Public Company News

Some old-fashioned detective work has set Terrain Minerals on a pathway to try and emulate Sirius Resources’ 2012 discovery of the hulking Nova-Bollinger deposit in WA’s Fraser Range. Terrain says its search through old geophysical records identified an intriguing “eye-shaped” feature near its ground similar to the one that led to the Nova-Bollinger base metals discovery – just 300km to the north on the same geological structure.

Si6 Metals says it has mapped and sampled clay-rich saprolite outcrops prospective for ionic-adsorption clay rare earths up to 12m thick at its Caldera JV project it shares with Foxfire Metals in Brazil. Assays are now pending after the JV sent 16 soil, channel and auger samples to the SGS Geosol laboratory in the Brazilian State of Minas Gerais.

88 Energy has completed the first stage of its farm-in to a massive 18,500 square kilometres of ground in Namibia’s Owambo Basin – one of the globe’s last remaining onshore frontier petroleum basins. It now has a 20 per cent interest in the ground and can up its share to 37.5 per cent in phase two and 45 per cent in phase three of the farm-in.

American West Metals is cashed up and ready to tear into an exploration and resource expansion program at its Storm copper play in Canada after pumping up its bank account with $10 million in fundraising. The company says the raise was oversubscribed, with several of its directors intending to stump up their cash and participate in the placement.

Askari Metals has capped off its hunt for new exploration ground by staking a claim for the 260-square-kilometre Matemanga uranium project in Tanzania as the heavy metal's price surges on clean energy demand. The company’s decision to pounce on the ground comes after its extensive geotechnical reviews that identified the area as a hot uranium target with significant potential.

White Cliff Minerals says it is now the single-biggest holder of mineral exploration claims in Canada’s Northwest Territories after it was granted new licence approvals for the province’s Radium Point project. The company is focussed on iron oxide-copper-gold-uranium deposits and silver mineralisation in the area that hosts the historical Eldorado, Echo Bay and Contact Lake mines.

Valor Resources has ticked off a second item from its targeted triad of lithium targets in Canada’s booming Thunder Bay area in Ontario after completing its acquisition of the Jesaulenko project. Valor’s 100 per cent acquisition of Jesaulenko comes just days after it also grabbed the nearby Frazer Lake lithium project and an 80 per cent share of the Hook Lake uranium play in Saskatchewan.

Lithium Universe has secured a prime location for its proposed battery-grade lithium carbonate refinery in Canada after executing an option agreement to purchase a commercial property in the province of Quebec. The location for the facility is between Quebec City and Montreal at the Bécancour Industrial Waterfront Hub, with heavyweight engineering firm Hatch to undertake a comprehensive study for the refinery’s design.

ABx Group is confident its subsidiary Alcore will achieve substantially-enhanced fluorine recovery after incorporating new equipment to deliver the ideal feed particle size for its reactor to handle. The company is awaiting results from a fourth phase of testwork after a ball mill and an ultrasonic vibrating screen were used to prepare a narrower range of particle sizes for feed material.

King River Resources is set to kick off a new drill campaign at its Tennant Creek East project in the Northern Territory as part of a $2 million commitment to hunt for high-grade copper-gold this year. Drilling will target the promising Commitment, Langrenus and Providence prospects, all in proximity to several head-turning copper-gold drill intersections recorded in recent years in the highly-regarded Tennant Creek region.

88 Energy is poised to launch into the critical flow-testing phase for the Hickory-1 well at its Phoenix project in Alaska after commissioning its rig and finishing off the construction of its ice pad. With joint venture partner Burgundy Xploration contributing its share of the costs, testing is expected to start within the next 10 days once the rig mobilisation is completed.

In an exclusive interview with Bulls N’ Bears, international stock-trading entrepreneur Jim Mellon has boldly predicted a vibrant third lithium wave for global markets. Mellon says, “now is a great time to be loading up on lithium”, despite the price for the silvery-white metal going into something of a hibernation in the back part of last year.