Public Company News

Surefire Resources has confirmed it has secured clearance to launch an 11-hole, 2200m maiden drilling campaign at its recently-discovered Phat Boy copper prospect in Western Australia’s Mid West region. The prospective ground consists of four coincident copper-zinc anomalous zones and is interpreted to sit within a similar geological and structural setting to the world-class Golden Grove massive sulphide deposit.

Buru Energy’s hunt for onshore oil in Western Australia’s mighty Canning Basin has moved up a gear with the spudding of the Rafael Shallow 1 exploration well. The drilling is targeting the Rafael Shallow oil prospect where a prospective resource of between 3.2 million stock tank barrels (MMstb) of oil and 79 MMstb has already been identified, including a best estimate of 19 MMstb.

White Cliff Minerals has bolstered its funding for an upcoming drill program at its Rae copper-silver project in Canada, with a $5 million capital raise at a premium to the market price – cornerstoned by its strategic advisor, John Hancock. Management says the raising attracted widespread support from new and existing shareholders and institutional funds based locally and in the United Kingdom, United States and Europe.

Strickland Metals has landed a massive 545.7m drill hit grading 1.1 grams per tonne gold equivalent to create a northern resource extension of the Shanac deposit within its Rogozna gold and base metals project in Serbia. The intersection came from one of three recently-finished holes at site. Starting at 108m, it also included higher-grade sections of 102m at 1.7g/t and 30m at 2.4g/t.

In tough recent times for many junior mining companies on the ASX, luring a financially-powerful “big dog” onto the share register to provide some much-needed muscle has become a common boardroom pursuit. In this second part of an occasional series, Bulls N’ Bears takes a look at some of those companies which have prospered after jumping into the business bed with a major partner.

Horizon Minerals has secured the green light to start gold mining at Phillips Find in WA, less than a week after mining the first ore from its Boorara mine that also sits in the State’s Goldfields region.

Askari Metals has further bolstered its uranium foothold in the world-class exploration jurisdiction of Tanzania by acquiring the prospective Eyasi project in the nation’s north. The 292-square-kilometre project – which the company pounced on following detailed in-house geotechnical reviews in collaboration with its Tanzanian partners – strengthens its position in the white-hot Tanzanian uranium sector, complementing its recently-staked Matemanga project in the south.

Meeka Metals says recent metallurgical results from its Meekatharra project in Western Australia, including 95.5 per cent gold leach recovery, will allow the inclusion of its Turnberry underground resource into a looming DFS. The testwork explored conventional carbon-in-leach (CIL) recoveries at three grind sizes and gravity recovery at two grind sizes, reporting optimal recoveries at 106 microns for both methods.

Larvotto Resources is set to fast-track the development of its Hillgrove gold-antimony mine in NSW after appointing a manager to crunch the numbers for a definitive feasibility study by early next year, in a bid to start production in late 2025. MACA Interquip Mintrex will look after the metallurgical testing and necessary plant design modifications to optimise the 500,000 tonnes per annum processing plant.

In this week’s edition of Bulls N’ Bears Big Hits, we examine some notable drill intercepts revealed on the ASX, including Barton Gold’s 7m at 9.63g/t gold from 67m at its Tarcoola project in South Australia. We also take a look at other interesting drill hits reported from American Rare Earths’ Cowboy State Mine project in the US and Lunnon Metals’ Kambalda play in WA.

Thunderbird Resources has revealed recordings of elevated radioactivity levels up to 597 counts per second using a downhole gamma probe in a maiden drilling campaign at its 100 per cent-owned Hidden Bay uranium project in Canada’s Athabasca Basin. The recordings came in the fifth and final drillhole of the program that bore through 1781m in the renowned region.

Reach Resources has launched its maiden reverse-circulation drilling program at the company’s 100 per cent-owned Wabli Creek project in WA’s Gascoyne to probe fresh niobium and rare earths targets. Intriguing and anomalous results previously taken from 74 surface samples during the company’s latest mapping and sampling program set the train in motion and the drill rig is now poised to test what lies beneath.