Public Company News

Valor Resources has completed its second anniversary payment as part of a farm-in agreement in Canada, where it is aiming to take an 80 per cent stake in the Hook Lake uranium project. Valor’s expenditure has reached C$3.5 million (AU$3.9 million) over a three-year period as required by the deal and it is finalising cash and share commitments to complete its second earn-in milestone.

Godolphin Resources has set a maiden JORC 2012-compliant mineral resource at its Narraburra rare earth project in NSW, with a massive 126 per cent increase in resource grade compared to its previous JORC 2004 estimate. The updated estimate sits at 94.4 million tonnes at 739 parts per million total rare earth oxides, with 50 per cent of the resource now defined in the indicated category.

White Cliff Minerals is eyeing a maiden JORC resource at its Hines Hill rare earths project near Merredin in WA, with a shallow air-core drill program underway following solid results from last year’s campaign. It is targeting ionic absorption clay mineralisation in the top 20m of the project across a strike of 1km and a width of 800m, with some 90 air-core drill holes planned.

Classic Minerals has forecast a start to gold production in June after completing bulk earthworks for the tailings storage facility at its wholly-owned Kat Gap gold mine, which is under construction 170km south of Southern Cross in WA’s Central Wheatbelt. The facility will be ready for use in May after the company installs a liner and monitoring bores.

Venture Minerals is keen to get its drill bits spinning in search of rare earths elements in WA after adding two new Mid West projects to its portfolio and identifying two new targets at its existing Kulin deposit, south-east of Perth. The diversified minerals explorer has developed a strategy to expand its exposure in the rare earths space with a bias for clay-hosted mineralisation.

Buru Energy is pressing the pedal to the metal on its Rafael gas discovery in the Kimberley following a tick of approval on introducing a floating liquified natural gas (FLNG) facility into the processing chain. But Buru believes the value of its prefeasibility study extends wider than just a nod to the FLNG, claiming an innovative partnership could bring Rafael to reality.

Everest Metals has completed a swag of deals to formally acquire 51 per cent of the Mt Edon lithium project and the Revere gold project. The package includes joint ventures across both projects with the privately-owned Entelechy Resources, along with farm-in deals and royalty agreements. The arrangements allow Everest to move towards 100 per cent ownership.

Surefire Resources is one step closer to obtaining a mining licence at its Victory Bore vanadium project in WA’s Mid West with a baseline environmental study revealing no hurdles in the approvals process. The junior mineral explorer is sitting on one of Australia’s biggest undeveloped deposits of vanadium with a resource of 321 million tonnes averaging 0.39 per cent vanadium pentoxide.

Allup Silica has etched out an exploration target of five to seven million tonnes grading between 98 and 99 per cent silica at its Sparkler C sand project in WA’s Great Southern region. The freshly-minted JORC-compliant exploration target adds weight to the company’s nearby Sparkler A mineral resource estimate of 70 million tonnes at 96.84 per cent silicon dioxide.

Lindian Resources has tabled some of its best assays from drilling at its Kangankunde project in Malawi, with results going up to 13.89 per cent TREO. The company says the average grade of the rare earths critical metal elements, neodymium and praseodymium, was 20 per cent TREO. Three holes went more than 3 per cent TREO across intersections running 150m or more from surface.

Airborne magnetic and radiometric surveying at Venus Metals’ Mangaroon North rare earths project in WA’s Gascoyne region has identified high-priority rare earths carbonatite rock targets along a crustal structure. Eight ironstone-hosted rare earths targets, considered similar to Hastings’ Yangibana and Dreadnought’s Mangaroon-Yin projects, were identified over a 10km strike by the survey.

Javelin Minerals has highlighted a slew of follow-up drill targets at its Husky project in NSW after receiving geochemically-elevated results for multiple minerals from a recent air-core program at the site. The company has already started an RC drill campaign of 10 holes at the project to test the new geochemical features at depth.