Public Company News

Lithium Universe is positioning itself to fill what it believes will be a 700,000-tonne per year lithium carbonate gap in the mammoth North American electric vehicle market by establishing its own refinery in Canada. With experts and analysts all around the world predicting a vibrant third wave for the lithium market, the company’s plan is to sit at the centre of the cyclone.

Buxton Resources will try to turn a new project in Mohave County into a manganese oasis after today revealing its acquisition of the Matrix project that sits in the north-western region of Arizona. The 12-square-kilometre operation lies adjacent to the world’s sixth-biggest manganese resource in terms of contained metal and expands the company’s push into the electric vehicle critical minerals space.

Horizon Minerals has inked a toll milling agreement with FMR Investments to process 200,000 tonnes of gold ore from its Cannon underground mine at the Greenfields Mill near Coolgardie in Western Australia. The binding agreement comes alive in December, with Horizon arranging contract mining and the 67km haulage of ore to Greenfields by road. Milling is expected to take up to eight months to complete.

Surefire Resources has made a key boardroom addition to help guide its Victory Bore vanadium project in WA’s Mid West after appointing experienced finance specialist Jan De Jager as its new chief executive officer. The company recently released an updated Victory Bore mineral resource estimate of 465 million tonnes at 0.3 per cent vanadium oxide, 5.1 per cent titanium dioxide and 17.7 per cent iron.

Aspiring rare earths developer Red Metal is aiming to stretch its “world-first” Sybella discovery with a new drilling program outside the known mineralisation zone at its project about 20km south-west of Mt Isa in North Queensland. The company is looking to define the potential size of the deposit and its grade, with plans to drill 10,000m using a combination of air-core and percussion drilling.

Resource definition drilling is underway at Everest Metals Corporation’s Mt Edon critical mineral project in WA’s Mid West region in a bid to firm up the existing rubidium exploration target to mineral resource status. The target is between 3.2 and 4.5 million tonnes with a grade of 0.23 to 0.35 per cent rubidium – numbers the company hopes to swell in its looming maiden mineral resource estimate.

This week’s Bulls N’ Bears Runner of the Week is … Iceni Gold. Its “WA Budget week” share price leapt more than 307 per cent after the discovery of more gold-bearing veins at its Christmas Gift target. The company joins fellow movers and shakers Alliance Nickel, OZZ Resources and Caprice Resources on this week’s coveted list.

88 Energy has earmarked the middle of this year to begin shooting a 200-line-kilometre 2D seismic survey over 10 prospective oil and gas closures picked up by airborne gravity data in Namibia’s Owambo Basin. Management says the closures are also supported in part by existing 2D seismic data, in addition to soil gas sampling that validates the existence of a hydrocarbon-producing source rock.

Aurum Resources has revealed a glimmering suite of wide gold hits from a recent diamond drilling campaign at its Boundiali project in West Africa’s Côte d'Ivoire – peaking at 90m going 1.16g/t from 143m. The new assay collection also includes 59m at 1.42g/t gold from 68m with 13m at 3.92g/t and 23m at 1.36g/t from 293m featuring a 5m chunk going a solid 3.32g/t.

With world copper prices remaining close to all-time highs, GreenTech Metals believes it now has a “significant exploration opportunity” after an exhaustive review at its Whundo project in Western Australia’s Pilbara region. The review highlighted four significant volcanogenic massive sulphide copper-zinc targets within a 2.2km-long zone, offering considerable scope for resource extensions to the 5.3 million-tonne Whundo copper-zinc deposit.

Gold Mountain has run the rule over its Wabag project in Papua New Guinea, with a data overhaul uncovering the core of at least three porphyry systems that may host substantial copper-gold deposits. The company says the review suggests there may be multiple centres of porphyry-style mineralisation through 7km of strike in an arc parallel to the direction of its main copper anomalies.

Askari Metals’ latest auger drilling campaign has revealed encouraging total rare earth oxides hits as high as 4505ppm at its 100 per cent-owned Red Peak project in Western Australia’s Gascoyne region. It comes just a week after its neighbour Krakatoa Resources set the ASX alight with a 130 per cent share price jump after it discovered a new niobium-rare earths target.