Public Company News

ASX-listed mineral sands miner, Image Resources, has managed to relieve itself of a previously unloved heavy mineral concentrate inventory that was mounting in the wake of uncertain economic conditions brought on by coronavirus restrictions. The company’s key Chinese offtake customers have now purchased 100,000 tonnes of HMC from the Boonanarring mineral sands operation 80km north of Perth.

ASX-listed base metals hopeful, Blackstone Minerals, has purchased another diamond drill rig to accelerate its exploration at the emerging Ban Chang nickel prospect where it is looking to take the closed down Ta Khoa processing plant out of mothballs. The third rig in the company’s armoury will pepper Ban Chang with new holes after its first round of drilling there encountered sulphide nickel mineralisation.

Another weighty suite of nickel-copper-cobalt results from Legend Mining’s Mawson prospect in Western Australia’s Fraser Range has again eclipsed all previous drill numbers, with combined intercepts from two separate drill holes spanning a length of 53.85 metres and nearly 100 metres respectively. Included in the new results is a 19.2m interval grading 1.69 per cent nickel, 1.23 per cent copper and 0.09 per cent cobalt from 97.9m.

Kingwest Resources has identified multiple new high-grade lodes at its Menzies gold project in Western Australia. The company is now undertaking optimisation studies on its near surface gold resources to determine how the recent aggressive drilling campaign has potentially enhanced the economic viability of the project. New high-grade lodes have been discovered at the Central Zone.

PolarX has set the date for two diamond drill rigs to arrive on site at its exciting Zackly East gold-copper prospect at its USA based Alaska Range project. Around 3,000 metres of diamond drilling is planned to follow up on previous broad, high-grade gold and copper hits including an impressive 55m intersection grading 2.8 grams per tonne gold and 0.6 per cent copper.

ASX-listed mining “software-as-a-service” provider, K2fly, has defied the financial fallout of the global coronavirus pandemic as its RCubed mineral resource and reserve reporting software solution continues to attract more resources big hitters. The latest multinational group to take up K2fly’s mineral resource governance software package is French-headquartered nuclear energy giant, Orano, who has signed a five-year contract with K2fly that has a total value of A$300,000.

Just weeks after Kairos Minerals moved to double its Pilbara land holdings, the Perth based company has collected a suite of high-grade rock chips going up to nearly 13 grams per tonne gold at its Skywell project in the Pilbara with five samples coming in at an average grade of 4.8 grams per tonne gold across a 130-metre length of outcropping quartz vein.

Venus Metals and Rox Resources have kicked off an RC drilling program at their Penny West Deep South and Sovereign prospects at the JV partners’ Youanmi gold project in WA as they continue their quest to revive the historic gold mining region. The partners have already enjoyed significant success at the project with long, ounce plus intersections already rolling off the drillbit at Youanmi.

Element 25’s sub-sampling of diamond core drilled back in 2013 from the Coodamudgi deposit resulted in manganese grades going up to 42.3 per cent right from surface. Coodamudgi is located near the company’s Yanneri Ridge resource within its Butcherbird project in the Pilbara. Butcherbird already has an outstanding pre-feasibility study wrapped around it showing a pre-tax NPV of $283m at a manganese concentrate grade of 33 percent.

Blackstone Minerals’ Ban Chang prospect has delivered another set of impressive numbers with a nearly 10 metre long drill intersection going 1.45 per cent nickel, 0.9 per cent copper, 0.08 per cent cobalt and 0.7 grams per tonne platinum, palladium plus gold, from 57m down hole. The new result is from a step-out hole at the company’s Ta Khoa nickel-copper-PGM project in Vietnam that was drilled over one kilometre away from Blackstone’s maiden hole at Ban Chang.

Middle Island Resources' Sandstone project looks to be the gift that just keeps on giving with latest drill results showing a 4m hit going 50.5 g/t gold which includes a 1m section at a crazy 198 grams per tonne gold – and only 3 metres from surface. Additional results from the Ridge prospect are expected to flow over the coming weeks.

St George Mining has entered the next phase of development and drilling at its Mt Alexander nickel sulphide project in Western Australia. A deep diamond drilling program kicked off this week at the Investigators prospect with the collaring of a massive, 800-metre deep hole targeting the depths of the ore system. The company has now completed drilling at the Stricklands deposit with a maiden resource expected in weeks.