Public Company News

ChemX Materials has unveiled more high-grade, near-surface manganese in its second batch of assay results from drilling in South Australia, including a 6m hit grading 18 per cent manganese from just 15m. It says it now has data from 69 holes of its 94-hole Jamieson Tank campaign, which has targeted mineralisation that can be efficiently converted to high-purity manganese – a key component in electric batteries.

Venus Metals Corporation has gained a boost to exploration plans for its Marvel Loch East rare earths project after its subsidiary Redscope Enterprises scored a co-funded drilling grant from the WA Government. The Exploration Incentive Scheme funding will contribute 50 per cent of direct drilling and mobilisation costs, with Redscope successfully applying for a maximum amount of $157,500 to explore the project near Southern Cross.

Infinity Mining will drill 10 RC holes at its Brisbane nickel prospect in the Pilbara after receiving $117,810 in WA Government grant funding. The company has revealed plans to explore an ultramafic basal contact target at the prospect, in addition to a prominent conductive target that may represent nickel sulphides, which was identified by a helicopter electromagnetic survey.

ASX-listed Estrella Resources has run the rule over a promising 5A nickel target at its Spargoville project, 20km south-west of Kambalda in WA’s Goldfields, and has opted for an underground decline operation over open-pit mining. The company will now press full-steam ahead towards restarting the historic mining at Spargoville of nickel – now a much-needed battery metal.

Venus Metals and joint venture partner, Rox Resources, continue to serve up bumper hits at their Youanmi gold project in WA’s Murchison goldfields, with the latest drilling at the Link prospect striking 22m at 6.31 g/t gold. The duo is plunging 24,000m of drilling into the project in a bid to upgrade the current 3.2-million-ounce inferred mineral resource to the higher indicated category.

ASX-listed cell therapy company Chimeric Therapeutics has received ethics approval to start a multi-site phase 1B clinical trial of the company’s CHM 1101 cell treatment for patients with glioblastoma. Management says the new development will see a two-part clinical study enrolling patients across multiple clinical trial sites in the United States.

Neometals says an engineering cost study has earmarked processing technology developed by subsidiary Reed Advanced Materials as the most economic method for its proposed Estarreja lithium refinery in Portugal. The study was co-funded with Portugal’s biggest chemical producer, Bondalti, with the aim of developing a 25,000-tonne per annum lithium hydroxide operation in a 50-50 joint venture.

Javelin Minerals has highlighted positive rare earths results from a comprehensive sampling program at its Mt Ida-Ida Valley project near Leonora, with assays of up to 0.11 per cent total rare earth oxides. The company has collected 680 orientation samples from selected tenements at the operation, with the positive rare earth assays taken from the Turkey Creek kimberlite province in WA’s Goldfields region.

Conico Limited has revealed a 146 per cent mineral resource jump at its Mt Thirsty nickel-cobalt project near Norseman, surging to 66.2 million tonnes at 0.06 per cent cobalt, 0.43 per cent and 0.45 per cent manganese. The company says its deposit hosts the second-highest cobalt-nickel ratio for similar predevelopment projects in Australia and is uniquely positioned to potentially produce precursor cathode active material.

Ora Banda Mining has hit significant lithium results from an initial three-hole exploration campaign at the company’s Federal Flag prospect, just 10km from its Davyhurst gold processing plant near Kalgoorlie. The traditional gold explorer has confirmed the presence of lithium-caesium-tantalum pegmatites, along with potential lithium-bearing spodumene, with an 11.1m hit at 1.28 per cent lithium oxide from 54m.

First-pass shallow RC drilling at Venus Metals’ Youanmi lithium project in Western Australia’s Murchison region has unearthed pegmatite-hosted LCT mineralisation that the company says remains open at depth and along strike. Lepidolite-bearing pegmatite with up to 2m at 0.33 per cent lithium oxide from 9m was intersected in one hole at the Beryl prospect and Venus has flagged more follow-up drilling.

ASX-listed mining software provider K2fly has unveiled revenue of $3.4m for the third quarter of the financial year – a 19 per cent rise on the company’s income from the previous quarter. The company says the figure was a 35 per cent jump on the corresponding period last year and put the result down to freshly-inked contracts and “go live” milestones.