Public Company News

The Australian Patent Office has granted Neometals’ recycling subsidiary Primobius timely protection for the key hydrometallurgical separation “hub” of its lithium-ion battery (LiB) recycling process – the downstream component of its mechanical battery disassembly “spoke” plant. The company recently revealed it had received an order from Mercedes-Benz for a 10-tonne per day lithium-ion battery shredding plant for its new recycling operation in Germany.

Alma Metals has achieved the stage one earn-in requirements to reach an initial 30 per cent interest in Canterbury Resources Briggs, Mannersley and Fig Tree Hill joint venture copper project in Queensland. Alma has placed an exploration target of between 480m and 880m tonnes on Briggs alone, grading between .20 and .30 per cent copper and between 25 and 40ppm moly – and that’s in addition to the existing resource.

88 Energy has boosted its Phoenix project in Alaska by mapping the Upper Slope Fan System reservoir an additional 7km further south than had previously been modelled. The Upper SFS reservoir boasted abundant oil shows and fifteen times background gas levels when drilled by the Hickory-1 well in March this year, causing the mud tanks to bubble. The Upper SFS represents a new resource addition for the project.

Meeka Metals has revealed it has completed a gravity survey over its St Anne’s and Turnberry resource areas to better define their principal mafic gold hosts. It has also begun drilling to extend the Turnberry resource and to probe surrounding thinly tested areas for additional ounces to bolster existing resource numbers.

Askari Metals is charging ahead with exploration at its Uis Lithium Project in the Erongo Region of central-west Namibia with multiple pegmatites in sight begging to be drill tested. The lack of vegetation on its ground has allowed Askari to image all outcropping pegmatites with high-resolution aerial data as it eagerly awaits the return of phase one drilling assays in the next two weeks.

Everest Metals Corporation will keep the drillbit spinning after delivering more high-grade rubidium and lithium results at its Mt Edon project near Paynes Find in Western Australia’s Mid West region. New drill results show up to 0.51 per cent rubidium oxide and 0.94 per cent lithium oxide, with an 80m hit at 0.32 per cent rubidium oxide and 0.11 per cent lithium oxide from 25m.

With an unlikely background of working for two of WA’s “four-on-the-floor” entrepreneurs, Bondy and Holmes a Court, Twigger’s Tales (aka Liam Twigger) says the ASX is now punching above its weight globally and casting a long shadow over the TSX and even the LSE when it comes to raising capital for the mining and exploration sector.

Lindian Resources has launched a 4000m mine development drilling program at its Kangankunde rare earths project in Malawi in a bid to upgrade about 20 million tonnes of its inferred resource to higher categories before finalising its stage-one pit outline. The company says the campaign is one of the key steps in its transition to production.

A calculated punt by Allup Silica to test for rare earths at its Pink Bark project, 90km north-east of Esperance in Western Australia, has seen it hit clay-hosted mineralisation beneath the sand in its maiden drilling program. The campaign returned intriguing intercepts of 1m at 1169ppm TREO from 20m, 1m at 1985ppm from 21m and 1m at 798ppm from 8m.

ChemX Materials has established a maiden manganese resource of 13.1 million tonnes at 5.7 per cent manganese at its Jamieson Tank deposit, 150km west of South Australia’s Port of Whyalla. The company says testwork on the resource has shown “excellent” upgrade characteristics through simple gravity and magnetic separation and it will now complete an internal scoping study on the production of high-purity manganese battery-grade products.

Si6 Metals is banging ahead with the drill at its Dibete copper-silver project in Botswana, having revealed that five out of 15 reverse-circulation holes are glittering with chalcopyrite and chalcocite in rock-chip samples. A diamond drilling rig has arrived onsite to test pipe-like geophysical anomalies at depth and the company believes it has “barely scratched the surface”.

Ora Banda Mining has now settled a $10 million deal to sell its non-core Lady Ida tenements, 65km south of Kalgoorlie, in a move designed to sharpen the company’s focus on high-grade underground gold deposits. Ora Banda will retain rights on the tenements to all minerals other than gold and silver as part of the now-completed sale to Lamerton and Geoda.