Public Company News

Origin Energy has given Buru Energy a significant shot in the arm by farming into seven of Buru’s oil and gas permits in the onshore Canning Basin in Western Australia. The farm-in significantly strengthens Buru’s planned 2021 exploration program, including drilling of the highly prospective Rafael 1 oil well. Origin will spend $35 million inclusive of a two-well drilling program and seismic work.

Godolphin Resources has again returned some tantalising RC drill hits it says continue to point to the margins of a potential copper-gold porphyry-style mineralised system at its Turrawonga discovery in NSW’s Lachlan Fold Belt. Notable intercepts from the latest round of drilling were 30m at 0.64 g/t gold and 0.04 per cent copper from 178m including 18m at 1.0 g/t gold, which in turn includes a 2m section going an intriguing 6.9 g/t.

Native Mineral Resources looks to be closing in on the deeper source of copper mineralisation at its Leane’s prospect in Far North Queensland, with drilling returning some interest tweaking hints of the red metal. Latest results from Leane’s include 6 metres at 0.33 per cent copper including 1 metre at 0.61 per cent copper from 74 metres down-hole. Results from deeper, sulphidic diamond drilling are currently in the laboratory awaiting assay.

Lithium Australia’s 90 per cent-owned subsidiary, Envirostream Australia, has harvested the grain from its test site in WA’s Wheatbelt, completing its trial of zinc and manganese derived from recycled alkaline battery waste as a source of fertiliser micronutrients. Envirostream will now move on with the statistical analysis of the grain and overall yield to assess the performance of the micronutrients.

Vancouver-based Novo Resources has defied the weather gods to keep the refurbishment of its Golden Eagle gold processing facility on schedule and budget as the company closes in on first gold production from its developing Beatons Creek mine in WA’s East Pilbara. The TSX-V-listed budding Pilbara gold producer is also set to graduate to a listing on the main Toronto Stock Exchange next year.

Podium Minerals is set to pocket $2.4 million after finalising a deal with privateer, EV Metals Australia, for its nickel tenure north of the Parks Reef PGM deposit in WA. ASX-listed Podium, will peg a new mining lease to secure its position over the Parks Reef deposit, with EV Metals set to take ownership of the balance of the existing Weld Range tenure.

PolarX’s drilling program over its Zackly East discovery in Alaska has extended the strike length of the prospect to more than 300 metres and continued to return anomalous intercepts including 1.5 metres at 5 grams per tonne, 3.15 per cent copper and 26 grams per tonne silver from only 11.6 metres down-hole.

ASX-listed White Cliff Minerals has topped up the piggy bank with the sale of its Merolia gold project near Laverton for $274,000 to UK-based Panther Metals. The sale was flagged in November as part of a strategic review of White Cliff’s gold and base metals exploration portfolio, as it focuses on developing the highly prospective Reedy South and Midas projects, both located in Western Australia.

ASX-listed explorer, Impact Minerals looks to be on the money with its first reconnaissance drill program at its Rockwell prospect encountering widespread occurrences of copper-nickel-PGE anomalies over about 1.5 kilometres. The drilling included an RC hole the Perth-based company described as a breakthrough hole that intersected elevated copper over a 25m-wide sulphide zone.

Hot Chili’s ongoing drilling program has identified a second high-grade copper-gold core to its Cortadera porphyry in southern Chile. The latest results from the discovery include an extensive 248m intercept grading 0.4 per cent copper and 0.1 grams per tonne gold, hosting 32m at 0.6 per cent copper and 0.3 grams per tonne gold, from 446 metres down-hole.

Novo Resources, in conjunction with Sumitomo Corporation of Tokyo, has completed its earn-in obligations acquiring a 70 per cent interest in the precious metal rights on Essential Minerals’ Kangan project leases on the eastern side of the company’s Egina gold project tenements, in WA’s Pilbara gold region. Sumitomo joined Novo on Egina back in September 2018 via a $30m farm-in deal.

ASX-listed gold explorer, Okapi Resources, has picked up an “underexplored” historic gold project 30 kilometres south-east of Armidale near the historic Hillgrove antimony-gold mine in north-eastern NSW in a cash-and-scrip deal. The company says the Enmore gold project already boasts a couple of walk-up drill targets brimming with high-grade gold values from drilling and rock chip sampling work done by previous owners.