Public Company News

ASX-listed Image Resources says it has successfully navigated another challenging quarter at its wholly-owned Boonanarring mineral sands project, 80kilometres north of Perth in Western Australia. The company’s quarterly report shows the average realised price per tonne of its heavy mineral concentrate set a new quarterly record despite lower production and sales over the previous period.

ASX-listed Quantum Graphite says the long-term demand for natural flake graphite in the production of anodes for lithium-ion batteries along with the global push towards a net-zero carbon economy could drive its thermal battery technology with joint venture partner Sunlands Co to the forefront of the bubbling sector.

Junior explorer Tambourah Metals has pegged new tenements prospective for gold and lithium that it has now coined as the Nullagine project. The 34-tenement package under application covers 5788ha and is 5km north of the explorer’s existing Russian Jack lithium project in Western Australia’s Pilbara region. After beginning a project scale compilation of the available data Tambourah has found historical soil samples indicating lithium up to 40ppm.

ASX-listed minerals developer Technology Metals has dived into the implementation phase of its Murchison Technology Metals project after awarding Danish-based kiln supplier FLSmidth a Notice to Proceed with front-end engineering and design services for the key roasting kiln section of its vanadium processing plant.

Surefire Resources has bagged another wide and shallow gold intercept in the latest drilling campaign at its Yidby gold project in WA’s Mid West region. The wide and shallow intersection of 8m going 1.43 g/t gold from 18m was encountered as the explorer drilled for extensions to its Yidby Road prospect. The company says up to 4000m of RC drilling is due to kick off in the next few weeks.

Wiluna Mining's first test of down-plunge extensions of the historic East and West Lodes have yielded strong sulphide mineralisation in the first of eight holes it will sink into the leads in WA’s northern goldfields. The company has seven holes remaining to drill in the current program that is aimed at backing up recent ultra-high-grade gold results at its nearby Bulletin North target.

Okapi Resources is poised to sink its teeth into a 10,000 metre, 24-hole drilling campaign at its Middle Lake uranium project in Canada’s Athabasca Basin after it received the government go-ahead to launch the probe. The company says it has received a raft of permits that will also allow it to kick off a geophysical survey.

Junior explorer Aurumin has just wrapped up the first stage of auger drilling at its recently-acquired Central Sandstone gold project in WA. A vehicle-mounted auger drill rig tested five near-mill targets in addition to a further 29 areas of interest. The 467-hole program aimed to geochemically sample the interface between the covering sediments and bedrock with the company expecting its results in a few weeks.

ASX-listed Middle Island Resources has completed a ground-based induced polarity survey at its Barkly copper-gold project in the Northern Territory's East Tennant Creek region. The company says the survey is expected to provide a three-dimensional outline of the prospect's anomaly and assist in target definition with a drill program expected to kick off next month.

Aurumin Limited is going after lithium-bearing pegmatites with the drill bit at its Mt Palmer project in WA. The ongoing program will drill up to 2500m of RC holes and is expected to take about one week with assays to be fast tracked. The explorer firmed up its targets with a series of soil samples revealing anomalous geochemistry coinciding with historically intercepted pegmatites.

Multi-commodity explorer Valor Resources is moving to expand its footprint in Peru by around 30 per cent after applying for a 60 square kilometre patch containing historic gold and silver mine workings. The new area is only 30km from its exciting Picha copper and silver project in the Moquegua area of southern Peru, a region seeing renewed interest from major mining houses.

Surefire Resources is set to launch a diamond drilling campaign at its Victory Bore vanadium deposit, about 530km north-east from Perth in WA after tying down a drilling contractor to complete the probe. The company already has its footprint all over a 151 million tonne resource at 0.44 per cent vanadium pentoxide, 25 per cent iron and 6.73 per cent titanium dioxide at the operation.