Public Company News

ASX-listed PharmAust Limited has delivered the final report on its successful Phase II clinical trial, using the Monepantel drug to treat cancer in dogs, to the US$8.8B market capped pharmaceutical giant, NYSE-listed Elanco. Under an option agreement inked two years ago with PharmAust, the animal health-focused mega-Pharma company now has six months to take up the option to licence, manufacture, and market Monepantel globally.

Hammer Metals has returned further encouraging assays from drilling of the Target 1 prospect at its North Orelia gold project in Western Australia’s Yandal greenstone belt, which boasts an enviable gold endowment of 24 million ounces. Better intersections from the first 66 holes, or 3,889m, of a planned 8,000m aircore program were 4m grading 5.79 grams per tonne gold from 40m depth and 4m going 4.38g/t gold from 48m.

Classic Minerals has tabled first pass metallurgical numbers from its Kat Gap project near Southern Cross, WA. The test work results show an average gold recovery at Kat Gap of up to 75 per cent in the oxide material using a low-cost gravity separation process. Conventional cyanide leaching of the gravity gold concentrate showed between 95 per cent and 96 per cent recovery from oxide and fresh ore.

In a move that will bring Horizon Minerals’ gold assets to the fore, the Perth-based company will divest its Nadine Well West Australian copper project to Cyprium Metals Limited for $1.5m in cash and Cyprium shares in a deal that will see Horizon retain exposure to the prospective copper-gold-PGM region in the Murchison district.

Troy Resources has weathered the challenges of Guyana’s wet season, producing impressive drilling results while maintaining operations at its Karouni gold project in South America. The standout diamond drilling results from underneath the existing Smarts open pit include a 32-metre zone grading 4.29 grams per tonne gold from 168m down hole. At the Goldstar prospect, near surface RC results also include 17m grading 2.21g/t gold from just 3m.

Emerging ASX-listed gold player Calidus Resources is set to kick off an initial round of regional drilling at its recently acquired Otways gold-copper project in the Pilbara, in tandem with continued drilling to beef up a maiden ore reserve estimate at its developing Warrawoona gold asset, about 50km away also in the Pilbara.

Hot Chili has the drill rigs firing again at its Cortadera copper-gold project in Chile, zeroing in on extensions to the high-grade zones across a 2.3km strike that is likely to form the backbone of an imminent maiden resource at the project. Hot Chili has doubled the size of the mineralised system in less than 18 months at Cortadera which the company believes may propel it to Tier 1 status.

ASX-listed oiler, 88 Energy will now mop up all remaining stock in its Alaskan neighbour, XCD Energy, after its takeover bid secured 90.97 per cent of XCD’s shares and 93.31 per cent of listed options. Its all-scrip bid as originally announced back in April went unconditional last month after the company achieved the 50 per cent required threshold.

ASX-listed high purity alumina player Altech Chemicals has reached the next construction milestone of its proposed US$280 million processing plant development at Johor Bahru in Malaysia as it works towards a production start-up target of 2023. Engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning contractor, German engineering firm SMS, has now completed the remaining component of the Johor Bahru project’s stage two work – an electrical substation – at the Altech plant site.

As Novo Resources ramps up to a full 2020 exploration program capacity, the company has continued to produce impressive results showing ‘proof-of-concept’ that its Egina Terrace in the Pilbara is host to an extensive shallow gold-bearing gravel deposit. Bulk samples from broad areas across the Egina mining lease have yielded gold particle counts exceeding 48 particles per tonne from consecutive sample pits.

Uranium exploration is undergoing a resurgence as the world grapples with the challenge of feeding a seemingly unending appetite for energy. Against this backdrop, ASX-listed Deep Yellow is sitting on a veritable powerhouse of potentially stored nuclear energy across its portfolio of Namibian uranium projects. The latest drilling results from its Nova JV point to what could be the addition of another significantly mineralised system.

Classic Minerals has reported a spectacular high-grade gold drill hit from a new mineralised zone at its Kat Gap deposit in WA. The company’s resumed drilling campaign returned an intersection of 4m grading 76.72g/t gold from 79m depth including 1m going a whopping 304g/t gold from 82m or an eye-watering 10 ounces of gold per tonne.