Bulls N' Bears (Commercial Content)

Horizon Minerals has secured a second tranche of funding of US$3 million (AU$4.36 million) to continue the development of its Cannon underground gold project in Western Australia’s Goldfields region. Management says it has also received the government approvals needed to kick off underground development, including an approved mining proposal and mine closure plan from the Department of Mining, Industry Regulation and Safety.

Emu NL has added a fourth rare earths discovery to its growing portfolio after rock-chip samples at its Merredin project complemented historic assay results of up to 1405 parts per million total rare earths oxide. The results backed up a review of the Geological Survey of Western Australia’s public hard-rock geochemical data that showed several assays with elevated rare earths values.

European-focused Altech Batteries has unveiled its preliminary specifications for two products aimed at the burgeoning grid power storage battery market, in a move it predicts will kickstart discussions with potential buyers. The storage batteries, which the Subiaco-based company says outperforms lithium-ion batteries on many levels, will be built in Germany in a joint venture with its partner, Fraunhofer IKTS.

Minerals explorer Si6 Metals will dive into some due diligence after entering into a joint venture and agreeing to acquire a 50 per cent interest in a portfolio of Brazilian lithium and rare earths projects. Management says the deal with Foxfire Metals is subject to a 30-day due diligence period and covers five tenements and five applications across four different project areas in Brazil.

Lindian Resources says it has made significant progress on the optimum design for its processing plant at the company’s Kangankunde rare earths project in Malawi, while the mine design and planning are being scoped. The stage-one plant is based on processing an initial throughput of 220,000 tonnes of material per annum to produce a monazite concentrate before expanding to 440,000 tonnes a year.

The Youanmi gold project near Mt Magnet in Western Australia’s Murchison region has coughed up more high-grade results to bolster the confidence of Venus Metals and its joint venture (JV) partner Rox Resources in upgrading the project’s mineral resource estimate. New highlights include 6.38m going 4.45 grams per tonne gold from 381.84m, including 2.56m at 8.26g/t gold from 381.84m.

ASX-listed Aurumin has kicked off the first of two phases of development works for its Mt Dimer gold project, where it is planning shallow open pits at its high-grade Lightning and Golden Slipper deposits. Mt Dimer sits about 120km north-east of Southern Cross, at a site where historical high-grade production delivered more than 125,000 gold ounces, including production of 600,000 tonnes at 6.4g/t gold.

PolarX has pumped up the mineral resource estimate at its Caribou Dome project in Alaska by 160 per cent to 7.2 million tonnes going 3.1 per cent copper and 6.5 grams per tonne silver after a successful drilling campaign. Management says the contained metal at the project now sits at 224,375 tonnes of copper and 1.5 million ounces of silver.

Reverse-circulation (RC) drilling at Everest Metals’ Mt Edon lithium-caesium-tantalum (LCT) project in Western Australia’s Mid-West region has intersected multiple pegmatites from surface to 111 metres deep within a 1.2km corridor. While the RC assays are imminent, surface rock-chip sampling has confirmed high-grade rubidium of up to 3.1 per cent and lithium up to 4.6 per cent.

American West Metals believes it is closing in on a massive underground copper deposit within the tenement boundaries of its Canadian-based Storm copper project. Detected with a ground gravity survey, management says its new evidence adds to already-known exposed copper at surface on-site at Storm and complements recent drill intercepts that found thick copper intersections at depth.

Auric Mining is a step closer to a maiden gold pour from its Jeffreys Find project near Norseman, with the first 30,000 tonnes of gold ore set for processing once transported to Greenfields Mill in Coolgardie. The company says mining at the site has been ongoing for four weeks and it has triple road trains secured to haul the first ore to Coolgardie.

Novo Resources continues to intercept significant gold mineralisation as it seeks to unearth the Pilbara’s next major gold deposit. Having identified multiple new targets at its Becher project, including a big priority area of mineralisation, Novo is extending its immediate drilling program. It says the project’s geological characteristics stack up against the mineralisation at De Grey Mining’s adjacent 10.6-million-ounce Mallina gold project.

ABx Group is edging towards a commercial-grade rare earths project after unveiling a new record intercept of 11m going an impressive 1700 parts per million total rare earths oxide (TREO) from just 2m at its Deep Leads-Rubble Mound project in Tasmania. Management says the intersection also contains 1m going 4444ppm from 7m and 1m grading 3629ppm from 8m.

An impending and material cut to the Northern Territory gas supply is exacerbating the looming East Coast gas crisis. Production at Eni’s Blacktip gas field, offshore in northern Australia, has fallen faster than expected and has raised fears about energy security both within the NT and further afield. But the Beetaloo Basin could emerge as a major source of new supply.

Surefire Resources is positioning closer to having an impact in the world’s burgeoning battery market after stamping a maiden aluminium oxide resource at its Victory Bore project in Western Australia’s Mid West region. The resource – estimated to contain up to 38 million tonnes of aluminium-hosted ore at a grade of 23.3 per cent – will underpin a prefeasibility study for the company’s critical minerals project.

KalGold has forged a successful maiden drill run at the company’s Kirgella Gift prospect – part of its bigger Pinjin project, 140km north-east of Kalgoorlie – intersecting thick zones of gold mineralisation. With no shortage of other gold miners nearby in the prolific Laverton tectonic zone, KalGold’s Pinjin is poised to turn heads in the market as an emerging exploration play.

Xanadu Mines expects to deliver an updated JORC resource for its Kharmagtai copper-gold project in Mongolia before the end of the year, following the discovery of new high-grade zones during infill drilling. The company has completed about half of its massive 30,000m diamond drill campaign as it targets resource extensions at its Stockwork Hill and White Hill deposits.

Classic Minerals’ Kat Gap gold mine is set for first production this month after the successful installation of its 2MW power plant at the site in Western Australia’s Goldfields region. The company can now rev up its “Gekko” processing plant and is perfectly poised to become WA’s next gold producer, with more than 700,000 ounces of gold sitting in its resource estimates.

Infinity Mining has expanded its foothold in WA’s East Pilbara by nearly 100 square kilometres after acquiring three new tenements to bring its total holding in the region to more than 780sq km. The sites were bought from TasEx Geological Services and include ground considered prospective for volcanic-hosted massive sulphides and shear-hosted gold deposits right next door to Infinity’s Tambourah South lithium project.

A change in strategy appears to be close to paying dividends for Alma Metals after it read the global energy tea leaves and shifted from African coal to instead zero in on a big Queensland copper find. The $13.25 million market-capped company is bearing down on a shallow porphyry deposit at its Briggs copper project, 50km west of Gladstone in Central Queensland.

Surefire Resources is eyeing a November delivery of the prefeasibility study for its Victory Bore vanadium play, clearing the way for the next step in commercialising the project’s massive deposit in Western Australia’s Mid West region. Surefire is also making preliminary plans for further drilling to enable its measured resources to be converted into a JORC-compliant reserve.

Terrain Minerals has unleashed the drill rigs at its Smokebush project in WA’s Mid West region as it tests for lithium in pegmatites at the operation with an 11-hole reverse-circulation campaign over 900m. The company has prioritised seven of the 11 pegmatites identified, which range from about 10m to 15m in width and 200m in length, before shifting undercover in about a 4km area.

Everest Metals is on a mission to add copper to its Revere gold project near Meekatharra, with a diamond drill campaign kicking off just 50km south-east of Sandfire Resources’ DeGrussa copper-gold project. The 1000m program has been designed to test for volcanic-hosted massive sulphides that have been modelled to occur at depth and will include three deep diamond holes sunk to about 350m.

The hits keep coming for American West Metals, with the latest results from drilling at its Storm copper project in Canada showing assays including a 1.5m section at a whopping 7.1 per cent copper from 82.3m. The impressive hit was contained within a 9.1m intercept grading 2.5 per cent copper from 79.3m that was pulled from a wider 67.1m section reading 1.1 per cent copper from just 54.9m.

Reproductive biotechnology company Memphasys has received a boost for its flagship Felix system, with the first global study of its kind rating the novel technology as “best available” for recovering high-quality sperm for IVF following the sperm’s cryopreservation. The study found that from the three sperm-semen separation systems examined, only Felix exhibited significantly lower levels of DNA damage.

Legend Mining is midway through a diamond drilling program targeting two significant nickel-copper sulphide targets at its Octagonal prospect in Western Australia’s Fraser Range – home to IGO’s mammoth Nova-Bollinger nickel-copper-cobalt mine. Legend is bouncing off a slight delay in drilling operations at its first hole, running a downhole electromagnetic survey to pinpoint additional targets, while the rig lines up on the second hole.

Infinity Lithium remains on track to submit the required applications for development of its San José lithium project in Spain – a proposed integrated lithium mining and lithium chemicals processing plant for electric vehicle batteries and the European Union’s second-biggest JORC lithium resource. Regional election results have increased the company’s prospects for getting the project off the ground.

Budding critical materials producer ChemX Materials is set to kick off construction of its high-purity alumina (HPA) pilot plant in Perth’s southern suburbs in Western Australia. Tweaks to the process flow and plant design have slashed infrastructure costs from $2.5 million down to $600,000 for a refined plant capacity of 24 tonnes per annum of HPA destined for the lithium-ion battery market.

Cell therapy cancer-fighter Chimeric Therapeutics is wasting no time on its mission to commercialise its novel potential treatment for glioblastoma. The ASX-listed company was given approval in April for a phase-1B clinical trial of the treatment, which employs the venom of the deathstalker scorpion. The first of multiple sites to enrol patients in the trial has now been revealed in the United States.

Askari Metals has hit several 100m-wide pegmatites with multiple zones of lithium-bearing minerals in phase-two reverse-circulation (RC) drilling at its Uis lithium project in Namibia. While assay results are pending, the company isn’t slowing its exploration efforts, with its next round of drilling – including the project’s first diamond drill holes – slated to begin in just weeks.

Brightstar Resources has kicked off a scoping study on the combined assets at its Menzies and Laverton gold projects in Western Australia’s Eastern Goldfields, with mining set to begin at the former as soon as next quarter. The company is moving towards becoming WA’s next gold producer after completing its successful merger with Kingwest Resources last month.

Surefire Resources is tallying up the hits from its latest drilling probe at its promising Yidby project in Western Australia’s Murchison goldfields. Early composite assay results returned 4m averaging 5.5g/t gold from 118m, housing a 1m intercept tipping the scales at an impressive 20.81g/t. The gold mineralised envelope has been etched out over a whopping 3km strike length … with no end in sight.