Public Company News

Blackstone Minerals has served up high recovery rates from hydrometallurgical testwork on platinum group elements from its Ta Khao project in Vietnam. The stellar returns going 94 per cent palladium, 80 per cent platinum and 81 per cent rhodium appear to boost the company’s plans to achieve by-product credits and reduce costs of supplying nickel-cobalt-manganese to lithium-ion battery markets.

Bardoc Gold continues to kick goals at its 1.7-million-ounce Aphrodite gold deposit in WA, with recent drilling returning a quiver of high-grade gold hits that sit outside the current ore reserve and pit design. Results come from the newly discovered Omega lode include 14 metres at 7.63 grams per tonne gold from 106m and 5m at 3.99 g/t gold from only 67m down-hole.

Rock chip samples from PolarX’s Black Canyon claims in Nevada have given up some spectacular silver grades and impressive gold values. Some silver assays were above 1,000 grams/tonne, or more than 32 ounces to the tonne silver. The samples come from Nevada’s Humboldt Range.

The Mt Stirling gold project has now moved well away from grassroots exploration for Torian Resources following a major uplift in resources and the addition of a new shallow target. The search tempo will lift in four key structural corridors.

Anglo Australian Resources has tabled an impressive maiden resource for its flagship Mandilla gold project in WA, with the company defining over 500,000 ounces of gold. The milestone is the culmination of nearly 18 months of solid exploration, with the company having now outlined gold mineralisation over more than 2.5 kilometres of strike and down to 300 metres below surface.

Australian Bauxite has continued to reveal strong rare earth element enrichment in drilling at its DL130 bauxite-REE project in north-east Tasmania, with its latest batch of assays including the highest-grade neodymium oxide recorded to date. The peak 1m drill sample in hole DL313 returned an impressive 301ppm neodymium oxide from 9m depth, almost double the previous highest value of 1m going 156ppm neodymium oxide.

Hot Chili is looking to ramp up copper production from its emerging Costa Fuego hub in northern Chile as the red metal trades at close to US$10,000 per tonne. The company is already pushing out copper from high-grade lodes at its Productora mine and is now casting an eye over the Cortadera porphyries as it contemplates a larger-scale operation.

Element 25 has sewn up a road transport deal with the Pilbara-based AK Evans Group that will see the bulk haulage and construction company truck manganese concentrate from the manganese producer’s new Butcherbird mine to Utah Point in Port Hedland for export. The two parties have signed a letter of intent and are in the process of finalising a long-term commercial arrangement.

Estrella Resources has received another fillip as it bids to inject new life into the historical Carr Boyd nickel-copper camp north of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia with a follow-up wide drill intersection of mineralised sulphides in the T5 discovery zone. The 12.25 metre zone of stringer and disseminated nickel-copper massive sulphides was intercepted below an earlier massive sulphide hit.

ASX-listed Neometals appears to have achieved a significant breakthrough in its efforts to enter the North American battery recycling market for the burgeoning electric vehicle and energy storage sectors. The company has executed a memorandum of understanding with leading Canadian steel producer Stelco ahead of finalising a joint venture to process battery cells from scrap vehicles.

WA-focused explorer White Cliff Minerals has unveiled an untested 2.8km anomalous gold trend at McCaskill’s Hill along the southern end of the Burnakura Shear Zone in the Meekatharra-Cue goldfields. A maiden drilling campaign is in the works following successful soil sampling campaigns at McCaskill’s Hill and Cracker Jack, both part of the company’s Reedy South project.

ASX-listed gold and base metals explorer, Middle Island Resources is looking to pick up more ground at its exciting Barkly copper-gold project in the Northern Territory’s East Tennant region. The Perth-based company has made an application for a further 809 square kilometres of prized territory that will swell its project tenure to 5,220 square kilometres across 13 exploration licences.