Public Company News

Novo Resources has set its sights on its “highest-priority” targets as it prepares to launch a diamond drill campaign targeting high-grade gold at its Belltopper project within central Victoria’s historically-prolific Bendigo Tectonic Zone. The company has identified several new structural corridors and high-tenor IP chargeability anomalies to define six drill targets for a 2300m diamond drill campaign.

Auric Mining’s Jeffreys Find gold project near Norseman in Western Australia has kept the company’s till ringing with another $1.65 million banked after it sold 1448 ounces to take its stage-one share to a more-than-expected $3.85 million. The Jeffreys Find “pot of gold”, which is expected to keep pouring out next year, will fund Auric’s development of its bigger-play Munda gold project.

88 Energy has revealed it will earn a 45 per cent interest in 18,500 square kilometres of onshore petroleum acreage in Namibia’s Owambo Basin as the final part of a three-stage farm-in agreement. The company’s staged entry into one of the globe’s final frontiers of petroleum jurisdictions represents a diversification from its Phoenix operation in Alaska and the chance to transition to project operator.

Critical minerals company Terrain Minerals has unveiled high-grade gold hits of up to 6.22g/t from drilling at its 100 per cent-owned Smokebush project at Yalgoo, some 350km north of Perth in Western Australia. The high-grade assays were returned from recent reverse-circulation drilling at the company’s new Lightning target – a highly-prospective area that runs parallel with its existing Monza prospect.

Altech Batteries says a decision to remove graphite from a definitive feasibility study into its Silumina Anodes pilot plant in Germany has triggered an “eightfold” output increase to 8000 tonnes per annum of alumina-coated silicon. The modified study, which reveals the increase from 1000 tonnes per annum, is in response to customer preferences and has been achieved with no change to the plant or equipment.

Si6 Metals has jagged shallow, high-grade supergene and primary copper-silver drill intersections at its Dibete project in east Botswana, including 2m at a whopping 4.2 per cent copper and 268g/t silver. The hit is part of a 9m interval from 45m grading 1.54 per cent copper and 82g/t silver from the first two RC drillholes of an initial – and now completed – nine-hole, 1590m campaign.

Neometals says it has discovered visible spodumene, the major hard-rock source of lithium, under ultraviolet light in historic diamond core from its Spargos exploration licence, which straddles the prospective Mt Ida fault, north/north-west of Norseman in Western Australia. No modern or older lithium assays are available, but resampling and verification work is underway on selected old core retained by the company.

Javelin Minerals will acquire high-resolution aeromagnetic and radiometric data covering its Mt Ida-Ida Valley tenure near Leonora to help charge its hunt for precious and base metals, lithium and rare earths. It says much of its ground is proximate to the gold-rich Ballard Fault, Delta Lithium’s newly-discovered gold and lithium occurrences and the lithium, precious and base metals activities of St George Mining.

Strickland Metals has intercepted promising shearing and alteration in four diamond holes completed at its Marwari gold play near Wiluna in Western Australia, with a fifth hole in progress at the company’s intriguing new focus ground. It follows revelations 10 days ago that it had suddenly redirected all reverse-circulation and diamond drill rigs to Marwari, sending its share price on a tear.

Reach Resources believes it edging closer to proving up a fractionated, lithium-bearing pegmatite system at its Bonzer prospect that sits within its 100 per cent-owned Morrissey Hill lithium project in Western Australia’s Gascoyne region. Assays from the first 4500m of phase-one drilling suggest the holes hit a halo of lower-grade mineralisation with encouraging geochemistry and the company will now double down on its lithium search.

Askari Metals is building a contiguous, district-scale lithium tenure spanning 1711 square kilometres in Western Australia’s East Pilbara region, 100km east/north-east of Pilbara Minerals’ massive 4.75 million tonne Pilgangoora lithium-oxide resource. The infrastructure-rich area is highly prospective for LCT-bearing pegmatites and the company has three exploration licence approvals imminent. Management is now poised to activate a follow-up lithium exploration campaign.

ChemX Materials has nailed the vital “4N” (99.99 per cent) product purity in alumina from its trial micro-plant in Perth and is now refocusing on the commissioning of its proposed pilot plant in next year’s first quarter. It confirmed 4N in an analysis of 66 elements, with a best result of just 39ppm total impurities (99.996 per cent purity) – close to 5N.