Kalgoorlie, which has a drill hit of 11.1m at 1.28 per cent lithium oxide from 54m.

Reach Resources has added 16 new targets to its niobium-rare earths project in the highly-prospective Gascoyne battery metals province of Western Australia, about 260km east of Carnarvon, following soil assays. The company says a tenement-wide soils program at its Wabli Creek project threw up promising assays going 3860 parts per million total rare earth oxides (TREO), 2744ppm, 2425ppm, 2271ppm, 1976ppm and 1918ppm.

Estrella Resources will use a $1.327 million research-and-development tax rebate from the ATO to repay a loan facility, with about $181,000 in surplus cash to be aimed at further exploring its Carr Boyd nickel project in Western Australia’s Goldfields region. The company says it will continue its R&D work into mineralisation genesis and make a further claim at the end of the next financial year.

Novo Resources is closing out its year with a flurry, revealing it has formed a new joint venture partnership with private company Liatam Mining for its Quartz Hill project in Western Australia’s East Pilbara region. Subject to TSX approval, Liatam has also agreed to invest $1.8 million for 9 million Novo shares at 20c each to increase its shareholding to about 6 per cent.

GreenTech Metals has wrapped up what it says has been a “transformative” year for the company after finishing a maiden diamond drilling program for both its Osborne JV and Ruth Well projects in the West Pilbara region of WA. The program involved four holes for a total of 1611m and was designed to assess stratigraphic and structural aspects of the lithium-rich pegmatites in both areas.

Galan Lithium is on track to install the first pond of its Hombre Muerto West lithium brine project in Argentina before the end of the year, with 85 per cent of the construction process now complete. The initial filling of the pond is expected by the first quarter of next year and the project remains on track for maiden production in the first half of 2025.

Aurum Resources has completed its acquisition of PlusOr Global and now officially owns ground in Africa’s Côte d’Ivoire, where historic drill hits have run as high as 1m at a massive 30.8g/t gold from 42m. The company says diamond drilling at the project is underway and 29 holes have been completed across three targets for 4592m of core, with assays due back next month.

Altech Batteries has forecast a stunning project life EBITDA of more than €3.08 billion (AU$5 billion) for its 8000 tonnes per annum Silumina Anodes project in Germany following the completion of a definitive feasibility study. The facility will produce patented alumina-coated silicon battery anode materials known as Silumina Anodes to meet high demand in the European and US electric vehicle and grid storage battery markets.

Legend Mining says seismic reprocessing and machine learning have boosted the exploration potential of its Rockford project within Western Australia’s rugged Fraser Range, about 250km east of Kalgoorlie. The new geophysical datasets suggest a depth extension of the Mawson nickel-copper-cobalt deposit that already has an indicated resource of 860,000 tonnes at 1.34 per cent nickel, 0.88 per cent copper and 0.08 per cent cobalt.

Strickland Metals is finishing off a prosperous 2023 in style, today revealing new assay results from air-core drilling at its Horse Well prospect in Western Australia’s Mid West region, that include a highlight hit of 36m at 1.2g/t gold from 24m, with 16m going 2.5g/t gold from 32m. The company says the intercept highlights new mineralisation potential between its Filly SW and Warmblood resources.

The addition of fluorine to the Australian Government’s list of critical minerals has put ABx Group in prime position to impact global supply after it successfully pilot tested its new fluorine reactor process. The batch-scale testing that involved the processing of waste bath was recently carried out by the company’s 83 per cent-owned subsidiary, Alcore.

An independent life-cycle assessment into Neometals’ Primobius lithium-ion battery recycling plants has shown the potential for its strategy to produce key battery materials with an exceptionally low carbon footprint. The assessment, conducted by environmental impact mitigation company Minviro, confirmed Primobius’ integrated hydrometallurgical refining process had a significantly lower footprint in terms of global warming potential.

AVZ Minerals has laid claim to having the world’s biggest hard-rock lithium deposit after pumping up the resource at its Manono play in the DRC to a whopping 574 million tonnes at 1.63 per cent lithium oxide. It comes on the back of tabling a maiden resource for its Carrière de L’Este pegmatite of 173 million tonnes at 1.58 per cent lithium oxide.

Terrain Minerals has identified traces of sulphides and alteration in samples in a maiden drilling program at the company’s Larin’s Lane deposit in Western Australia’s Mid West region after plunging 101 drill holes for 6611m. The company says the campaign within its 100 per cent-owned Smokebush project was aimed at testing the bedrock under previously-defined copper, nickel and gold anomalies at the prospect.

The first look at Buru Energy’s Rafael well three-dimensional (3D) seismic cube shows data quality improvement and confirms the structure as a significant gas and condensate resource – with step-out prospectivity. Management says it can already see the reservoir and top-seal intervals in a structure similar to that mapped on historic two-dimensional data. The final volume is due by the end of February.

Si6 Metals has added further impetus to its highly-prospective Botswana precious and base metals play, with its latest drill program striking high-grade silver and copper and exciting visual nickel sulphides. The company’s three projects in the southern African country provide a compelling mix of in-demand metals that are all expected to play a big role in the future clean-energy transition.

Lithium Universe says a study into its lithium carbonate refinery at its burgeoning Québec processing hub suggests it should produce a final lithium carbonate product grading between 99.5 and 99.9 per cent. The refinery is rated to 16,000 tonnes per annum, with an assumed feed grade of 5.5 per cent lithium oxide. Hatch has completed the study and a construction site has been selected.

Novo Resources will join forces with SQM Australia after the latter agreed to pay $10 million for a 75 per cent interest in five of the former’s lithium-nickel tenements in Western Australia’s West Pilbara region. The two companies will create the “Harding Battery Metals” joint venture, with the deal also including an option over additional tenements held by Novo in the Pilbara.

ASX-listed Larvotto Resources is looking at a major transitional change from mineral explorer to producer after confirming it had picked up the Hillgrove gold-antimony project in NSW for a song. The company acquired the 1.4-million-ounce gold equivalent operation after entering into a binding term sheet with the administrators of former owner Red River Resources for a purchase price of less than $6 per ounce.

Meeka Metals says it has gathered high-grade gold results from 10 infill air-core drillholes at its St Anne’s resource target about 30km north-east of Meekatharra, including a 7m hit at a grade of 3.51g/t gold with 2m going 9.84g/t. The company says the results are supported by other high-grade intercepts in adjacent holes, including 1m at 13.45g/t gold.

King River Resources is set for a big 2024, with 20,000m of drilling planned for 12 priority targets at its Tennant Creek gold project in the Northern Territory after running an extensive geophysics campaign this year. The company has set aside $2.5 million for the program, which includes 17 reverse-circulation (RC) holes already completed for 2790m at its Providence prospect.

A Strickland Metals decision to lock its full focus on its Marwari target at Yandal in Western Australia is paying almost immediate dividends, with new high-grade gold hits including 24m at 7.4g/t from 29m and a second hole yielding 3m at 8.9g/t gold from 71m. The company says the 24m intersection also contained a 5m slice going 28g/t gold.

Aruma Resources has produced its best rare earths grades to date from its Saltwater project near Newman in Western Australia, with rock-chip assays as high as 1777.5ppm total rare earth oxides (TREO) and soils as high as 1092.5ppm. The company says the area continues to reveal a major volcanogenic massive sulphide system hosting multi-commodity enrichment that will be tested by drilling next year.