Public Company News

Lithium Australia has identified lithium and tantalum mineralised pegmatite dykes over a 5km strike in shallow historical tourmaline and tin mine workings at the Dudley prospect of its Kangaroo Island project in South Australia. Rock chip sampling returned assays of up to 0.43% lithium oxide, 770 ppm tantalum, 460 ppm niobium and 1600 ppm rubidium despite the strong weathering of outcrops.

Calidus Resources has generated encouraging infill drilling results that confirm the grade continuity of its Klondyke ore system at the Warrawoona gold project in the Pilbara region of WA ahead of next month’s PFS. The company has also completed a surface trench sampling program over the Klondyke resource to establish the grade and thickness of gold mineralisation and support future mining operations.

Neometals Ltd has signed a binding memorandum of understanding with India’s third-largest power trading and diversified renewable energy company, Manikaran Power, to develop the first lithium refinery in the country. The joint initiative comes as India moves to build up a domestic lithium-ion battery manufacturing capacity and promote the use of more electric vehicles.

Hot Chili has delineated a thick, high-grade zone of copper-gold mineralisation at its Cuerpo 3 porphyry copper deposit in central Chile, that returned 188m @ 0.9% copper and 0.4g/t gold from 516m down-hole within a wider 622m intercept. The company said the intercept was comparable to results from SolGold’s Cascabel porphyry copper-gold discovery in Ecuador, which holds 5.2 million tonnes of copper and 12.3 million ounces of gold.

Strike Energy is continuing to drill its West Erregulla-2 well in the Perth Basin, WA, towards the secondary and primary gas targets after intersecting some hydrocarbon shows in the tertiary oil target. While the shows in the Cattamarra oil target were deemed insufficient to warrant the running of wireline logging, the company said that the results supported its geological model and would help with future activities.

ASX-listed medical cannabis player, MGC Pharmaceuticals has extended its reach to Brazil after signing a three-year exclusive distribution agreement with ONIX Empreendimentos e Participações. Brazil is a key emerging market with specialist market insight provider, Prohibition Partners, estimating that the Brazilian and Latin American medical cannabis sector could be worth up to USD$8.5 billion by 2028.

Telco disruptor Vonex has opened up a new avenue to grow its brand awareness and revenue through a partnership with business to business loyalty program, Qantas Business Rewards. This partnership will provide exposure for the company’s offering to QBR’s 250,000 small and medium enterprise members, who will be able to earn Qantas Points on Vonex products and services from August this year.

Venus Metals has struck wide, continuous intercepts of gold mineralisation at its Bell Chambers project near Sandstone, WA, which confirmed historical assay results and the geological interpretation for the current 17,000-ounce resource. Better results included 27m @ 2.72g/t from 27m down-hole and 64m @ 1.7g/t gold from 10m down-hole in separate drill holes.

Altech Chemicals is well on the pathway towards producing high purity alumina in Malaysia with erection of the workshop steel frame and placement of its roof structure now nearing completion. In addition, construction of the retaining wall is now about 75% completed whilst work has started on the first of four on-site detention storm water tanks that will store all site storm water.

Classic Minerals has recommenced drilling at its emerging Kat Gap gold project near Southern Cross, WA, where a series of exploratory programs last year unearthed shallow, high-grade gold mineralisation at a prospective rock contact. The short campaign will target strike and up-dip extensions of the defined mineralisation, which produced results up to 10m @ 30.78g/t gold from 28m down-hole and 8m @ 19.05g/t gold from 32m down-hole.

Classic Minerals has completed an earn-in and JV agreement worth up to $4.55m to divest its Fraser Range nickel-copper project in WA to base metals miner Independence Group. Classic will now concentrate its exploration at the emerging Kat Gap gold project located south of Southern Cross, WA, where recent drilling returned impressive results up to 8m @ 19.1g/t gold from 32m down-hole.

Venus Metals has contracted Murdoch University Associate Professor Aleks Nikoloski to carry out a metallurgical research study into vanadium, iron and titanium recoveries from its Youanmi project near Sandstone, WA. The research is co-funded by the Australian Government and test combined pyrometallurgical and hydrometallurgical process to recover all three metals from Youanmi oxide ores.