Bulls N' Bears (Commercial Content)

Lithium Universe is one step closer to establishing its proposed Quebec lithium processing hub after appointing Primero Group as the lead manager to design its multi-purpose, stand-alone concentrator in Canada. Management says the appointment follows an extensive process to procure a contractor with suitable experience and capabilities to undertake the design of a stand-alone concentrator to process one million tonnes per year of spodumene ore.

Earlier this year, the US State of Nevada overtook Western Australia as the world’s No.1 mining jurisdiction, according to the Fraser Institute’s latest annual survey of mining companies. But just down the road, Arizona – a long-time mining frontier ¬– has also been attracting significant interest from several ASX-listed exploration companies such as Riedel Resources, Eagle Mountain Mining and Patriot Lithium.

ABx Group has unearthed rare earths grades it believes are “unrivalled” for clay-hosted mineralisation in Australia at its Deep Leads-Rubble Mound prospect in Tasmania, with an eye-watering result of 17,333 parts per million total rare earth oxides (TREO). The results came from a program 2km west of a hole that yielded the company’s previous best assay result with a top value of 4444ppm TREO.

Strickland Metals continues to deliver from drilling at its Horse Well project after recording a 39m hit at 6.1 grams per tonne gold from 25m at its Palomino prospect, including 7m going 22.2g/t gold from 45m. The latest drilling is targeting southern extensions to the Marwari target discovery hole that recorded a 31m intercept grading 5.6g/t gold from 72m.

Estrella Resources is evaluating its Carr Boyd project in Western Australia’s Goldfields region for lithium-pegmatite potential associated with a granitic or monzonitic body that intrudes the northern flanks of the mafic-ultramafic nickel host. New interpretations and a recent nickel discovery have highlighted areas of nickel potential and also indicate possible pegmatite-hosted lithium and related mineralisation within the project.

Middle Island Resources has prioritised exploration targets for iron oxide-copper-gold mineralisation and sediment-hosted base metals of copper-zinc-lead-silver at its Barkly project near Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory. The company says one of its company’s application areas has two high-priority shallow targets based on historic data that reveal a pathway copper-gold indicator of silver showing 87 grams per tonne.

ABx Group has strengthened its grip on a significant area of Tasmanian rare earths potential with the granting of two new exploration licences covering 483 square kilometres for an initial five-year term, extending its recent Portrush discovery. The company also has an application in train to secure intervening ground between its established Deep Leads and Wind Break prospects.

Aurum Resources has launched its maiden 74-hole, 3500m air-core drilling campaign at its Ryans Find gold project, north-east of Koolyanobbing in Westerm Australia, to follow up on some alluring gold and base metals soil anomalies. The holes will be oriented in multiple transects perpendicular to the strike of a prospective north/north-westerly-trending greenstone belt, with the aim of netting some trophy catches.

Lindian Resources has signed a maiden sale and purchase contract with global commodity trader Gerald Metals, part of the Gerald Group, for monazite rare earths concentrate from its Kangankunde project in Malawi. Management says the deal provides for the supply and sale of 45,000 tonnes of monazite concentrate from the stage-one development of the Kangankunde operation during a five-year period.

Askari Metals’ soil sampling at its Callawa project near Marble Bar in Western Australia's Pilbara region has yielded significant nickel-copper-cobalt mineralisation, with a top value of 1808ppm nickel. It also threw up a a strong nickel-chromium correlation to a high of 2349ppm chromium, a high magnesium- chromium content and a typical nickel-copper ratio – all indicating a strong potential for peridotite-dunite-associated nickel mineralisation.

American West Metals has hit high-grade, sediment-hosted copper in three diamond drill holes sunk at its Storm project in Canada’s Nunavut province, with the intercepts below the site’s near-surface copper deposits. Highlights show a 76m hit at 2 per cent copper from 32.4m, which included a headline grade of 49.6 per cent copper in a 0.5m slice.

Lycaon Resources has intersected more than 45m of 1 to 5 per cent visual nickel-copper sulphides from 330m after thrusting a second diamond drillhole into its Bow River project near Argyle in Western Australia’s Kimberley region. The company says the sulphides show a strong correlation with the upper limit of a gravity anomaly that is open along strike in excess of 1km.

It was a delight recently for Dollar Bill (sometimes known as Bill McConnell) to sit down and pore over the latest BDO Australia Explorer Quarterly Cash Update. For Dollar Bill, the report presented as a natural pairing with a fruity Chateau Latour and led to a wonderfully delicious and contemplative evening on the chaise lounge by the fire.

Independent testing by Novonix Battery Technology Solutions has found Lithium Australia’s lithium ferro phosphate (LFP) cathode material to be of high quality – either matching or exceeding competitor products across the key parameters of capacity, stability and high temperature performance. Tests suggest the company’s product is an attractive alternative in the existing LFP supply chain, which is heavily concentrated in China.

Galan Lithium has firmed-up the geological pegmatite model at its Greenbushes South project in Western Australia, with Fry’s Block assays suggesting a similarity to the globally-renowned Greenbushes deposit. It says Greenbushes, one of the world’s biggest and highest-grade hard-rock lithium operations, is about 5km north and on the same regional geological structure. More drilling is planned to test new pegmatite targets.

The Australian Patent Office has granted Neometals’ recycling subsidiary Primobius timely protection for the key hydrometallurgical separation “hub” of its lithium-ion battery (LiB) recycling process – the downstream component of its mechanical battery disassembly “spoke” plant. The company recently revealed it had received an order from Mercedes-Benz for a 10-tonne per day lithium-ion battery shredding plant for its new recycling operation in Germany.

Alma Metals has achieved the stage one earn-in requirements to reach an initial 30 per cent interest in Canterbury Resources Briggs, Mannersley and Fig Tree Hill joint venture copper project in Queensland. Alma has placed an exploration target of between 480m and 880m tonnes on Briggs alone, grading between .20 and .30 per cent copper and between 25 and 40ppm moly – and that’s in addition to the existing resource.

88 Energy has boosted its Phoenix project in Alaska by mapping the Upper Slope Fan System reservoir an additional 7km further south than had previously been modelled. The Upper SFS reservoir boasted abundant oil shows and fifteen times background gas levels when drilled by the Hickory-1 well in March this year, causing the mud tanks to bubble. The Upper SFS represents a new resource addition for the project.

Meeka Metals has revealed it has completed a gravity survey over its St Anne’s and Turnberry resource areas to better define their principal mafic gold hosts. It has also begun drilling to extend the Turnberry resource and to probe surrounding thinly tested areas for additional ounces to bolster existing resource numbers.

Askari Metals is charging ahead with exploration at its Uis Lithium Project in the Erongo Region of central-west Namibia with multiple pegmatites in sight begging to be drill tested. The lack of vegetation on its ground has allowed Askari to image all outcropping pegmatites with high-resolution aerial data as it eagerly awaits the return of phase one drilling assays in the next two weeks.

Everest Metals Corporation will keep the drillbit spinning after delivering more high-grade rubidium and lithium results at its Mt Edon project near Paynes Find in Western Australia’s Mid West region. New drill results show up to 0.51 per cent rubidium oxide and 0.94 per cent lithium oxide, with an 80m hit at 0.32 per cent rubidium oxide and 0.11 per cent lithium oxide from 25m.

With an unlikely background of working for two of WA’s “four-on-the-floor” entrepreneurs, Bondy and Holmes a Court, Twigger’s Tales (aka Liam Twigger) says the ASX is now punching above its weight globally and casting a long shadow over the TSX and even the LSE when it comes to raising capital for the mining and exploration sector.

Lindian Resources has launched a 4000m mine development drilling program at its Kangankunde rare earths project in Malawi in a bid to upgrade about 20 million tonnes of its inferred resource to higher categories before finalising its stage-one pit outline. The company says the campaign is one of the key steps in its transition to production.

A calculated punt by Allup Silica to test for rare earths at its Pink Bark project, 90km north-east of Esperance in Western Australia, has seen it hit clay-hosted mineralisation beneath the sand in its maiden drilling program. The campaign returned intriguing intercepts of 1m at 1169ppm TREO from 20m, 1m at 1985ppm from 21m and 1m at 798ppm from 8m.

ChemX Materials has established a maiden manganese resource of 13.1 million tonnes at 5.7 per cent manganese at its Jamieson Tank deposit, 150km west of South Australia’s Port of Whyalla. The company says testwork on the resource has shown “excellent” upgrade characteristics through simple gravity and magnetic separation and it will now complete an internal scoping study on the production of high-purity manganese battery-grade products.

Si6 Metals is banging ahead with the drill at its Dibete copper-silver project in Botswana, having revealed that five out of 15 reverse-circulation holes are glittering with chalcopyrite and chalcocite in rock-chip samples. A diamond drilling rig has arrived onsite to test pipe-like geophysical anomalies at depth and the company believes it has “barely scratched the surface”.

Ora Banda Mining has now settled a $10 million deal to sell its non-core Lady Ida tenements, 65km south of Kalgoorlie, in a move designed to sharpen the company’s focus on high-grade underground gold deposits. Ora Banda will retain rights on the tenements to all minerals other than gold and silver as part of the now-completed sale to Lamerton and Geoda.

Strickland Metals has discovered a new high-grade gold trend at its Horse Well prospect in Western Australia, with its discovery air-core drillhole intersecting 31m at 5.6 grams per tonne gold from 72m to bottom-of-hole, including 8m at 17.7g/t gold. The company says the find was in an area that is not known to have been previously drilled.

Emu NL expects an October assay return after completing a maiden drilling program on time and on budget at its Condingup clay-hosted rare earths project near Esperance on Western Australia’s south coast. The company says 34 holes for 2762m targeted clay traps adjacent to and overlying the Booanya granite outcrops that produced rock chips testing as high as 2124ppm TREO.

Reach Resources has entered into a tenement sale agreement to acquire a new exploration licence from Firebird Metals, extending its grip on prospective manganese terrain in Western Australia’s Edmund Basin. The strategy is in line with the company’s anticipation of increasing global demand for critical lithium, manganese and rare earths in the ongoing global phase of decarbonisation and attendant electrification.

Multiple outcropping lithium-caesium-tantalum (LCT) pegmatites carrying high lithium oxide grades of up to 4.6 per cent have been revealed in follow-up mapping and sampling by Venus Metals at its Deep South prospect within its Youanmi lithium project in Western Australia. The company says broad surrounding caesium-tin anomalism is indicative of an extensive and mostly-hidden granitic and pegmatitic late-phase intrusive system.

Lindian Resources has unveiled an eye-watering 1000m intersect grading 2.6 per cent total rare earth oxides (TREO) from a depth extension drilling program at its Kangankunde rare earths project in Malawi. It says the assays extend mineralisation about 700m vertically below the base of the existing inferred mineral resource estimate of 261 million tonnes at 2.19 per cent TREO. Mineralisation remains open in all directions.