Public Company News

Image Resources is starting to transport its zircon-rich heavy mineral sands concentrate from the Boonanarring project north of Perth to port storage in Bunbury, barely a month after starting wet commissioning of the mine plant. First revenues could kick in before the end of the year with the first bulk shipment of the zircon-rich HMC scheduled to depart in December.

Middle Island Resources is keeping the momentum going at its Sandstone gold project in WA with a slew of holes to be drilled at greenfield targets during the first half of 2019. The program is aimed at identifying and quantifying additional open pit deposits of sufficient scale and grade to facilitate a recommissioning of the historic gold operation.

Artemis Resources has completed preliminary metallurgical test work on ore composites from its Carlow Castle gold-copper-cobalt project located near Karratha in WA, saying that the materials are amenable to gravity recovery of gold and conventional base metal flotation ore processing. Up to 82% of the copper content reported to concentrates, whilst up to 75% of the gold was recovered via combined gravity concentration methods and flotation tests.

Caravel Minerals very large, lowish grade copper play in the Wheatbelt just got interesting after the ASX listed company this week tabled a set of drill results that show grades up to three times that of the existing global resource. New results include 6m @ 1.03% copper from 108m within a broader zone of 20m @ 0.5% copper from 94m and 18m @ 0.8% copper from 102m.

Anglo Australian has outlined a suite of shallow new drilling intersections from several prospects at its Feysville gold project located near Kalgoorlie. At Think Big, results included 28m @ 2.43g/t gold from 35m down-hole, whilst exploratory drilling at Saintly doubled the strike length of that mineralisation. A new gold discovery was also located at Hyperno, with 13m @ 1.05g/t gold returned from 25m down-hole in regional aircore drilling.

Coolgardie Minerals has kicked off a near-mine exploration drilling program at its operating Geko gold mine near Coolgardie in WA, with the aim of extending mineral resources beyond the limits of the existing open pit. The work will target areas east and west of the open pit at depth and also along strike west of a high-grade supergene oxide pod of gold mineralisation noted from earlier grade control drilling.

Southern Gold has used 3D modelling of mapped and sampled quartz veining at its Kochang underground mine in South Korea, to generate an exploration target of between 500,000 and 700,000 tonnes with a grade range between 5 and 7g/t gold and 27 - 35g/t silver. The company’s JV partner, Bluebird Ventures, is finalising its feasibility report on the reopening of the historical mine.

Artemis Resources will undertake a high resolution, low level, airborne magnetic survey targeting gold-copper mineralisation at its Armada prospect located near the Telfer mine in the eastern Pilbara region of WA. The 600 square kilometre tenement holding is effectively surrounded by Greatland Gold’s Havieron project where recent diamond drilling returned an amazing intersection of 275 metres grading 4.77g/t gold and 0.61% copper from 459m down-hole.

Australian Potash has harvested 11 tonnes of potassium rich salts in its first harvest pond at the Lake Wells sulphate of potash project in the Goldfields region of WA. Once the third and final evaporation step is completed, a blend of salts from all three harvest ponds will be processed to a refined a sulphate of potash product at the company’s pilot processing plant.

Lithium Australia has hit a major milestone with the successful production of lithium ion battery cathode powders and lithium ion batteries using lithium phosphate produced directly from mine waste courtesy of its proprietary “SiLeach” process. The company managed to bypass the need to produce high-purity lithium hydroxide or carbonate, which could significantly reduce the cost of battery manufacturing.

TNG Ltd has hit a major milestone at its Mount Peake vanadium-titanium-iron project in the Northern Territory with the grant of four mineral leases over the development. This adds to the recent signing of the Native Title Agreements and binding term sheet for titanium offtake, providing the company with the security of tenure it needs to seek project financing.

Lithium Australia’s second generation SiLeach pilot plant trial at ANSTO Minerals’ facility in New South Wales has successfully produced a product containing between 90% and 95% lithium phosphate. A sample of the product is now being tested at Lithium Australia’s 100%-owned subsidiary VSPC Ltd, with a view to producing and testing lithium ion batteries made from this material.