Public Company News

Lithium Australia has concluded an exploration program of geological mapping, rock chip sampling and geochemical soil sampling over high grade lithium mineralisation identified last year at its Medcalf prospect, located southwest of Norseman in WA. The company previously unearthed the swarm of spodumene rich pegmatites with rock chip samples up to 7.15% lithium oxide in outcrops covering an area of 250m wide by 500m long.

Bellevue Gold has upgraded the inferred resources at its namesake project northwest of Leinster, WA, by 47% to 4Mt @ 11.8g/t gold for 1.53 million ounces of contained gold, just months after hitting the million ounce mark. Drilling is continuing at the very high-grade Viago Lode and Western Corridor and the company expects to release another mineral resource upgrade in the second quarter of this year.

European interest in lithium chemicals could benefit Infinity Lithium and its planned San Jose project, which aims to mine and refine lithium hydroxide for the European market. This includes the active support from the European Investment Bank for European lithium raw materials and refining projects to strengthen the strategic position of the European Union’s lithium-ion battery and electric vehicle sectors.

Hot Chili has executed a binding MoU for an option to acquire a 100% interest in Chilean mining group SCM Carola’s Vallenar landholdings, that are adjacent to the company’s Productora and El Fuego copper assets in Chile. The new “Cortadera” tenements hold a significant copper-gold porphyry discovery which contains extraordinarily wide, high grade, drill intersections of copper/gold mineralisation never publicly released before.

TNG Ltd has appointed mining veteran John Elkington as its Non-Executive Chairman as it proceeds with the financing and developing of its Mount Peake vanadium-titanium-iron project in the Northern Territory. Rex Turkington has stepped down as the company’s interim Chairman and remains on the board as a non-executive director.

Sovereign Metals has raised $4.3m through a share placement priced at 6.5c per share to accelerate the definitive feasibility study for its Malingunde flake graphite project in Malawi and additional metallurgical and exploration activities for the recently identified rutile potential. The company will also raise up to an additional $1m through a share purchase plan for existing shareholders.

Caravel Minerals has confirmed a new geological and structural model for the Bindi deposit, located near Perth in WA, by drilling multiple new zones of copper sulphide mineralisation up to 200m wide at its namesake project. The company is updating the mineral resource model and an updated mineral resource estimate for the project is expected later this quarter, incorporating all the new geology and assay data.

Pilbara conglomerate gold theorist, Novo Resources, has generated encouraging gold recoveries of up to nearly 90% from ore sorting trials at its Comet Well project located near Karratha in WA. The trials produced ore grades up to 792.4g/t in sorted gold concentrates and additional work will now be undertaken at smaller crush sizes and on oxidised ore samples to optimise gold recoveries even further.

MGC Pharmaceuticals’ botanic division has achieved a significant milestone with its Czech Republic greenhouse delivering 700kg of cannabis biomass in 2018, up 30% from the previous year. The company has also developed a new proprietary genetic strain of cannabis that contains over 35% THC and less than 1% CBD, allowing MGC to obtain more THC per kg of raw material to create cost effective medical cannabis products.

St George Mining has delineated two new nickel/copper targets at its Mt Alexander project, near Leonora in the northern Goldfields of WA. The Fairbridge prospect lies between the key Stricklands and Cathedrals prospects and is replete with surface gossans that returned impressive rock chip assays up to 1.23% nickel and 1.09% copper. The new West End prospect may contain buried sulphide mineralisation west of the existing Investigators prospect.

Calima Energy is set to rake in revenue of up to CAD$400,000 per year after bringing the Paradise oil well in northeast British Columbia back into production at a rate of between 16 and 20 barrels of oil per day. Revenue from the well will help pay for the company’s Canadian overheads, allowing it to focus on the high impact drilling program in the revered Montney oil and gas play.

Tyranna Resources is poised to divest its remaining 18.59% interest in the non-core Wilcherry JV gold project in South Australia to partner Alliance Resources for a tidy $1.5m in cash. The sale will allow the company to focus on its Eureka gold project near Kalgoorlie, WA, the Jumbuck gold project in South Australia and the Goodsprings cobalt and base metals project in Nevada, USA.