Public Company News

ASX-listed Codrus Minerals has kicked off its maiden hunt for critical minerals with 2000m of RC drilling at its niobium-rich Karloning project in WA making the company a first mover to explore exclusively for rare earths in the area. After a successful reconnaissance exploration program last year, Codrus is keen to push deeper into the earth and test the potential of the Karloning project.

Superior Resources has confirmed the discovery of significant molybdenum mineralisation at its Bottletree prospect that forms part of the company’s Greenvale copper project near Townsville in Queensland. Recently received assay results from a drill campaign completed in December show impressive figures with a 6m intercept at 1.39 per cent molybdenum from 470m including a 1m section at an outstanding 5.2 per cent molybdenum from 474m.

Brightstar Resources has extended its Cork Tree Well gold deposit 30km north of Laverton, WA with a successful 30 RC hole 6000m drilling campaign. Assays from the first 13 holes have confirmed gold mineralised extensions along strike and at depth with the best results including a 2m hit grading 4.23 grams per tonne gold from 106m, 2m running 3 g/t from 140m and 4m at 1.88 g/t gold from 152m.

Toro Energy has extended its Dimma nickel discovery with another massive nickel sulphide intersection of 2.4m with P-XRF analysis between 1.4 and 5.1 per cent nickel. Drilling intersected an 8.9m zone of visible nickel sulphide mineralisation from 327.2m downhole. Dimma is one of Toro’s four new nickel sulphide discoveries in a 7.5km long komatiite rock unit at WA’s Yandal greenstone belt.

88 Energy will proceed to flow testing after confirming multiple hydrocarbon bearing pay zones at its Alaskan Hickory-1 oil well. The company’s wireline program discovered a new zone in addition to verifying hydrocarbon bearing pay zones across all pre-drill targets. Estimated net pay was calculated from wireline data and totalled 137.1m. Pre-drill expectations were all met or exceeded on reservoir quality, thickness, size and total net pay.

Lindian Resources has received positive signs from early phase metallurgical testwork at its Kangankunde project in Malawi with results showing concentrate grades of around 60 per cent rare earth oxides. The company says the test results show that water-only, low-cost gravity and magnetic beneficiation techniques are suitable for the mineralisation found at the operation.

Askari Metals is pulling out all stops as it hunts lithium at its Uis project in Namibia that adjoins Andrada’s 71.5 million tonne lithium-tin mine. The company has wrapped up the acquisition of a 90 per cent interest in the 114 square km exploration licence with a binding agreement to purchase the rest. RC drilling has kicked off after project wide mapping and sampling identified new pegmatite drilling targets.

Neometals has increased its ownership in joint venture company Recycling Industries Scandinavia AB (RISAB) up to 72.5 per cent as it moves towards developing Finland’s first vanadium recovery project. The remaining 27.5 per cent of RISAB equity is held by unlisted Australian mineral development company Critical Metals.

Conico is set to feed more thick high-grade nickel-cobalt-manganese-scandium hits into an imminent updated mineral resource estimate on its Mt Thirsty nickel-cobalt project near Norseman. Recent drilling has pulled up a clutch of significant hits including 10m running at 0.09 per cent cobalt, 0.71 per cent nickel, 0.38 per cent manganese and 23 grams per tonne scandium.

ASX-listed Godolphin Resources believes maiden metallurgical results from independent laboratory ANSTO have confirmed the low-cost development potential of its Narraburra rare earths project in New South Wales. The company says a recovery rate of 92 per cent of the key magnet rare earths praseodymium, neodymium, terbium and dysprosium, puts the project in a good position ahead of larger-scale testing and a bulk sampling program.

With iron ore prices hovering around US$120 per tonne (A$178) Venture Minerals is seriously considering restarting its Riley iron ore mine in Tasmania which has been on care and maintenance since September 2021. At the time of its closure, the price of iron ore was in free-fall plunging to US$80 per tonne (A$118) in late 2021.

Surefire Resources is growing in confidence that a large gold mineralised system is emerging at its wholly-owned Yidby project, after finding sulphide-rich quartz porphyry in all 25 of its most recent RC drillholes. Visible gold was also seen in several locations at the project, 350km north-east of Perth in the Yalgoo-Singleton greenstone belt. Samples from all holes are now being analysed.