Public Company News

Octava Minerals will pick up the Byro rare earths and lithium project in WA’s Gascoyne after agreeing to purchase 100 per cent of the shares in private company Byro Mining. The conditional agreement will see Octava undertake due diligence on two exploration licenses at the project which has some tantalising historic exploration hits from drill cuttings peaking at 388ppm lithium oxide and 501ppm total rare earth oxides.

Buxton Resources says it has seen intense porphyry style veining along with evidence of copper mineralisation in outcrop at its 100 per cent owned Sun Devil prospect in Arizona. The prospect is part of the larger Copper Wolf project and remains undrilled but has historic rock chips as high as 76,800 ppm copper and 93ppm molybdenum.

Larvotto Resources has kicked off a 2000m diamond drilling program to test previous high grade gold intercepts at its recently acquired 100 per cent owned Hillgrove project, 23km east of Armidale in NSW. Drilling will focus on the Bakers Creek area, which was the first locality opened up in the Hillgrove area by miners in 1877 who concentrated on the extraction of gold rather than the accompanying antimony.

Strickland Metals has kicked off drilling at its Earaheedy and Yandal projects in WA’s Pilbara region with a rig already operating on-site to focus on the company’s large-scale Rabbit Well base metals prospect. Management says a 6000m reverse circulation drill program has been designed at Rabbit Well to map out the mineralisation and geology of the target in preparation for follow up diamond drilling.

Galan Lithium says it is just two weeks away from beginning the evaporation process at its Hombre Muerto West lithium brine project in Argentina with the initial filling of its first pond underway. The move marks the first major step of the long-term production schedule for the project where Galan is aiming to produce high-grade concentrate of up to 6 per cent lithium by the first half of 2025.

Auric Mining has hit the ground running in 2024 with toll mining set to recommence at its Jeffreys Find gold mine near Norseman in Western Australia as soon as March following a successful finish to last year. The company produced more than 9740 ounces during two mining campaigns with joint venture (JV) partner BML Ventures in 2023, returning a total gold revenue of $29.28 million for the first stage of the two-year project.

Askari Metals says its first exploration licence has been granted at the company’s Yarrie lithium project, just 100km east/north-east of Pilbara Minerals’ giant 214.2 million tonne Pilgangoora lithium resource. The entire project area comprises nine contiguous exploration licences which enclose a total of 1711 sq kms across ground adjacent to and along strike from other significant hard rock pegmatite-hosted lithium deposits.

ABx Group has revealed high grade critical rare earths in drilling at its Wind Break prospect, only 15km northeast of the company’s 52 million tonne Deep Leads-Rubble Mound rare earths resource in Tasmania. Seventeen of the holes yielded samples where more than 4.5 per cent and up to 6.7 per cent of the total rare earth oxide content is made up of the more lucrative heavy rare earths dysprosium and terbium.

Assays from the first eight diamond drill holes at Aurum Resources’ Boundiali gold project in Côte d'Ivoire, West Africa suggest wide, shallow gold mineralisation with more assays on the horizon. The best results were 16m at 1.24 grams per tonne from 117m including a 6m thick section grading 2.44g/t from 127m, 7.39m at 1.94g/t from 139.34m including 5.35m at 2.53g/t from 141.37m.

Xanadu Mines has entered into a binding term sheet to earn up to 80 per cent of the Sant Tolgoi project in Mongolia which hosts multiple shallow copper-nickel targets over several kilometres of strike. The deal adds to the company’s already significant presence in Mongolia which is home to its flagship Kharmagtai copper-gold project and its highly prospective Red Mountain operation.

Gold Mountain has moved closer to locking-down drill targets at its Custodia hard-rock lithium project in Brazil with stream sediment sample assays backing-up soil sampling results. Steam sampling has identified a total of 15 target areas and only two of those areas have seen overlapping soil sampling programmes to-date. The company says it will be back on the ground shortly to conduct more sampling before getting a drill-bit in the ground.

Ora Banda Mining has increased gold production and the head grade from its Davyhurst plant in WA’s Goldfields region for the third consecutive quarter while lifting its gold sales by 15 per cent. According to its December quarterly report, the company produced 16,340 ounces at a head grade of 2.1 grams per tonne and sold 15,387 gold ounces from its Davyhurst operations for the three-month period. All-in sustaining costs reduced by 15 per cent compared to the previous quarter.