Public Company News

Altech Chemicals is close to enlisting financial heavyweight, Macquarie, to provide USD$90m worth of mezzanine debt for its Malaysian HPA plant, potentially avoiding issuing a large slab of stock to get its project into production. In a London meeting held recently, Macquarie re-affirmed its interest in potentially providing the mezzanine debt for Altech’s project that could spit out over AUD$100m a year in free cash, according to the company.

Ardiden Limited has pegged a large number of new land claims along a 100km stretch of the gold-rich greenstone belt that hosts its Pickle Lake gold project and other historical mines in Ontario, Canada. The freshly staked claims take Ardiden’s total land holdings in the region to more than 500 square kilometres and add exploration targets to its existing inferred resource of 110,000 ounces of gold at Pickle Lake.

ASX-listed oiler 88 Energy has successfully commenced drilling at its Charlie-1 appraisal well on Alaska’s prospective Central North Slope. The company is aiming to intersect several prospective targets that it says could hold up to a staggering 1.6 billion barrels of gross mean prospective resources. The Perth-based company is partnering with UK oil outfit, Premier Oil on the promising looking project, who is funding the cost of the well up to US $23 million.

ASX-listed smart home technology provider, Quantify Technology, has taken its “smart” light switches, power points and related hardware to market after securing international patents, global certification, a world-class manufacturer and distribution by one of Australia’s largest commercial appliance suppliers. Quantify’s patented products can be integrated with Amazon and Google’s voice control technology allowing householders to control everything from the blinds to the TV to the lights using their voice.

Venus Metals has commissioned a detailed heliborne EM survey over its Bellchambers gold project east of Sandstone in WA. The project already boasts a resource of 340,000 tonnes @ 1.5 grams per tonne gold with the company now seeking repetitions along the ‘Western Ridge Gold Trend’. Venus has also commenced negotiations with nearby producer, Adaman Resources, in relation to the potential development and processing of the Bellchambers deposit.

Lindian Resources’ exploration program in northern Guinea continues to meet with outstanding success. Field work has identified two additional high-grade conglomerate bauxite targets adjacent to and along strike from the main prospect area at Bouba. Sampling at Bouba South has returned samples consistent with the main target area including 62.6% alumina with the strike length now blowing out by a further 3.5km.

Perth-based Kairos Minerals appears to be marching towards a 1Moz global gold resource at its Pilbara Gold Project after booking a resource upgrade to 873,500 ounces of gold from 643,000 ounces previously. The resource includes its Mt York, Iron Stirrup and Old Faithful deposits and now sits at 20.9Mt grading 1.3g/t gold, with the bulk of it in the Mt York deposit.

Perth-based gold explorer, Great Southern Mining is back in the field at its Cox’s find project for a tenement-wide air-core geochemical drilling campaign to target further Cox’s Find-style mineralised systems. The company will grid-drill the entire area with a 100m x 50m spacing to deliver around 500 shallow holes down to just 1-6m below surface. Geochem samples will be recovered from the base of each hole for assaying.

Ora Banda Mining’s ongoing development program at its Callion deposit in the Goldfields has continued to intersect high-grade gold in drilling of both open pit and underground targets. The company is presently working on upgrading the resource at Callion and has proposed a conceptual development program to access high-grade ore within the upper levels of the historic underground mine in addition to the extraction of high-grade lodes at depth.

Terrain Minerals has recently completed a first pass program of exploration over its Smokebush project in the South Murchison mineral field of Western Australia. Initial reconnaissance and sampling over three priority targets returned impressive assays in excess of 17 grams per tonne gold. A site visit has also thrown up more targets for follow up drill testing by the Perth-based, ASX-listed company.

TSX-listed, Pilbara-focused gold player, Novo Resources, has acquired 15.97 per cent of Canadian explorer, New Found Gold Corp via a scrip-for-scrip deal that gives Novo access to New Found’s stellar gold prospect on the east coast of Canada. A recent drill intercept at New Found’s Queensway project returned 19m at 3 ounces to the tonne from 98m with 6m at a staggering 9oz/tonne gold.

ASX-listed biotech, PharmAust, has added a fifth site to its expanding network of anti-cancer trial sites for canines, securing the Brisbane Animal Hospital as the latest location for its Phase II anti-cancer trial in dogs with B cell lymphoma. The addition of the site in Brisbane expands the trial that is already underway in Perth, Melbourne and two centres in Sydney.