Public Company News

Mineral explorer Si6 Metals has completed its second phase of air core drilling at its wholly-owned Monument gold project in WA’s Laverton gold district. The 6000m program tested five prospect areas and was designed to follow up on successful drilling from a first phase completed late last year. The campaign encountered a wide range of prospective rocks with assays now pending.

Triangle Energy has completed the first stages of pivoting away from its ageing, offshore foundation asset of Cliff Head by completing a 3D seismic survey over its onshore permits as it seeks to replicate the success of fellow explorers in the Perth Basin in discovering elephant-size gas fields along the route of the Dampier-to-Bunbury natural gas pipeline.

Venus Metals believes the presence of mafic-ultramafic rocks discovered during recent exploration at its Youanmi base metals and lithium projects make the area prospective for gold and base metals mineralisation. The rocks were found along an east-south-east trending structure that comes off the Youanmi shear zone close to Ramelius Resources’ Penny gold mine, about 550km north-east of Perth.

Buoyed by positive gold assays, ASX-listed Askari Metals has started a third round of RC drilling at its Burracoppin gold project in Western Australia’s eastern Wheatbelt. The program will probe up to 3500m, with the explorer launching a volley of 13 holes before adjusting its aim and firing another volley of up to 40 holes.

Test work on rare earths from ABx Group’s Deep Leads project in northern Tasmania has strengthened the company’s belief that it hosts ionic adsorption clay-style or “IAC” mineralisation. The deposits are known to be a major source of permanent magnet minerals and are used to develop super magnets for electric vehicles, wind turbines, mobile phones and computers.

Terrain Minerals has discovered clay-type rare earth elements at its fully owned Lort River project in Western Australia after a review of historic auger drilling data, including a high percentage of rare earths used in the production of magnets. Assays also show high scandium grades the company says are a potentially important addition to the high-grade rare earths mineralisation.

Aruma Resources has returned high-grade lithium and rubidium results from a surface rock chip sampling program at its fully owned Mt Deans lithium project in south-eastern WA. Results included high-grade lithium of up to 1.96 per cent lithium oxide and very high-grade rubidium of up to 1.42 per cent rubidium oxide. A total of 11 samples were taken along a 500m strike.

Adriatic Metals has its foot down on construction of its Vares high-grade zinc-silver project in Bosnia and Herzegovina as it works towards opening its namesake mine and processing plant next year. The company says a newly appointed drilling contractor has delivered a dramatic increase in productivity in converting the Rupice ore body, increasing confidence in its mineral resource.

After an air core drilling campaign, mineral explorer Meeka Gold Limited has detected grades of up to 5791ppm TREO over an expansive 1143 square kilometre region at the company’s Cascade rare earth elements project in WA. The assays reveal shallow and high-grade mineralisation up to 24m thick, with a standout strike of 4m at 5791ppm TREO unearthed within a 16m zone running 2223ppm TREO.

Junior explorer Emu NL has plans underway for further RC drilling at its Flying Emu prospect at Badja gold project near Yalgoo in Western Australia after early positive results. The first hole targeted from Emu’s stage three-drill program in April recorded a 9m hit at 3.44 g/t gold from 39m downhole, including 2m at 10.14 g/t.

Initial assays from gold and nickel explorer Metal Hawk have come up trumps, with results from five diamond drilling holes from its Commodore prospect at the Berehaven project in WA returning gold hits, its best zone grading 38.5 grams per tonne. Nickel was also discovered with the company saying the result demonstrates a link with both the gold and nickel sulphide zones announced in February.

Godolphin Resources is one step closer to starting a proposed diamond drill program at its Narraburra rare earth project in NSW following its submission to the State regulators. The six-hole program has been fast-tracked after previously approved air core drilling was postponed because of waterlogged land conditions. Diamond drilling will start once approval is received.