Public Company News

Hot Chili has transformed the Cortadera copper-gold deposit, one of Chile’s best kept secrets, into a company maker and it has now bought itself another 12 months to pay for it as the company continues to drill it out and get a handle on just how big Cortadera might be. The deal removes the need to raise money during the Coronavirus calamity, which has also caused the US dollar to tank.

Ardiden Limited has amassed a huge land bank after securing 165 square kilometres of prospective leases adjacent to its Pickle Lake gold project in Ontario, Canada, taking its total land-holding in the gold-rich greenstone belt to 664 square kilometres. Ardiden said its lease position is the largest in the region and comparable with the world class Red Lake gold district located approximately 200 kilometres west of Pickle Lake.

Just 12 months after taking the helm at ASX-listed agricultural company, Alterra, Oliver Barnes has successfully pivoted the company and made good on his business model to create long term investment grade agricultural assets that are attractive to the institutional investment market. Alterra is set to become one of WA’s leading avocado orchard developers after leasing 300ha of prime land near Pemberton in WA.

Troy Resources has recovered 4,528 ounces of gold since mining re-commenced on January 10th this year at its Karouni gold project in Guyana South America, with much of the precious metal coming from the Hicks-4 pit that recently booked a three-fold reserve upgrade. Head grades have also been solid with the average grade for the quarter coming in at 2.2 grams per tonne gold.

ASX-listed explorer, St George Mining has shone a light on some 35 kilometres of prospective geology in the revered Paterson province in the eastern Pilbara of WA after a new aeromagnetic survey lit up several potential copper and gold exploration hotspots. The geophysical survey represents the company’s inaugural field work program in this prolific mineral province and it has now applied for co-funding under the WA Government’s Exploration Incentive Scheme.

Ora Banda Mining has updated the mineral resource estimate for its historic Golden Eagle mine, located just 3.2km from its Davyhurst processing plant, in WA’s Eastern Goldfields, with an initial underground resource of 49,000 ounces of gold. The upgrade totals 393 kt at a higher grade of 3.9 g/t gold at a cut-off grade of 2.0 g/t to reflect the potential to mine this deposit by conventional underground mining.

Local heavy rare earths producer, Northern Minerals has upgraded the mineral resource estimate for its Dazzler deposit in north-eastern WA by 50 per cent to 214,000 tonnes and delivered a small uplift in grade to 2.33 per cent total rare earth oxides. The company said Dazzler is now the second largest deposit at its Browns Range heavy rare earths project, behind the Wolverine resource.

Venus Metals continues to zero in on the Penny South prospect at its Youanmi gold project. The company’s latest geophysical program has highlighted five priority EM targets at the high-profile project which is located immediately along strike from Spectrum Metals famed Penny West gold deposit. The company is now planning a follow up program with detailed ground EM and deep RC drilling planned for the coming months.

In an extraordinary move amid the Coronavirus inspired market carnage, Blackstone Minerals has managed to place $6.8m at a 62% premium to market to giant South Korean battery materials manufacturer, EcoPro. EcoPro owns the world’s 2nd largest nickel-rich battery cathode manufacturer and the largest operation of its kind in Korea. EcoPro is looking to get exposure to Blackstone’s Ta Khoa Nickel-Platinum project in Vietnam.

Lithium Australia has received its certificate of grant from IP Australia guaranteeing up to 20 years of patent protection relating to its “LieNA” lithium processing technology. LieNA takes fine lithium spodumene ore and concentrates it by up to and greater than 85%. Traditional recovery methods are currently as low as 50%, with the rest going to waste, according to Lithium Australia.

Neometals has levered its vanadium metallurgical processing smarts to team up with unlisted Scandanavian energy metals player, Critical Metals Ltd to jointly evaluate the viability of building a ground-breaking vanadium recycling plant that will harvest vanadium from “slag”, or waste produced by global steel company, SSAB. SSAB has been stockpiling its vanadium rich steel waste product that Neometals says might be the highest grade vanadium feedstock in the world.

ASX-listed, smart home technology provider, Quantify Technology, has secured yet another sales contract through its east coast distributor, Harvey Norman Commercial, taking its “smart” light switches, power points and related hardware into a new, high-end residential development in Sydney. The three-year contract, worth in excess of $450,000, gives it exclusive rights to install its smart devices into thirty-six innovative, high quality apartments and townhouses being developed by Dilcara.