Public Company News

Hammer Metals is set to kick some serious goals at its early-stage Mt Philp breccia iron oxide-copper-gold project near Mount Isa in Queensland, after being awarded $80,000 by the State Government to partially fund exploration activity at the property. The company will use the funds to assay geochemical soil samples and complete geophysical data interpretation and surveys, to generate a 3D model and pinpoint specific drilling targets.

Lithium Australia has formalised an option agreement to acquire the three exploration licences that comprise the Youanmi lithium project about 100km southwest of Sandstone from private exploration firm Diversity Resources Pty Ltd. The project could be a feed source for the company’s upcoming third generation SiLeach pilot plant trial.

Southern Gold has signed a new agreement with Northern Star to acquire two strategic mining tenements at no cost, in order to facilitate development of the company’s Cannon underground gold resources near Kalgoorlie in WA. The agreement optimises the combined assets for a standalone mining operation or simple monetisation, as the gold mineralisation at Cannon plunges into the existing Northern Star lease.

Sky and Space Global has signed a reseller MoU with India’s Globe Teleservices and MoUs with BT LATAM Brasil and the Blue Power Group covering the potential use of its nano-satellite narrow-band communications network. Globe has also agreed to distribute a minimum number of devices and services.

Bellevue Gold is accelerating an updated resource estimate for its namesake gold project near Leinster in WA to the first quarter of 2019 thanks to ongoing high grade drilling results such as 2.4m @ 26.1g/t gold from 269.89m and 1.3m @ 35.2g/t gold. Drilling has also extended the Bellevue lode by a further 230m to the south of historic underground workings where mineralisation remains open in that direction.

Graphite developer BlackEarth Minerals has generated a high grade 95% graphite concentrate product from its Razafy graphite deposit in southern Madagascar, with nearly 50% reporting above the premium large flake size. Results from the recent test work will be used to finalise the project’s processing flow sheet and ongoing scoping study, ahead of a BFS which is due to kick off in the first quarter of 2019.

Sometime in the next few weeks, ASX listed tech company, Aurora Labs, is expected to officially launch its game changing, multi-level, 3D printer that is capable of printing about 30 layers in a single pass. The company says the new printer could drastically lower the cost of 3D printing. In the next six to twelve months, Aurora is also planning to introduce a full-sized, large format 3D printer that could print up to 100 layers in a single pass.

Mongolia focussed coal developer Aspire Mining has completed a $15m financing package for its Ovoot coking coal project in the northwest of the country and is now debt free and fully funded to complete the required feasibility work. Upcoming studies will focus on a high quality, low ash, low strip ratio carve out from the Ovoot ore reserve, concentrating on extraction and processing of the premium Ovoot upper seam.

Phylogica’s biological “peptide” vaccine has performed the best in coaxing an immune response against HSV during animal testing, with 75% of the mice treated with its peptides mated to a common HSV antigen showing no detectable signs of the virus. The company will now pit its peptide vaccine against Swiss company Amal Therapeutics’ zebra CPP with results expected in the first quarter of 2019.

Southern Gold says that JV partner Bluebird Merchant Ventures has produced high recoveries of gold up to 80% and around 60% for silver, from simple gravity separation met test work at the Kochang project in South Korea. The company also said that a low CAPEX option for initial processing could result in early cash flows from the proposed Kochang operation, based on recoveries of precious metals via gravity techniques.

Calima Energy is now tantalisingly close to drilling its exciting oil and gas play in the revered Canadian Montney formation with the access road to the drill pad for its planned three well program now complete. Calima’s share price has held steadfast over the last year with only one brief foray below its floor price of 4.5c as investors choose to stay the course and await the moment of truth.

Affinity Energy and Health has signed a non-binding heads of agreement with St John of God Hospital Subiaco to identify and undertake medical cannabis research and development projects. St John has a strong focus on research and medical excellence that is expected to help Affinity underpin the commercialisation of its Australian medical cannabis strategy.