Public Company News

ASX-listed Valor Resources has expanded its ground in the uranium rich Saskatchewan area in Canada, expanding its Surprise Creek tenure by 20 square kilometres. One of the new tenements comes with a historical showing of 1.2 per cent copper. Despite both new additions being highly prospective for uranium and copper, very little modern exploration has been completed since the 1980s.

A comprehensive exploration campaign has paid off for Ora Banda Mining with the company revealing it has doubled the underground mineral resource at its Riverina gold system to more than 300,000 gold ounces. The gold producer also announced a maiden ore reserve for the Riverina system near Kalgoorlie of 73,000 ounces at a solid grade of 4.3 grams per tonne gold with an additional reserve only limited by drilling density at the site.

Venus Metals has launched an RC drilling program at new targets at its wholly owned Youanmi lithium project in WA’s Murchison region, about 480km north-east of Perth. The drilling will test recently identified lithium anomalies in soil samples and rock chips for pegmatite-hosted lithium-caesium-tantalum mineralisation in the bedrock. The rock chips returned up to 2.11 per cent lithium oxide.

Regional air-core drilling on Horizon Minerals’ tenements 25km southeast of Kalgoorlie has returned multiple shallow clay-hosted rare earths and scandium anomalies. Results of up to 2437 parts per million total rare earth oxides were obtained with magnet rare earths up to 718ppm as scandium oxide results grading up to 445ppm formed a linear zone. Ongoing metallurgical testing will guide future work at the zone.

Auric Mining is pressing ahead with its ambition of a Jeffreys Find gold mine after commencing a grade control drill program at the project. The company plans a short mine life at Jeffreys Find, first with a starter pit and then a full pit. Grade control drilling is designed to give certainty by defining information on the ore grades and blocks.

Infinity Mining will launch a new survey technique at its Tambourah South lithium project in the Pilbara region of WA that uses real-time data processing to model a 3D map of the underlying geology of the site. The Ambient Noise Tomography survey technology allows the explorer to map in 3D down to several hundred metres where lithium, caesium and tantalum-rich pegmatites identified at surface have grown at depth.

Octava Minerals has identified a new lithium prospect on its Talga project in WA’s Pilbara region. The newly identified “Nimerry” prospect has pegmatites outcrops hosted within greenstones close to the granite greenstone contact. Pegmatites of various sizes have been sampled and sent for analysis with the results expected by the end of February. The largest being 30m wide and 60m long – located 3km from the company’s other lithium prospect Pinnacle Well.

Askari Metals has kicked off a fresh RC drilling program at its Uis lithium project in Namibia. More than 40 drill holes as part of 3,000m campaign aim to confirm high grade rock chip samples and new targets. The company says the project sits within a highly mineralised, spodumene rich pegmatite belt with a history production. Six drill holes have already been completed.

BMG Resources has bagged a patch of prime Eastern Goldfields real estate near Coolgardie in Western Australia that houses a 4km corridor of lithium-rich pegmatites along with a clutch of high-priority gold prospects. Historic rock chip sampling has kicked up multiple anomalous lithium values, peaking at 1.9 per cent lithium oxide. The tenure is located a stone’s throw from the multi-million-ounce Bullabulling gold mine.

White Cliff Minerals has returned its highest-grade rare earths results so far at its Yinnetharra project with a headline reading of 3912 parts per million total rare earth oxides. The company also believes that lithium results up to 400 parts per million in the northwest of the project indicate that it is getting closer to lithium bearing pegmatites as it continues to pore over its patch in the Gascoyne region of WA.

Venture Minerals is lining up its drill rig on a compelling three-kilometre-long electromagnetic conductor at the company’s flagship Mount Lindsay project in Tasmania. A strong nickel-in-soil anomaly has been etched out over the conductor coinciding with a sequence of prospective ultramafic rocks. The company believes the conductor could outline buried nickel sulphide mineralisation. The project already boasts one of the world’s largest undeveloped tin-tungsten deposits.

Coda Minerals has completed four Ambient Noise Tomography surveys across key prospects at its Elizabeth Creek copper project in South Australia with early results highlighting new areas of interest. The surveys are designed to use an advanced passive seismic technique to produce a detailed sub-surface velocity map to assist in the identification of iron-oxide copper gold mineralisation close to the company’s Emmie deposits.