Public Company News

As market conditions continue to improve, Toro Energy has cranked up the resource estimate at its Lake Maitland deposit near Wiluna in WA to reveal a 12 per cent rise in its uranium resource and a 74 per cent jump in vanadium, after lowering the cut-off grade to 100 parts per million (ppm) to better align with its peers

Red Metal is gearing up for an intense period of exploration across north-west Queensland, with separate drilling programs set to kick off at three of its projects in the coming month. Initial investigative drill campaigns at the company’s Gidyea copper-gold and Lawn Hill silver-lead-zinc projects will be launched to test their significant base metals potential, followed by infill drilling at its Sybella rare earths play.

ChemX Materials has secured a patent from the New Zealand Intellectual Property Office for its “HiPurA” processing technology used to produce high-purity alumina (HPA) for application in cutting-edge technologies such as LEDs, semiconductors and lithium-ion batteries. The patent adds to the company’s recently-granted Australian equivalent and helps reinforce its push to become a key HPA producer in Australasia.

American West Metals has sealed a US$12.5 million (AU$18.8 million) royalty funding deal from TMRF Canada – a subsidiary of Australian-based Taurus Funds Management – to boost the development of its Storm copper project in the Nunavut territory in northern Canada. The company expects to pocket the first US$1 million in the next few days and it will be followed shortly by an additional US$4 million.

Neometals has dusted off historical data to unveil a new Western Australian gold strategy at its Barrambie project that previously produced 27,000 ounces at 27.8g/t. The company says recent rock-chip samples threw up grades as high as 44g/t, prompting it to pivot back to the precious yellow metal, while its titanium and vanadium pursuits will now take a backseat.

In this week’s edition of Bulls N’ Bears Big Hits, we examine some notable drill intercepts revealed on the ASX, including Mithril Silver and Gold’s 33m at 31.8g/t gold and 274g/t silver at its Mexican project. We also look at other interesting drill hits as reported by Flynn Gold from its Trafalgar zone and from Patronus Resources’ Cardinia project near Leonora in Western Australia.

American West Metals has discovered thick high-grade copper assaying up to 3.7 per cent from deep diamond drilling at the Cyclone deposit within its Storm project in the Canadian territory of Nunavut, indicating a big mineralised system. The discovery hole was collared about 110m south of the North Graben Fault that cuts off the south side of the Cyclone target.

Reach Resources says a grab sampling program has helped it unlock the geological key to its Wabli Creek rare earths play in Western Australia’s Gascoyne region. Armed with its newfound wisdom, the company is now drawing up an exploration plan aimed at replicating earlier successes at the site that include rock-chip samples from bedrock returning assays up to 17.65 per cent niobium oxide.

This week’s Bulls N’ Bears Runner of the Week is … BPM Minerals. The exploration company hit high-grade gold at its Claw project in Western Australia and its share price surged on massive volume. Octava Minerals’ stock also leapt on an antimony discovery from historical drill results at its Yallalong project, while other movers-and-shakers this week were Mithril Silver and Gold and Metal Hawk.

Antimony is the latest critical metal to send the hearts of ASX punters aflutter, but with new "must-have" metals constantly emerging, investors may be feeling just a little confused by the ever-changing landscape. Bulls N’ Bears takes a look into the rise and rise of the metal also sometimes referred to as stibnite and the companies jumping on the increasingly raucous bandwagon.

GreenTech Metals has intersected thick copper-zinc zones below six shoots during a new 1743m drilling program, indicating significant resource expansion potential at its Whundo project in WA’s Pilbara region. The campaign was designed to drill-test underexplored mineralisation along a 2.1km-long string of targets at Whundo and was followed up by DHEM surveys on selected holes in a bid to identify new copper-zinc mineralised zones.

Javelin Minerals’ reinterpretation of data from its Coogee project in Western Australia’s Goldfields region has thrown up a tantalising exploration theory that it is now primed to test with the drill bit. The company plans to determine if a magnetic anomaly lurking just 300m from an old open pit at the site is a potential repetition of the historic lode.