Public Company News

Iron ore monolith, Rio Tinto has signed up to a 3-year software-as-a-service contract with ASX-listed tech player, K2fly. Rio will make use of K2fly’s Infoscope software platform to manage very sensitive heritage information across its iron ore mining operations in Western Australia’s Pilbara region. K2fly said the total contract value for the deal with Rio was set at A$719,000.

Novo Resources is poised to join the growing ranks of WA’s gold producers having received its final approvals from the state government for the commencement of operations at its Golden Eagle plant south-east of Nullagine. Mining has already commenced at the nearby Beatons Creek deposits and with the commissioning of the operation now underway, the company is preparing for its much-anticipated maiden gold pour.

Blackstone has hit massive sulphide vein mineralisation in multiple drill holes at its King Snake nickel prospect in Vietnam while vectoring in on several high-priority electromagnetic targets, or EM plates, across the company’s developing Ta Khoa Nickel project in Vietnam. Blackstone’s KS20-02 diamond core drill hole tagged 9.4 metres of sulphide mineralisation, including 1.18m of a massive sulphide vein.

ASX-listed gold and copper explorer, White Cliff Minerals has identified several high-priority gold targets at its historic Reedy South gold project in WA after completing a significant aeromagnetic survey flown across the entire Reedy South tenement package. The company says the aeromagnetic survey was commissioned in order to improve its understanding of what may be going on under the soil cover at Reedy South.

ASX-listed Horizon Minerals has shuffled its Kalgoorlie based tenement portfolio around and it appears to have come out with a few trump cards as the company pushes ahead with its regional consolidation strategy, focusing on WA’s rich Goldfields region. Horizon said its slew of recent deals is value-accretive for the company.

Native Mineral Resources has expanded its Palmerville copper-gold project in north Queensland following the grant of an additional exploration licence on the eastern margins of its tenement holding in the region that hosts the recent Leane’s copper discovery. The company now holds over 1,820 square kilometres of the mineral-rich Chillagoe Formation which hosts the nearby Mungana, Red Dome and Griffith’s deposits.

Venus Metals and joint venture partner, Rox Resources, have posted an outstanding set of metallurgical results from the Grace gold discovery in WA. First-pass, bench-scale test work on bulk samples from the discovery at Youanmi has returned stellar recoveries of up to 99.8 per cent of the contained gold in fresh rock samples.

Lithium Australia’s application for a US patent for one of its proprietary lithium extraction technologies, SiLeach, has been approved by the US Patent and Trademark Office. The Perth-based company also received a notice of acceptance from IP Australia for the same patent application, which is expected to be granted at the end of April.

Sure-footed East Pilbara gold developer, Calidus Resources has inked a farm-in deal to acquire up to 90 per cent of fresh ground, 20km east of its Blue Spec gold project, by spending up to $800k on exploration over six years. Calidus said the highly promising tenement is littered with soil geochemical anomalies and immediately east of a mineralised corridor identified by Novo Resources.

Comet Resources has unearthed samples bearing visible, fine gold at its high-grade Santa Teresa project in Mexico. Detailed geological mapping and sampling through the historic mine area has also identified a raft of previously unrecognised structures hosting gold-rich quartz veins that remain untested by drilling. The permitting is now well advanced and the company expects to kick off resource drilling in the coming months.

Godolphin Resources has unveiled a revised mineral resource estimate for its historic Lewis Ponds polymetallic project in NSW’s Lachlan Fold Belt region and kicked off a major drilling campaign in and around the resource area. The resource now stands at 6.2 million tonnes of ore grading 2.0 g/t gold, 80 g/t silver, 2.7 per cent zinc, 1.6 per cent lead and 0.2 per cent copper.

Smart tech healthcare developer, InteliCare has clinched a five-year master supply agreement with Optus Networks that paves the way for Optus to pitch InteliCare’s smart monitoring systems to its health and aged-care sector clients. InteliCare’s system learns the daily behavioural patterns of the sick and the elderly and reports back to family or a healthcare professional if there is a departure from normal behaviour.