Public Company News

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.

Horizon Minerals isn’t leaving anything to chance after getting its hands on MacPhersons Resources’ Boorara Gold project just east of Kalgoorlie post its merger with MacPhersons. The ASX listed company is headlong into an infill drilling campaign at Boorara ahead of the expected commencement of mining in the June quarter with drill spacings now down to a minimum of just 4m x 10m – and the numbers haven’t disappointed.

ASX-listed Lithium Australia has taken a major step forward in its mission to obtain patents for the recovery of lithium phosphate from lithium bearing silicates and solutions after the International Bureau of the World Intellectual Property Organisation published two of the company’s patent applications. It is the fourth step on the road to the granting of the patents, which can take some time to achieve.

Canning Basin focussed hydrocarbon explorer and producer, Buru Energy, has reported $3.5 million in revenues from its flagship Ungani oilfield near Broome in WA. Buru is sitting on 5.5 million acres of development and exploration permits in the Canning and it is already turning out about 1,400 barrels of oil per day at its flagship oilfield.

King River Resources has received all assay results following a drilling campaign at its Mt Remarkable project in WA. A new mineralised zone 150 metres east of the main Trudi deposit with notable gold grades up to 2.42 grams per tonne has been identified. The best result to date from the Trudi Main vein is 6 meters grading 5.95 grams per tonne gold from a shallow depth of just 20 meters downhole.

ASX-listed rare earth’s producer, Northern Minerals, looks to be potentially onto something in the East Kimberly with some solid results from rock chip sampling, grading up to 2.92% copper at its John Galt Project, located 200 kilometres south of Kununurra in WA. The rock chip sampling program covered an area of 2 kilometres by 500 metres with half of all samples returning high copper grades of 1% or greater.