Public Company News

Venus Metals has executed a farm-in and JV agreement with AIC Resources, for that company to earn an 80% interest in 5 exploration tenements within Venus’ Doolgunna project near the Plutonic gold mine in WA. The deal requires AIC to spend $175,000 over a 2 year period. The tenements are prospective for volcanic-hosted massive sulphide mineralisation similar to the nearby DeGrussa copper mine and shear-hosted gold deposits such as Plutonic.

Tyranna Resources has started its resource development infill drilling program at the Jumbuck gold project, located west of BHP’s Olympic Dam mine, in the highly prospective Western Gawler Craton in SA. The project has existing mineral resources of 8.7 million tonnes @ 1.1g/t gold for 319,000 ounces. The program will target the Campfire Bore prospect to upgrade the JORC status of the deposit’s inferred mineral inventory totalling 109,000 ounces.

Kalia Limited has announced that a detailed geophysical survey is well underway at its Mt Tore JV tenements on Bougainville Island in the PNG. The highly anticipated exploration program across its porphyry copper-gold assets is ramping up with geological reconnaissance and geochemical sampling underway in the Aita area. The company’s active engagement of local communities is bearing fruit now, with a number of areas already approved for on-ground exploration activities.

Versatile ASX listed telco Vonex’s recent trial marketing campaign in south-eastern Queensland to increase brand awareness and gather market intelligence has resulted in a 114% increase in daily average Vonex website and a spike in converted sales. The company’s major marketing push in October will target areas where the NBN is available but not connected yet, or construction is complete and the area is becoming available.

Geopacific Resources has improved its understanding of the mineralisation controls at the Great Northern prospect at its Woodlark gold project in Papua New Guinea after making a number of gold hits including a top intercept of 21.77g/t gold. Follow-up drilling will be carried out to further define the mineralisation and move it towards the resource category.

St George Mining has confirmed that mineralisation at its Investigators nickel-copper prospect near Leonora in W.A becomes thicker in the down dip direction after intersecting 8.4m @ 2% nickel, 0.96% copper, 0.06% cobalt and 2.59g/t total PGE from 199m. Further step-out drilling is underway while down-hole electromagnetic surveys are being run near one of the very strong conductors.

Greenland Minerals and Energy is completing an optimisation program at its Kvanefjeld rare earths project in southern Greenland that will simplify project construction, minimise civil earth works and reduce associated capital costs. Recent onsite engineering studies by a multi-disciplinary team of engineers are expected to reduce the amount of construction effort required for the civil construction, port and plant sites.

Mineral sands miner Image Resources has unearthed anomalous, shallow gold intersections during its first-pass drill program at the Erayinia prospect, located east of Kalgoorlie. The best result was 20m @ 0.7g/t gold from 40m down-hole, including 4m @ 1.2g/t gold from 48m and 4m @ 1g/t gold from 56m. The company will conduct a larger program of aircore drilling now to test 7km of prospective strike extensions.

Celebrated conglomerate gold specialist Novo Resources will acquire two strategic gold projects 80km south of Port Hedland. The company will fund exploration for two years to farm into Pioneer Resources’ Kangan gold project to earn a 70% interest for a consideration of $600,000 in cash and scrip. Novo will also acquire 4 key tenements from a private company in the area for cash and shares totalling A$8m.

A Perth based ASX listed junior has quietly been sweeping up big swathes of lucrative acreage in Alaska’s hottest oil province known as the North Slope with the truth diviner in the form of a drill rig about to be put to the test in coming months. 88 Energy will soon drill a well targeting up to 400 million barrels at its Western Blocks project in the region.

Terrain Minerals has reported excellent metallurgical gold recoveries averaging over 96% from ore composites of its oxidised, transitional and fresh ores at the Great Western project, near Leonora in W.A. The results imply that a conventional milling and processing route is likely to be suitable for the company’s future ore production. Terrain also submitted works proposals for exploratory drilling at its Wild-viper project that surrounds Great Western.

Artemis Resources has recovered 225 ounces of gold nuggets to date from its ongoing conglomerate gold exploration play at the 47K Patch and Purdy’s Reward discoveries, just south of Karratha, in the western Pilbara region of W.A. The company is working with CSIRO and is currently completing a geophysical survey over 47K Patch. Bulk sampling will be carried out once all data is consolidated, integrated and processed.