Public Company News

After a merger deal with Kingwest Resources last month, Brightstar Resources has wasted no time in getting drill rigs to its Menzies gold project in Western Australia to shore up its understanding of the deposit’s proven high-grade gold intercepts. The successful merger has fast-tracked Brightstar’s move towards becoming WA’s next gold producer as it builds its resource growth.

Mining software provider K2fly will supply Eramet SA with its resource disclosure solution after the French-owned miner signed a three-year deal worth $564,000 to cover its five operations and four commodities. Management says the partnership will provide an annual recurring revenue of $152,000 and it is hopeful the key relationship will lead to future opportunities in a growing prospective region.

Alma Metals has unveiled wide zones of copper-molybdenum sulphides mineralisation after its latest round of drilling targeted areas outside the current resource at its Briggs copper project in Central Queensland. Management says a significant resource upgrade is now on the cards as the latest results extended its known mineralisation area by 190m to the north-west and 100m to the north-east.

Meeka Metals has tabled an independent maiden resource of 98 million tonnes grading 890 parts per million total rare earths oxide for 21,560 tonnes of neodymium-praseodymium metal at its Circle Valley project in Esperance. The new resource, based on 12,401m of large-diameter air-core drilling, is contained within an optimised pit shell and above a 430ppm TREO minus cerium oxide cutoff.

Kairos Minerals continues to generate highly-promising lithium targets at its 100 per cent-owned Roe Hills project in Western Australia’s Eastern Goldfields region. The company’s optimism has been boosted ahead of a planned initial 5000m of reverse-circulation drilling across its growing pipeline of targets in the rapidly-emerging lithium province that hosts Global Lithium Resources’ renowned 32.7-million-tonne Manna lithium project.

Globe Metals & Mining’s plans for its Kanyika niobium project have received a vital boost with the Malawian Government backing its anticipated roll-out for substantial mine development and production. Management says representatives from the Malawian Government also recently visited the mine site and believes their support greatly enhances Globe’s efforts to increase the security of tenure for its mining licences.

Horizon Minerals has secured a second tranche of funding of US$3 million (AU$4.36 million) to continue the development of its Cannon underground gold project in Western Australia’s Goldfields region. Management says it has also received the government approvals needed to kick off underground development, including an approved mining proposal and mine closure plan from the Department of Mining, Industry Regulation and Safety.

Emu NL has added a fourth rare earths discovery to its growing portfolio after rock-chip samples at its Merredin project complemented historic assay results of up to 1405 parts per million total rare earths oxide. The results backed up a review of the Geological Survey of Western Australia’s public hard-rock geochemical data that showed several assays with elevated rare earths values.

European-focused Altech Batteries has unveiled its preliminary specifications for two products aimed at the burgeoning grid power storage battery market, in a move it predicts will kickstart discussions with potential buyers. The storage batteries, which the Subiaco-based company says outperforms lithium-ion batteries on many levels, will be built in Germany in a joint venture with its partner, Fraunhofer IKTS.

Minerals explorer Si6 Metals will dive into some due diligence after entering into a joint venture and agreeing to acquire a 50 per cent interest in a portfolio of Brazilian lithium and rare earths projects. Management says the deal with Foxfire Metals is subject to a 30-day due diligence period and covers five tenements and five applications across four different project areas in Brazil.

Lindian Resources says it has made significant progress on the optimum design for its processing plant at the company’s Kangankunde rare earths project in Malawi, while the mine design and planning are being scoped. The stage-one plant is based on processing an initial throughput of 220,000 tonnes of material per annum to produce a monazite concentrate before expanding to 440,000 tonnes a year.

The Youanmi gold project near Mt Magnet in Western Australia’s Murchison region has coughed up more high-grade results to bolster the confidence of Venus Metals and its joint venture (JV) partner Rox Resources in upgrading the project’s mineral resource estimate. New highlights include 6.38m going 4.45 grams per tonne gold from 381.84m, including 2.56m at 8.26g/t gold from 381.84m.