Public Company News

BlackEarth Minerals has reported consistently high grade assays and wide ore thicknesses from a resource definition drilling program at its Razafy graphite prospect in southern Madagascar. Results of up to 42m @ 7.1% total graphitic carbon from 4m down-hole, included 7m @ 10.7% TGC from just 18m. Geological data and results are being collated ahead of a maiden resource estimate due in August.

Venus Metals has announced exceptional upgrades from preliminary metallurgical test work on vanadium ore samples taken from its Youanmi project in the Murchison region of W.A. Results show that vanadium pentoxide grades effectively double from about 0.7% in-situ to 1.4% with simple crushing and magnetic separation of ore composites into concentrates. The company reports that ongoing test work is underway to increase recoveries of vanadium, titanium and iron.

ASX listed security surveillance company Spectur has started to receive sales orders for its unique thermal, solar powered security cameras. The company said this week that it had received its first thermal camera order from an international logistics company based in Victoria. Significant interest has also been flooding in from other Tier 1 companies and Spectur has now started commercial manufacturing of the cameras.

Southern Gold has been granted two interesting looking exploration tenements over the large Beopseongpo gold-silver epithermal target in South Korea’s Jeolla Province, which hosts the operating Eunsan-Moisan gold mine. Recent rock chip sampling at Beopseongpo, which has a strike length of 4km, returned grades of up to 21.8g/t gold and 19g/t silver from float material and 3g/t gold and 1g/t silver from outcrop.

Lithium Australia has commenced production of lithium-iron-phosphate battery cathode material after commissioning its innovative pilot production plant in Brisbane, with commercial samples to be delivered to international battery makers in the fourth quarter. The production of battery cathode materials closes the loop for Lithium Australia who is also a lithium explorer and mineral processing technologist.

Hot Chili has reported shallow, high grade copper drilling results from its maiden RC drilling program at the El Fuego project area in central Chile. Assays showed intersections up to 19m @ 2.0% copper from 61m depth and 15m @ 1.7% copper from 80m down-hole at the San Antonio copper mine prospect. The ore system strikes over 700m and has a higher grade plunge component.

Artemis Resources has beaten Rio Tinto to a 600km2 exploration licence application that is located just 40km east of Newcrest Mining’s Telfer copper-gold mine in Western Australia’s Pilbara region. The prospect, which will take Artemis’ Pilbara landholdings up to about 2400km2, also hosts the northern extension of the same geological structure that hosts London listed Greatland Gold’s Haverion copper-gold discovery.

ASX listed explorer Emu NL has found traces of a gold monster in northern Chile after it drilled through a 163m gold mineralised system, albeit at low grades at this stage. The company has discovered a substantial, epithermal precious metal system at its Vidalita prospect in the lucrative Maricunga precious metals belt and the hunt is now on for the mother lode.

Northern Minerals expects to officially open its Browns Range rare earths pilot plant in Western Australia on the 27th of July 2018 and it has already produced a rare earth carbonate as part of the commissioning process. The pilot plant will investigate the technical and economic feasibility of a proposed full scale operation and will run for up to three years.

Classic Minerals has teamed up with CSIRO to study the potential correlation of large tree sizes to major gold deposits at the Forrestania Gold Project in Western Australia’s Goldfields region. The Australian Government’s Innovation Connections grant and CSIRO will fund the majority of the six month project that could allow rapid generation of new targets without ground disturbing exploration in the future.

Draig Resources has discovered high grade gold mineralisation from deep exploratory scout drilling below the historical Bellevue gold mine near Leinster in W.A. Results include 2.5m @ 13.1g/t, 1.4m @ 9.6g/t and 0.3m @ 35.9g/t gold and are strongly supported by down-hole EM surveys showing off-hole conductors. The 800m long shear zone is interpreted to be an overlooked offset position from the original Bellevue ore lode.

ASX listed Legend Mining will pepper the southern part of its promising Rockford project in the Fraser Range with 150 aircore drill holes totalling about 10,000m. The fresh program will target a number of exciting looking electromagnetic conductors and other aeromagnetic/gravity features in the at the Project. Legend is planning to carry out further exploration at the Area D Prospect following geophysical, geological and geochemical data hits.