Public Company News

Perth-based Surefire Resources has unlocked the door to the main stage for global battery and LED markets by confirming 99.99 per cent pure alumina in testwork, using waste rock from its Victory Bore vanadium deposit, about 400km east of the Western Australian port of Geraldton. High-purity alumina is a highly-specialised product and commands a tasty price of about $30,000 to $45,000 a tonne.

Perth-based explorer Emu NL is poised to drill a network of clay-filled, rare earths-prospective channels up to 6km wide and down to 100m in depth at its wholly-owned Condingup project near Esperance on Western Australia’s picturesque south coast. Outcropping source rocks proved fertile and the company plans to drill its clays in September, with assays due in October.

GreenTech Metals has confirmed its discovery of a new southern high-grade lithium pegmatite trend, with solid hits of up to 3.6 per cent lithium oxide in the latest assays reported from its Osborne joint venture. The find could extend the overall scale of pegmatite-hosted lithium mineralisation eastwards from the company’s adjoining Ruth Well project in Western Australia’s Pilbara region.

Galan Lithium says it has produced a premium-quality lithium chloride concentrate from its Hombre Muerto West project pilot plant in Argentina, with samples ready to distribute to potential offtake partners. The company’s concentrate product contains 6 per cent lithium – comparable to 13 per cent lithium oxide or 31.9 per cent lithium carbon equivalent.

White Cliff Minerals has recorded significant extensions to its maiden rare earths discovery at its Hines Hill project near Merredin in Western Australia, in addition to completing a sampling blitz across five other sites. Follow-up air-core drilling shows a 5m hit going 2066ppm total rare earth oxides (TREO) from a relatively shallow depth of 16m that included 434ppm magnetic rare earth oxides (MREO).

Buru Energy has commissioned 200 square kilometres of three-dimensional seismic data over its 100 per cent-owned Rafael gas-condensate discovery in Western Australia’s Kimberley region, as the company takes aim at an appraisal drilling campaign. The survey will assist the company in de-risking reservoir factors in a bid to progress its commercial case for its potentially large-scale discovery.

Lithium chaser Gold Mountain plans to use a fresh cash injection of $2.25 million from the company’s latest capital raise to turbocharge its exploration efforts in the mineral’s burgeoning Brazilian hotspot. Management says its exploration to date has identified 250 pegmatites, with multiple soil and rock-chip sample results pending as it eyes a maiden drilling program by years end.

TSX-listed Novo Resources is set to kick off a combined 8000m drill campaign across its key Pilbara prospects and its Belltopper project in Victoria following the company’s success at its Becher gold play. The exploration program will target Novo’s Nunyerry North, Balla Balla and Bamboo-Strattons projects in Western Australia’s Pilbara region, while it also has plans for a diamond drill campaign at Belltopper.

Toro Energy says geochemical analysis of assays from a hole drilled at its Dusty nickel project show two additional zones of nickel sulphides that extend its existing mineralisation closer to the surface. It has reported a 4.6m massive nickel sulphides intercept going 1.61 per cent nickel and 0.22 per cent copper from 194.2m at the base of the Dusty komatiite.

Auric Mining has the first gold pour from its Jeffreys Find gold project near Norseman in Western Australia at its fingertips, with management confirming it had started milling its first batch of ore. The company’s first 30,000 tonnes of ore will be processed at the Greenfields Mill in Coolgardie by end of this month, with another 100,000 tonnes waiting at the mine ready for trucking.

A reassessment of exploration data by Askari Metals has revealed a “corridor of interest” about 15km long and 5km wide and with visible lithium mineralisation at the company’s Uis project in Namibia. Management says planning is now underway to focus its exploration activity on the intriguing new area, as the explorer also evaluates recent acquisitions near its project.

Inaugural drilling in three locations at Brightstar Resources’ new Menzies gold project has returned multiple high-grade hits of up to 39g/t gold in initial assays from the first 10 holes of a recently completed 37-hole program, for a total of 4486m. Management says its work confirms high grades typical of the historic underground mines of the Menzies goldfields.