Public Company News

Blackstone Minerals has made a lightning bolt strategic investment in laterite nickel by rolling A$2.75m into NICO Resources’ IPO to gain a 15.11 per cent interest in the battery minerals hopeful that last year picked up Metals X’ massive Central Musgrave Project that spans both WA and South Australia. With a serious nickel metal endowment of some 1.95m tonnes, Blackstone says it is likely one of the largest undeveloped nickel resources globally.

Budding gold developer Calidus Resources is joining forces with Haoma Mining under the guise of new company, Pirra Lithium to unlock the lithium potential of more than 1,000 square kilometres of prime Pilbara real estate. The Pilbara Craton is shaping up to be one of the world’s major lithium and tantalum provinces housing the behemoth Wodgina and Pilgangoora lithium projects alongside Global Lithium’s evolving Archer deposit.

Manganese producer Element 25 Limited has tabled a solid set of financials following a recent scoping study for the construction and operation of its planned high purity manganese sulphate monohydrate plant. The financial metrics also showed a solid 20-year life for its Butcherbird manganese project in WA that is highly leveraged towards the emerging electric vehicle industry.

Alaska-focused oil explorer 88 Energy has tipped a February spud date for its Merlin-2 well in the American state of Alaska, after announcing it has commissioned a rig, is building a snow road and is close to regulatory approval for the 8000-foot follow-up to 2021’s Merlin-1 oil discovery.

Great Southern Mining has hit high grade gold at the Southern end of its Amy Clarke prospect in WA. Drilling intersections correlate with gold in soil anomalies and set the scene for a renewed hunt for grade at the Southern end of the prospect. The company says the fact that the high grade intersections were in bedrock suggests the source of the gold may be close by.

DiscovEx Resources and JV partner Carnaby Resources are continuing to spin the money wheel at their remarkable Greater Duchess copper discovery in Queensland that has already led to a tripling of Discovex’ share price and a nine fold increase for Canaby. The JV partners recently unveiled another slew of strong results from half a dozen holes drilled across the Lady Fanny and Burke & Wills prospects.

Askari Metals has snapped up over 1700 square kilometres of potentially prospective lithium ground in Western Australia‘s Pilbara region. The company has lodged a series of exploration licence applications that will see it step up its hunt for coveted battery metals such as lithium in an area known for housing some of the world’s largest lithium deposits.

ASX-listed explorer White Cliff Minerals has kicked off its first pass drilling program at the company’s Cracker Jack prospect, which is part of its Reedy South gold project in the lucrative Meekatharra-Cue goldfields of WA. The work is part of a 74 hole, 4,440 metre shallow RC drilling campaign across both the Cracker Jack and McCaskill Hill prospects.

Congolese focused battery metals explorer, AVZ Minerals, is now a dual listed company after its shares commenced trading on the United States OTCQX financial market. The company says the listing will help it capitalise on growing US interest in its majority-owned Manono lithium and tin project. OTCQX is the world’s largest market for over-the-counter securities.

Junior gold explorer, Torian Resources looks set to add rare-earth metals to its arsenal with the discovery of a significant yttrium anomaly at its Mt Stirling project in WA’s Eastern Goldfields. A broad one kilometre anomaly has been uncovered at the project with peak values up to 521 parts per million of yttrium. The critically listed rare earth metal is used in renewable technologies including electric vehicles.

Copper developer Hot Chili continues to pump out some stellar drill results from its Cortadera copper-gold porphyry deposit in Chile as the company expands the shallow resources at its Cuerpo 1 and Cuerpo 2 deposits. Recent assay results include a massive 156 metre hit grading 0.4 per cent copper equivalent from surface that corresponds to 0.4 per cent copper and 0.1 grams per tonne gold.

West Australian-based explorer Kairos Minerals has unveiled a promising new greenfields gold target at its wholly owned 873,500oz Mt York gold project in WA’s Pilbara region. Following on from a recent 15,000m drilling blitz at Mt York, Kairos continues to probe the prospectivity of its extensive Pilbara tenure with results from the latest surface geochemical program throwing out values up to 4.6 g/t gold.