Public Company News

Neometals’ joint venture company Primobius has received an order from Mercedes-Benz to supply a 10-tonne per day lithium-ion battery shredding plant for the global vehicle manufacturing giant’s new recycling operation at Kuppenheim in southern Germany. The “spoke” plant is designed to recover materials that will be recycled into a planned 50,000 battery modules that will be installed into new Mercedes vehicles.

Gold Mountain’s recent trial soil sampling at its Casa Nova project in Brazil has revealed a zone it believes is anomalous in several critical elements including lithium, caesium, beryllium, tin and gallium. The company says it may represent components of a classic pegmatite-hosted lithium, caesium, tantalum (LCT) mineralised system. The trial was conducted on only a small part of the project.

Terrain Minerals has joined the frenetic exploration and drilling fray in Western Australia’s up-and-coming, clay-hosted rare earths province near Esperance. The company has joined the ever-growing rare earths search party in the area by launching a maiden proof-of-concept drilling program after securing heritage approval at its 100 per cent-owned, 320-square-kilometre Lort River project, just 50km north-west of the town.

Buru Energy will assume full ownership of the 500-barrel per day Ungani oilfield in Western Australia’s Canning Basin from next month after JV partner Roc Oil decided to withdraw from its 50 per cent interest. Roc Oil will remain liable for its share of costs associated with both the near-term staged suspension of Ungani operations and the future decommissioning of all wells and remediation costs.

Sri Lankan government legislation designed to promote its mineral sands industry and exports has delivered a major boost for Titanium Sands and its bold development plans for its project on Mannar Island in the country’s north-east. The recent legislation was brought in to ensure local participation in adding value to related products earmarked for export.

Classic Minerals will begin trial mining at its Kat Gap project in Western Australia’s goldfields as it looks to calculate an ore reserve prior to moving into full-scale gold mining and production. The company says the pit will take about two months to complete, cost about $1.5 million and will target fully-oxidized high-grade ore, representing about half the indicated resource, to about 45m.

Newly-appointed Lithium Australia managing director Simon Linge has vowed to fast-track the company’s development as the Perth-based battery innovator moves to commercialise its patented technologies. Mr Linge has more than 25 years of global manufacturing, recycling and engineering services experience and as the company’s chief executive officer, contributed to the landmark development agreement signed earlier this month with mining heavyweight Mineral Resources.

Phase-one construction of Galan Lithium’s first 205,000-square-metre solar evaporation pond has kicked-off at the company’s Hombre Muerto West project in Argentina’s renowned “Lithium Triangle”. Management expects the pond to be complete and filled with brine by next year’s first quarter and then to be producing a 6 per cent lithium chloride concentrate by the first half of 2025.

Strickland Metals has begun an induced-polarisation (IP) survey at its Great Western project, about 85km north-east of Wiluna in Western Australia, to explore a promising, but untested coincident magnetic, geochemical and gravity anomaly. The company says the structural setting at the site, which is largely masked by transported cover, is considered favourable for large, high-grade orogenic gold deposits.

Perth-based explorer Si6 Metals has promoted its executive director Jim Malone to managing director as the company matures rare earths and lithium projects in Brazil, in addition to other operations in Botswana and Australia. It comes after it moved to acquire about 178 square kilometres of tier-one Brazilian rare earths and lithium ground in the Jequitinhonha Valley – which is fast becoming known as “Lithium Valley”.

Buru Energy says a surprise State Government policy update has fortified its development strategy for its 100 per cent-owned Rafael gas field in WA’s onshore Canning Basin, confirming its right to export gas. The updated “Domestic Gas Policy” confirms that fields such as Rafael, which are not connected to existing pipelines, must reserve only 15 per cent of their export volumes for the domestic market.

American West Metals has continued a winning streak at its Storm project in Canada, striking an 18m intercept of visual copper sulphides in its latest diamond drillhole. The hit extends copper mineralisation 2km from its recent Thunder zone discovery hole that yielded more than 76m of visible copper sulphide mineralisation, hinting that the company has tapped into a major belt-scale sediment-hosted copper system.