Public Company News

Myanmar Metals has increased the “indicated” status of its mineral resource at the Bawdwin polymetallic deposit in central Myanmar by 23%. The indicated part of the resource now sits at 24.8Mt @ 5.1% lead, 2.8% zinc, 0.2% copper and 134g/t silver. Myanmar is now focused on completing a Prefeasibility Study and is also planning to drill away from the main China lode.

Legend Mining’s aircore drilling program has better defined the extent of the four mineralised footprints at the Area D prospect at the company’s Rockford project in W.A’s coveted Fraser Range region. Legend is reviewing drilling data from the past eight months to determine its next steps and will carry out regional drilling in the project’s south.

A huge amount of data gathering during the drilling of Strike Energy’s Jaws-1 coal seam gas well has backed up the company’s bold punt on a deep coal seam gas well and left the management confident that it will become “a major productive area”. The company is hoping to book a gas reserve sometime soon after a successful flow test.

Image Resources has increased the forecast value for its Boonanarring mineral sands project in Western Australia by $38 million to $235 million on the back of higher zircon price forecasts by consulting company TZ Mineral International. The pre-tax rate of return is up to 125 per cent while payback is now expected in 13 months, down from 16 months.

Draig Resources’ metallurgical tests have resulted in gold recoveries of up to 98.8% using conventional gravity and cyanide processing on ore from the Tribune Lode discovery just 2km from the historical Bellevue gold mine in W.A. Draig will test deeper extension targets below the Bellevue mine and it expects to complete a resource estimate for the project in the third quarter of 2018.

Southern Gold has scored a bullseye with a new geological model for an area south of the historic Transfind pit, with first-pass drilling hitting gold in all 13 holes and producing a best result of 1m @ 133.67 g/t. The results have backed up hopes for shallow, very high-grade gold that could be trucked to a nearby plant and add to cashflow from the Cannon mine.

King River Copper has announced more high grade gold results from the Mt Remarkable gold project, 200km southwest of Kununurra in the Kimberley region of W.A. The company is targeting the Trudi Vein system with close spaced drilling to delineate multi-ounce, plunging ore shoots. Exploration drilling is underway east of the main Trudi lode too, at the intersection with the Grahame vein system.

Kopore Metals is starting a maiden 3,000m drilling program targeting the KM3 and GW3 targets at its Ghanzi West project in Botswana in search of regional scale copper silver anomalies. The project is located close to major development projects such as Cupric Canyon Capital’s Zone 5 resource and MOD Resources’ T3 copper project within the highly prospective but under-explored Kalahari copper belt.

Venus Metals has reported a significant increase in its near surface gold resource inventory at its Youanmi project to 10.1 million tonnes grading 1.65g/t gold for 533,000 ounces. When combined with the Youanmi Deeps underground resource, the global mineral resource at Youanmi now sits at just under 1.2 million ounces. The company is now looking at the viability of creating one “super pit” at the project.

Galena Mining has announced some outstanding results in a scoping study for its Abra lead project in WA. With an initial mine life of 11 years, a base case scenario produces a pre-tax, post-royalty net present value of $394 million and a 61 percent internal rate of return. When fully operational, Abra will produce 1 million tonnes annually and generate free cash flows of up to $110 million a year.

Reedy Lagoon will conduct sophisticated geophysical surveys at its lithium brine projects in southern Nevada to produce an accurate 3D picture of potentially lithium-rich groundwaters and boost its chances of a discovery. The survey technique, known as audio magneto tellurics, shows the location of highly conductive zones within the subsurface that could represent volcanic ash layers laden with lithium brines.

Hammer Metals is selling its 75% interest in the Millennium cobalt project in Queensland’s Mt Isa district to partner Global Energy Metals in exchange for a 19.9% stake in the Canadian company. This replaces the previous joint venture agreement and allows Hammer to focus on its exciting copper-gold exploration projects in Mt Isa.