Public Company News

Norwest Energy has topped up its cash box in readiness for the drilling of its Lockyer Deep prospect in the Northern Perth Basin. The final payment of A$630,000 was received this week for the sale of its interest in production licence L14 in the North Perth Basin. Norwest is getting set to drill Locker Deep in partnership with uber-successful resources house, Mineral Resources who is not known for backing duds.

Private equity firm, Ibaera now holds a relevant interest in Azumah Resources of 88.85% following last year’s off-market takeover bid. Azhuma’s sole independent director has encouraged remaining holders to accept the offer before the official closing date of the 17th January. If Ibaera acquires 90% or more of Azumah’s shares, it will likely move to compulsorily attain any remaining shares and/or delist the company from the ASX.

Troy Resources is back on track at its Karouni gold mining operation in Guyana, South America, with mining now in full swing again after a death on-site last year closed the operation down. The company is also experiencing considerable and sustained success with the drill bit and expects ore processing to re-commence in late January as ore stocks are built up. Gold sales will commence soon after in February.

Novo Resources has picked up 10 million shares in ASX listed Kalamazoo Resources at $0.40 cents per share. Novo Director, Eric Sprott, has also personally taken up 10 million shares in the placement that raised a total of $8 million for Kalamazoo. Novo now holds a strategic 8.17% stake in the Victorian explorer. Kalamazoo recently tabled an exceptional grade result from its Castlemaine prospect of 1.42m @ 261.3g/t gold.

Middle Island Resources has started a major, multi-phase drilling campaign at its 100%-owned Sandstone gold project in central WA. The company says the campaign, slated for completion by the end of the March quarter, has the potential to add significant open pit mineral resources to the gold project and take it a step closer to the recommissioning of the old mothballed mill on-site.

AVZ Minerals’ has inked a deal with the DRC Government to probe a potential refurbishment of a hydro-electric power station near its giant Manono lithium project. The old power station has been mothballed for years but potentially presents as a future power source for AVZ’s rapidly advancing lithium project that boasts possibly the largest undeveloped lithium resource in the world today.

ASX-listed ag player Alterra, says that its investment in and association with carbon credit forestry business, Carbon Conscious, has been generating solid income streams that are set to continue into the future on the back of long term tree planting and management contracts with energy titans, BP and Origin. Alterra took over $1.1m off the table at Carbon Conscious last year by way of dividends, management fees, interest and a $400k early loan repayment.

Lindian Resources looks to be onto a lucrative, high grade bauxite deposit in Africa that has now been confirmed by the company as a rare “conglomerate” style deposit. Initial unconfirmed XRF results at the Bouba Plateau at Lindian’s Gaoual Bauxite Project in Guinea, show extraordinarily high aluminium oxide numbers of around 61% with only 4.6% of the nuisance mineral silica present.

After years of dogged determination, plugging away in the Fraser Range in search of a Nova-Bollinger look-a-like nickel-copper discovery, Legend Mining looks like it is onto something now with drill core showing over 70 meters of sulphide mineralisation, including 14.9 meters containing solid nickel-copper-cobalt mineralisation. The new find is part of Legend’s Mawson Discovery, 280km east of Kalgoorlie where the mineralisation commences at a relatively shallow depth of 76 meters.

Spectrum Metals has encountered its highest gold grades yet outside of the historical Penny North deposit located 25km south of the Youanmi mining centre in Western Australia. Recent exploration drilling has snagged a 4 metre wide zone grading at 11.1 grams per tonne gold from 195m downhole, including a metre grading 41g/t gold at the Magenta prospect, 1.5km north of Penny North.

Altech Chemicals will update the resource estimate at its promising Kerrigan kaolin project near Hyden in the WA Wheatbelt after successfully completing a drilling program. Whilst the Meckering kaolin deposit will provide feedstock for Altech’s soon-to-be-built HPA plant in Malaysia, Kerrigan also appears to host a high-purity kaolin deposit . Altech is partly financing its HPA plant with a loan that is guaranteed by the German Government.

ASX-listed PharmAust’s innovative biotechnology work via its wholly owned subsidiaries Epichem and Pitney Pharmaceuticals has been recognised by the Australian Tax Office with the company receiving more than $700,000 in a research and development tax rebate. The funds will be used to advance its clinical trial programs in dogs and humans with the company now on a fast tracked pathway to prove up the cancer fighting abilities of its “re-purposed” Monepantel drug.