Public Company News

Conglomerate gold developer Novo Resources has outlined an aggressive exploration program for its emerging Egina gold project, located near Port Hedland in the Pilbara region of WA. Over the coming months the company plans to undertake systematic bulk sampling of gold-bearing lag gravels at the project. The company will also complete ground surveying, trench mapping, regional geological mapping and conduct wide-spaced alluvial soil sampling for fine gold occurrences.

Calima Energy has contracted Precision Drilling’s Rig 379 to carry out its three well program in the Montney oil and gas play in British Columbia, Canada with drilling to get underway as soon as December. The first well to be drilled will be a vertical well to provide data and samples for measurement and analysis followed by two horizontal wells that will be fracture stimulated.

Coolgardie Minerals has swung into production near Coolgardie just a couple of months after listing on the ASX. First ores were extracted at a respectable gold grade of 3.5 grams per tonne from the company’s Geko gold mine. Mined ore will be stockpiled and then sold to Northern Star’s South Kalgoorlie operation at AUD$1650 an ounce where it will be processed.

Aspire Mining says that a proposed rail line that will link its Ovoot coking coal project in Mongolia to the proposed Kyzyl - Arts Suuri section of the Russian rail network at the border port of Arts Suuri is viable. The 238.6km rail line will cost USD$581.8m, which is in the range estimated by a scoping study completed in 2015 and comparable to the Erdenet to Ovoot feasibility study.

TNG Ltd has made it three for three with the signing of a third term sheet, this time with Switzerland’s DKSH for the titanium dioxide pigment offtake from its Mount Peake vanadium-titanium-iron project in the Northern Territory. The company already has a binding offtake agreement with WOOJIN Metals for at least 60% of the vanadium output and a binding term sheet with Gunvor (Singapore) for iron products.

Vonex has launched its new Vonex Phone app that brings its cloud-based PABX system to the smartphone and computer desktops, allowing users to be connected to their business phone system from anywhere in the world. The company will generate revenue through a range of subscription plans with phone calls paid on a per minute or per call basis or a recurring monthly subscription which includes unlimited phone calls.

After largely writing the book on how to develop a massive mineral project as an ASX listed junior using farm in money from its counterparties, Neometals will no doubt be feeling a quiet sense of satisfaction this week after taking receipt of its first $6.2m dividend cheque from the Mt Marion lithium mine near Coolgardie.

Venus Metals has entered into a farm-in agreement with the unlisted Pilgangoora Minerals to vend out a number of its lithium exploration licences in WA. The agreement will fast track exploration for lithium bearing pegmatites on 2 leases located near the large Wodgina mining operation, 2 leases near the operating Pilgangoora lithium mines and 2 leases in the historical Poona mining district near Cue in the Murchison region.

Hammer Metals has purchased two prospective looking exploration permits covering the Sunset and Black Rock copper-gold prospects near Mount Isa in Queensland. The Sunset prospect has returned near-surface historical drill results up to 24 metres grading 1.41% copper and 0.49g/t gold from just 10m down-hole, whilst Black Rock has previously returned wide intersections of lower grade mineralisation, including 78m @ 0.54% copper and 0.13g/t gold from 140m down-hole.

PharmAust has developed a prototype “good manufacturing practice” method for the large-scale manufacture of its anti-cancer drug, Monepantel and its analogues at an economical cost and to standards required for clinical trials. The method can also be used for molecules in the drug library that PharmAust secured from Nihon Nohyaku in September 2017, which are related to but different from Monepantel.

ASX listed biotech Phylogica has identified a next generation cell penetrating peptide that is four times more efficient at delivering a large drug cargo inside cell walls than its original biological product. The discovery was made as the company screens and validates its large library of peptides with a view to discovering even more new cell penetrating peptides. Work on this project will continue until February 2019.

Artemis Resources has locked in a new set of cobalt and base metal drilling targets across its extensive land holdings near Karratha in WA, with a comprehensive geochemical soil sampling program outlining a number of interesting looking, multi-element anomalies for follow-up exploration activities. The company utilised baseline data from the existing Carlow Castle cobalt-gold-copper project area as a guide to highlight the priority and tenor of the new assay results.