Public Company News

AVZ Minerals has initiated a DFS for its Manono lithium project in the DRC after a scoping study outlined that a 5Mtpa operation could generate a whopping pre-tax NPV of USD$2.63b at an IRR of 64%. Manono boasts one of the world’s greatest lithium resources at 400 million tonnes grading 1.65% lithium oxide and 715ppm tin, most likely placing it in the top three lithium deposits around the globe.

Hot Chili has delineated a potential fourth porphyry centre at its large Cortadera copper-gold discovery in central Chile, after securing further historical drill hole and geophysical data for the project area. This technical dataset has revealed a substantial, alteration-related outline some 4km long by 3km wide, which has all the markings of a potentially world-class gold-rich, porphyry copper system.

Infinity Lithium remains on track to complete the pre-feasibility study for its San José project in Spain during July 2019 with test work demonstrating good lithium leachability and the lithium-bearing solution now undergoing further testing. The company is also working on a revised mining schedule and the potential to recapture a significant amount of water contained in tails for processing.

Vonex has reached the final stages of development for its game-changing Oper8tor aggregated communications app that connects multiple communication platforms such as Skype and Whatsapp in real time. The company plans to carry out third-party application unit testing and load testing from the week starting 17 June to ensure that the app performs as expected at scale before announcing a formal launch date.

Rox Resources has commenced an 8,000 metre drilling campaign aimed at extending the defined mineral resources and testing new regional greenfields exploration targets at its Mt Fisher gold project near Wiluna, WA. The area holds a mineral resource of 1.025 million tonnes grading 2.7g/t for just over 89,000 ounces of gold and the drilling will target geological structures potentially hosting higher-grade primary gold mineralisation at depth.

Caravel Minerals expects copper concentrate from its namesake project in WA’s Wheatbelt region to be sought after by copper smelters due to the very low levels of impurities such as arsenic. The concentrate was produced using composite samples from the project and contained about 25% copper while other impurities such as cadmium, selenium, antimony and lead were well below typical threshold limits for smelters.

Hammer Metals has generated high-grade gold and copper results from a rock chip sampling program at its Malbon project near Mount Isa, Queensland. The El Questro prospect produced values up to 99.4g/t gold and 5.96% copper in iron-rich quartz veining and requires follow up work. Numerous copper-bearing zones with gold mineralisation were also defined at the Mt Philp Breccia project to the west.

Australian Potash has made its thickest intersection of productive basal sands whilst drilling two production bores at its Lake Wells sulphate of potash, or “SOP”, project near Laverton, WA. The second bore intersected 62m of high-yielding sands in the target palaeochannel and has flowed brine at indicative rates above the project requirement of 15 litres per second.

Novo Resources has entered into a $43m farm-in and JV agreement with diversified Japanese trading company Sumitomo Corporation to accelerate development of its Egina gold project located near Port Hedland, WA. Sumitomo can earn up to 40% in the project by spending the monies over three years, with minimum expenditure of about $7m per phase of work defined by programs and budgets developed by Novo.

King River Resources’ ongoing metallurgical test work for its giant Speewah specialty metals project in WA’s Kimberley region has successfully produced an iron oxide product assaying 67% iron with low contaminants. The work has also produced an intermediate titanium product assaying 80% titanium dioxide that the company will seek to upgrade using various purification methods.

Venus Metals has divested its 50% stake in the Yalgoo magnetite project near Geraldton, WA, to Iranian-based EPC contractor FIJV Pty Ltd for $2.5m and will use the funds to evaluate its gold, vanadium and base metal assets elsewhere in the State. The company will retain exposure to FIJV’s plans to develop open cut magnetite mines in the Yalgoo district via a 0.625% royalty on future iron ore concentrate sales.

Strike Energy has spudded its highly anticipated West Erregulla-2 well in the Perth Basin, WA, that is targeting up to 1.16 trillion cubic feet of gas in the primary target Kingia High Cliff and 7.2 million barrels of conventional oil in the Jurassic Cattamarra Coal Measures. The well, which is being drilled to a total depth of 5,200m, will also intersect a conventional gas target in the Basal Wagina sandstones.