Public Company News

Javelin Minerals has ordered more air-core drilling at its Malamute rare earths and metals project, about 10km south-east of Tottenham in central New South Wales. The company will drill 18 new holes to follow up a 40-hole air-core program in 2019 that intersected significant lateritic material overlying ultramafic and mafic rock units, forming a prominent egg-shaped magnetic anomaly almost entirely within its ground.

Ora Banda Mining has seen a mined gold grade increase of more than 50 per cent at its operations to 2.5 grams per tonne over the March quarter compared to an average of 1.7 g/t gold in the previous six months. The significant grade increase caps a solid three months for the company that also included an almost 5 per cent increase in gold produced with a total of 12,310 ounces against 11,803 ounces in the December quarter and 11,720 ounces through the September quarter.

Lithium Australia has recorded green gains after mixed battery collections by subsidiary Envirostream jumped more than 30 per cent to 364 tonnes in the March quarter, compared to 275 tonnes in the December quarter. According to the parent company’s latest quarterly report, Envirostream also generated a comparative cash gross profit of almost $1 million in the nine months to March.

ChemX Materials has unveiled more high-grade, near-surface manganese in its second batch of assay results from drilling in South Australia, including a 6m hit grading 18 per cent manganese from just 15m. It says it now has data from 69 holes of its 94-hole Jamieson Tank campaign, which has targeted mineralisation that can be efficiently converted to high-purity manganese – a key component in electric batteries.

Venus Metals Corporation has gained a boost to exploration plans for its Marvel Loch East rare earths project after its subsidiary Redscope Enterprises scored a co-funded drilling grant from the WA Government. The Exploration Incentive Scheme funding will contribute 50 per cent of direct drilling and mobilisation costs, with Redscope successfully applying for a maximum amount of $157,500 to explore the project near Southern Cross.

Infinity Mining will drill 10 RC holes at its Brisbane nickel prospect in the Pilbara after receiving $117,810 in WA Government grant funding. The company has revealed plans to explore an ultramafic basal contact target at the prospect, in addition to a prominent conductive target that may represent nickel sulphides, which was identified by a helicopter electromagnetic survey.

ASX-listed Estrella Resources has run the rule over a promising 5A nickel target at its Spargoville project, 20km south-west of Kambalda in WA’s Goldfields, and has opted for an underground decline operation over open-pit mining. The company will now press full-steam ahead towards restarting the historic mining at Spargoville of nickel – now a much-needed battery metal.

Venus Metals and joint venture partner, Rox Resources, continue to serve up bumper hits at their Youanmi gold project in WA’s Murchison goldfields, with the latest drilling at the Link prospect striking 22m at 6.31 g/t gold. The duo is plunging 24,000m of drilling into the project in a bid to upgrade the current 3.2-million-ounce inferred mineral resource to the higher indicated category.

ASX-listed cell therapy company Chimeric Therapeutics has received ethics approval to start a multi-site phase 1B clinical trial of the company’s CHM 1101 cell treatment for patients with glioblastoma. Management says the new development will see a two-part clinical study enrolling patients across multiple clinical trial sites in the United States.

Neometals says an engineering cost study has earmarked processing technology developed by subsidiary Reed Advanced Materials as the most economic method for its proposed Estarreja lithium refinery in Portugal. The study was co-funded with Portugal’s biggest chemical producer, Bondalti, with the aim of developing a 25,000-tonne per annum lithium hydroxide operation in a 50-50 joint venture.

Javelin Minerals has highlighted positive rare earths results from a comprehensive sampling program at its Mt Ida-Ida Valley project near Leonora, with assays of up to 0.11 per cent total rare earth oxides. The company has collected 680 orientation samples from selected tenements at the operation, with the positive rare earth assays taken from the Turkey Creek kimberlite province in WA’s Goldfields region.

Conico Limited has revealed a 146 per cent mineral resource jump at its Mt Thirsty nickel-cobalt project near Norseman, surging to 66.2 million tonnes at 0.06 per cent cobalt, 0.43 per cent and 0.45 per cent manganese. The company says its deposit hosts the second-highest cobalt-nickel ratio for similar predevelopment projects in Australia and is uniquely positioned to potentially produce precursor cathode active material.