Public Company News

Buru Energy is targeting further oil production from its Ungani oilfield in the onshore Canning Basin in Western Australia with the spudding of its Ungani-7H development well. The company plans to use a coiled tubing unit to drill the horizontal Ungani Dolomite reservoir sections of the earlier Ungani-6H and the current Ungani-7H wells in October, before placing both wells into production.

Legend Mining has outlined the prospectivity of two advanced-stage nickel-copper sulphide occurrences within its proposed “Ponton JVA 2019” joint venture tenements with the Creasy Group in the evolving Fraser Range province in WA. The company revealed strongly anomalous drill intersections generated from the Octagonal prospect, including 82m @ 0.18% nickel, 0.15% copper and 0.01% cobalt from 168m down-hole.

Strike Energy could be sitting on a major new gas discovery after drilling through a 41m gas net pay zone at its West Erregulla-2 well in Western Australia’s Perth Basin. Average porosities are good too at 14.3% in the primary Kingia sandstone target. Management said the result compares favourably with log data from the nearby producing Waitsia gas field that created quite a stir when it was discovered.

ASX-listed MGC Pharmaceuticals has partnered with the Slovenian Institute of Hop Research and Brewing, or “IHPS”, to carry out a ground-breaking, large-scale research project on the use of cannabis for medicinal purposes. The research will focus on the cultivation of cannabis for medical purposes and the standardisation of the process for isolating and extracting an active pharmaceutical ingredient for medicinal use.

Adriatic Metals has generated additional high-grade base metal drilling results adjacent to its flagship Rupice deposit in central Bosnia, just a month after producing a maiden JORC-compliant mineral resource for the ore body. New intersections include 38m @ 6.2% zinc, 3.8% lead, 174g/t silver, 1.9g/t gold, 0.4% copper and 33% barite from 208m and 20m @ 2% zinc, 2.8% lead, 96g/t silver, 0.3g/t gold and 0.6% copper from 254m.

PharmAust’s subsidiary, Epichem, has received a shipment of Monepantel tablets from the US and will now distribute the drugs to veterinarians starting this week to commence its Phase II anti-cancer drug trials in dogs. The company completed successful tablet safety and blood level tests earlier this year and with tablet shelf-life stability tests now finalised, the company can commence the trials.

Nusantara Resources has appointed a new CEO to fast-track the development of its Awak Mas gold project in Indonesia. Mining veteran Neil Whitaker has joined the company in a Jakarta-based role, where he will utilise his expertise in the Asia-Pacific region to drive the project forward. Mr Whitaker previously worked as the COO for PT Petrosea Tbk, a subsidiary of the company’s strategic partner in Indonesia, Indika Energy.

MGC Pharmaceuticals is set to kick off a controlled trial to discover if its medical cannabis product for the treatment of drug-resistant epilepsy has any impact on driving performance. The trial seeks to overturn legislation that forbids medical cannabis users from driving and will also provide safety data required for the European Medicines Agency and Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration product registration.

88 Energy has brought on UK oil and gas independent Premier Oil as its farm-in partner for the conventional rights at the project known as “Project Icewine” in the famed North Slope oil province. Premier will earn 60% in Area A of Project Icewine’s conventional oil rights by drilling a USD$23m well to appraise the historical Malguk-1 discovery well that intersected 251 feet of light oil pay in the Torok formation.

Strike Energy has observed that the primary objective at its multi-target West Erregulla-2 well in the Perth Basin, Western Australia, may hold the same excellent reservoirs seen at the neighbouring Waitsia gas field. Cuttings from the Kingia sandstones drilled to date include clean sands with some evidence of grains being coated in chlorite, a mineral that is a key element required for the preservation of porosity at depth.

Novo Resources is building up excitement at its Egina project in the Pilbara, WA, after a bulk sampling program of surface gravels recovered significant quantities of gold nuggets at grades well above typical alluvial gold deposits. The company said the gold is coarse enough to extract without using water and is evaluating whether the ores could be extracted using simple and cheap mining methods like continuous mining.

Vonex has filed a new application with the Australian Patent Office to secure additional intellectual property protection over the unique message functionality of its game-changing “Oper8tor” communications app. The company is also carrying out more work to stabilise the app’s performance in relation to the increased complexity of two-factor authentication, a security feature that is common amongst social media platforms.