Public Company News

88 Energy expects to be spudding its high-impact Charlie-1 oil appraisal well onshore in Alaska in late February as construction of the ice access road nears 80% completion. The company said the well will test up to seven stacked targets that could have a gross mean prospective oil resource as high as 1.6 billion barrels. Oil shows were observed historically at multiple levels in an old, un-tested offset well.

Telco innovator, Vonex, is expecting its annualised recurring revenues to jump by 50% from next month when it completes the takeover of telecommunications and data wholesaler, 2SG Wholesale. The ASX-listed cloud-based telco said that it has completed due diligence on 2SG and its acquisition contract is now binding, with the deal expected to be consummated by months end.

It is hard to understand how the old-timers left 49.5 g/t gold dirt behind at Kingwest’s Lady Shenton mine near Menzies, however that is what the recently unearthed records show from face sampling done over 100 years ago. Mines Department records from the long-abandoned mine include a 22m long drive going 49.5 g/t within a 45m long section going 22.3 g/t gold.

Anglo Australian Resources seemingly can't miss at its Mandilla project near Kalgoorlie in WA after it again hit eye wateringly long gold mineralised intersections at the project during infill drilling. With gold now looking to be settled at well over A$2,000 per ounce, Anglo’s latest hits including 45m grading 2.33g/t gold from 82m downhole are looking seriously lucrative.

The market doesn’t have long to wait now to find out exactly how much hard cash can be churned out of the world’s largest undeveloped lithium mine as AVZ Minerals says it is 95% through its definitive feasibility study for the giant Manono lithium-tin project in the Democratic Republic of Congo. AVZ is now teetering right on the edge of making that difficult leap from explorer to miner.

Lithium Australia subsidiary, VSPC, is to receive a $1.6m grant as part of a $5m, federally-funded research program to develop "fast charging" lithium-ion batteries for new generation trams with a view to eliminating overhead wires. VSPC will be joined by Australia’s CSIRO, the University of Queensland and Soluna Australia. VSPC, or the “Very Small Particle Company”, is a leader in the lithium battery cathode powder field.

With billions of dollars being ploughed into new battery factories around the globe, Altech Chemicals says that its 4N high purity alumina product will potentially be in even greater demand in the next generation of “solid state” lithium-ion batteries. As the market looks to move away from liquid electrolyte batteries, Altech says its HPA will still be required and potentially in even greater quantities for solid state batteries.

Great Southern Mining has scored a major hit from its maiden exploration program at its Cox’s find deposit, 70km north of Laverton in WA, delivering an ounce to the tonne drill intersection over 5m. Within the 5m intersection there was also an ultra-high-grade section going 143.0g/t gold over a metre.

Middle Island Resources has the wind at its back and prolific investor, Stephen Copulos by its side, as the company launches into a 20,000m drilling blitz across the Sandstone Gold project in WA. The first phase of this program involves 13,000 metres of RC drilling across 14 prospective looking “open pit” gold targets that according to Middle Island, have the potential to lift existing mineral resources ahead of another update to the project’s pre-feasibility study.

Big River Gold has hosted an opening ceremony at the site of its Borborema gold project near the town of Currais Novos in Brazil. The ceremony was attended by local business leaders, community members and politicians who learnt about the project and its impending benefits to the local area. Big River said it is looking to employ some 375 people locally when the project is in full swing.

Venus Metals and Rox Resources have defined an interesting new gold prospect from soil survey results just in. The new soil anomaly is located 4km south of and along strike from the historical Penny West gold mine that Spectrum Resources just offloaded to Ramelius for around $200m. It has a similar geochemical signature to that found in soils over the recent Sovereign gold discovery nearby.

After snapping up over 90% of Azumah Resources shares, private equity firm, Ibaera Capital, will mop up the remaining 10% under the compulsory acquisition provisions in the Corporations Act. Ibaera got to just over 90% last week and told shareholders they would still receive their money for their remaining shares after the compulsory acquisition provisions kick in. It seems that the message hit home, with Ibaera making it to over 93% by Monday.