Public Company News

Hawkstone Mining has outlined more high-grade lithium assays from the Big Sandy clay project in the US, including 39m @ 2,015 ppm lithium from 23m down-hole. The company is poised to accelerate its exploration and development activities at the project, following a recent oversubscribed placement for $2.4m, which will facilitate the estimation of a mineral resource and the completion of definitive metallurgical test work programs.

88 Energy Alaska-focused 88 Energy is closing in on a potential farm-out of the conventional rights at its Project Icewine in Alaska’s North Slope, with its preferred bidder scheduled to make a final decision in June. Final analysis of the HRZ shale at the same project has indicated that more than half of its large lease holding of about 528,000 acres remains prospective for unconventional oil.

Petra Capital has produced a research report comparing the value of recent M&A transactions in the junior gold sector with Perth based, ASX-listed PNG gold explorer and developer, Geopacific Resources. Geopacific is sitting on nearly 1.6 million gold ounces in PNG and has access to a wider goldfield on the Pacific island that looks to be highly prospective for the elusive yellow metal.

Novo Resources has installed a new exploration camp and has awarded an earthmoving contract for its upcoming bulk sampling and processing activities at the emerging Egina gold project located near Port Hedland, WA. The company recently undertook ground surveys and field investigations that outlined potential conglomerate-hosted and alluvial gold sites suitable for the bulk sampling operations.

Lithium Australia has outlined a maiden vanadium mineral resource for a portion of the Youanmi Complex near Sandstone, WA, that it has the option to purchase from Diversity Resources. The inferred resource of 185 million tonnes grading 0.33% vanadium pentoxide is near Venus Metals’ Youanmi vanadium project and was estimated using historical drilling completed by Australian Gold Resources back in 1999.

Neometals has released an updated DFS confirming that the production of vanadium pentoxide and ferrovanadium from its Barrambie project near Sandstone, WA, is both technically feasible and economically viable. The company will now focus on a pilot-scale evaluation of hydrometallurgical processing to recover titanium, vanadium and iron products rather than just the vanadium contained within the project’s ores.

Bellevue Gold’s deep hole drilled with the assistance of the WA Government’s exploration incentive scheme at its namesake project near Leinster, WA, has intersected visible gold below the historical Bellevue mine. The company’s own ongoing exploration program also discovered a new Viago look-alike target immediately west of the high-grade Tribune Lode.

Terrain Minerals is gearing up to complete a surface trenching program across a high-grade zone identified on its Wild Viper tenement near Leonora, WA, to follow up a rock chip sample of 4.67g/t gold returned from the 382-shear prospect in March. The exploration target is located just south of the Great Western gold mineral resource and has been interpreted to strike over more than 2.5 kilometres.

Northern Minerals has returned encouraging preliminary rare earth element results from portable XRF assaying completed on infill, extension and exploratory RC drilling samples at the Dazzler and Iceman prospects near its Browns Range operation in the East Kimberley region of WA. The company said the results also outlined a new target area just to the northwest of Iceman that is anomalous in the pathfinder element yttrium.

Lithium Australia has produced lithium iron phosphate batteries using lithium phosphate that was refined using a simple process developed in conjunction with the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation. The company expects batteries produced using the cheap and effective refining process to have significant advantages compared to those produced using lithium carbonate

Hawkstone Mining has appointed experienced investment banker and corporate advisor, Barnaby Egerton-Warburton, as its Non-Executive Chairman to oversee financing of the emerging Big Sandy lithium clay project in Arizona, US. He previously held executive roles in the resources sector and was most recently a Director of ioneer Limited who is developing the Rhyolite Ridge lithium-boron resource nearby in Nevada state.

Anglo Australian Resources’ infill drilling at the Mandilla South prospect of its Mandilla project near Kambalda, WA, has intersected central core of higher-grade supergene enriched gold with hits of up to 1m @ 5.59g/t gold. Drilling also confirmed the presence of primary gold mineralisation and the potential to link the Mandilla South prospect and the Mandilla East resource into a 4km long camp scale target.