Public Company News

Meeka Metals has tabled an independent maiden resource of 98 million tonnes grading 890 parts per million total rare earths oxide for 21,560 tonnes of neodymium-praseodymium metal at its Circle Valley project in Esperance. The new resource, based on 12,401m of large-diameter air-core drilling, is contained within an optimised pit shell and above a 430ppm TREO minus cerium oxide cutoff.

Kairos Minerals continues to generate highly-promising lithium targets at its 100 per cent-owned Roe Hills project in Western Australia’s Eastern Goldfields region. The company’s optimism has been boosted ahead of a planned initial 5000m of reverse-circulation drilling across its growing pipeline of targets in the rapidly-emerging lithium province that hosts Global Lithium Resources’ renowned 32.7-million-tonne Manna lithium project.

Globe Metals & Mining’s plans for its Kanyika niobium project have received a vital boost with the Malawian Government backing its anticipated roll-out for substantial mine development and production. Management says representatives from the Malawian Government also recently visited the mine site and believes their support greatly enhances Globe’s efforts to increase the security of tenure for its mining licences.

Horizon Minerals has secured a second tranche of funding of US$3 million (AU$4.36 million) to continue the development of its Cannon underground gold project in Western Australia’s Goldfields region. Management says it has also received the government approvals needed to kick off underground development, including an approved mining proposal and mine closure plan from the Department of Mining, Industry Regulation and Safety.

Emu NL has added a fourth rare earths discovery to its growing portfolio after rock-chip samples at its Merredin project complemented historic assay results of up to 1405 parts per million total rare earths oxide. The results backed up a review of the Geological Survey of Western Australia’s public hard-rock geochemical data that showed several assays with elevated rare earths values.

European-focused Altech Batteries has unveiled its preliminary specifications for two products aimed at the burgeoning grid power storage battery market, in a move it predicts will kickstart discussions with potential buyers. The storage batteries, which the Subiaco-based company says outperforms lithium-ion batteries on many levels, will be built in Germany in a joint venture with its partner, Fraunhofer IKTS.

Minerals explorer Si6 Metals will dive into some due diligence after entering into a joint venture and agreeing to acquire a 50 per cent interest in a portfolio of Brazilian lithium and rare earths projects. Management says the deal with Foxfire Metals is subject to a 30-day due diligence period and covers five tenements and five applications across four different project areas in Brazil.

Lindian Resources says it has made significant progress on the optimum design for its processing plant at the company’s Kangankunde rare earths project in Malawi, while the mine design and planning are being scoped. The stage-one plant is based on processing an initial throughput of 220,000 tonnes of material per annum to produce a monazite concentrate before expanding to 440,000 tonnes a year.

The Youanmi gold project near Mt Magnet in Western Australia’s Murchison region has coughed up more high-grade results to bolster the confidence of Venus Metals and its joint venture (JV) partner Rox Resources in upgrading the project’s mineral resource estimate. New highlights include 6.38m going 4.45 grams per tonne gold from 381.84m, including 2.56m at 8.26g/t gold from 381.84m.

ASX-listed Aurumin has kicked off the first of two phases of development works for its Mt Dimer gold project, where it is planning shallow open pits at its high-grade Lightning and Golden Slipper deposits. Mt Dimer sits about 120km north-east of Southern Cross, at a site where historical high-grade production delivered more than 125,000 gold ounces, including production of 600,000 tonnes at 6.4g/t gold.

PolarX has pumped up the mineral resource estimate at its Caribou Dome project in Alaska by 160 per cent to 7.2 million tonnes going 3.1 per cent copper and 6.5 grams per tonne silver after a successful drilling campaign. Management says the contained metal at the project now sits at 224,375 tonnes of copper and 1.5 million ounces of silver.

Reverse-circulation (RC) drilling at Everest Metals’ Mt Edon lithium-caesium-tantalum (LCT) project in Western Australia’s Mid-West region has intersected multiple pegmatites from surface to 111 metres deep within a 1.2km corridor. While the RC assays are imminent, surface rock-chip sampling has confirmed high-grade rubidium of up to 3.1 per cent and lithium up to 4.6 per cent.