Public Company News

With first production from the Browns Range heavy rare earths project now within sight, Northern Minerals is turning its attention to the discovery of additional deposits in the region. New high-grade rock chip sample assay results from a variety of regional prospects have delivered exciting results and encouraged the company to get exploration rigs back on the ground in the June quarter.

With a sharpened drill bit at the San Jose project, Plymouth Minerals plans to pencil up improved economics for its giant lithium project that already boasts a lovely set of numbers. A small drilling campaign about to kick off is expected to firm up fundamentals for the project’s feasibility study and aims to deliver improved pit designs and lower stripping ratios for an emerging lithium supply line direct into the heart of Europe’s ever-expanding battery industry.

Neometals’ big titanium-vanadium deposit at Barrambie in the northern Yilgarn is coming into its own thanks to surging prices for its two major products, titanium and vanadium. Favourable markets are creating a multitude of development options for Neometals at the project, with the company stepping up work on everything from direct shipping to downstream processing options.

ASX-listed Peppermint Innovation’s full scale commercialisation of its unique mobile bill payments technology is underway. The Perth fintech player is commencing the rollout of its APP payments technology to major Philippines network marketing company, SANTE Barley and its 200,000 members. Peppermint’s technology is aimed at the millions of Filipinos that still don’t operate a bank account.

Geopacif Resources shareholders can look forward to a flood of material news this year with a new resource and reserve estimate due out soon ahead of a DFS at the end of the year. The Woodlark gold project in PNG is also fully permitted to mine after passing all environmental, technical and social hurdles. The company is confident that development work in 2017 gives encouraging impetus for producer status in the not too distant future.

Legend Mining will follow up last month’s exciting anomalous nickel and copper results from the Rockford project with an infill drilling program to pinpoint the extent of the newly discovered mineralised system. The program follows resampling and assaying that identified several narrow intervals with even higher grades than had been previously announced.

Revered UK online beauty store business Cult Beauty will distribute MGC Pharmaceuticals medical marijuana skin care products as part of an exclusive sales and marketing deal signed between the two companies. MGC said global distribution channels for its products had substantially expanded following an agreement that will bring many of its products to the fore on a global, web-based catwalk of quality cosmetic brands.

Australia’s newest graphite pure play BlackEarth Minerals is set to launch an aggressive drill program at its flagship Maniry project in Madagascar after successfully listing on the ASX. The company will begin a 10,800-metre diamond and RC drill program next month with the aim of publishing a maiden JORC resource by mid-year and a scoping study within 12 months of listing.

Strike Energy is preparing to push the envelope of wellbore capacity by drilling possibly the world’s deepest pure coal-seam well and the first of its kind in the southern hemisphere. The Jaws-1 well in the Southern Cooper Basin is set to spud in mid-February and is aiming to unlock a massive gas resource of up to 11Tcf to help Australia’s eastern states fend off a looming energy crisis.

Perth-listed Connected IO has posted a staggering 363 per cent lift in revenue in calendar year 2017 to $2.44m after a better-than-expected December quarter. The “internet of things” upstart company expects further growth in 2018 and says it has already secured a strong pipeline of new purchase orders worth more than $2 million for 2018.

After an impressive run of nickel-copper hits at Mt Alexander in the final weeks of 2017, St George Mining is now also focussing on its East Laverton project with the re-start of drilling at the X3 conductor. St George rates X3 as one of its best targets in the current drill program, partly because of its stand-out conductivity.

Heavy rare-earths developer Northern Minerals has slotted important pieces of the puzzle into place as its Browns Range project near Halls Creek approaches completion in the June quarter. Final equipment components from China are being delivered to the pilot plant near Halls Creek with installation also running smoothly and first product shipments set for the September quarter.