Public Company News

With burgeoning expectations for a new lithium wave to soon appear on the horizon, Chariot Corporation – the biggest lithium landowner in the US – has made a strategy shift at its Black Mountain project in Wyoming to get ready for the ride. The plan is to take advantage of Wyoming’s unique mining regulations in order to scale a future mine in line with the lithium market.

Buxton Resources has secured heritage clearance to drill up to 10 holes at its 80sq-km Centurion project in Western Australia’s West Arunta region in its search for major iron oxide-copper-gold (IOCG) targets. The principal target is defined by partly-coincident magnetic and gravity geophysical anomalies spanning a surface area measuring about 3500m by 5000m and reporting a 1500 nanoTesla magnetic response and 10.1 milligal gravity response.

A $7 million American West Metals fundraising campaign, which has attracted new investors and the company’s directors, has helped build a war chest to boost exploration efforts and upgrade the resource estimate of its Storm copper project in Canada. Under the placement, 77.8 million new shares have been issued by the company at a price of 9c per share.

Suvo Strategic Minerals has turned nickel slag, the highly-polluting waste product of nickel pig iron production, into a high-strength, low-cost and low-carbon cement. Confirming positive laboratory testing that could revolutionise the centuries-old cement industry, the company says its recent trials in collaboration with Makassar State University in Indonesia achieved a compressive strength of 37.5 megapascals (MPa) after just seven days.

Aurumin has pocketed a cash boost of $500,000 for the sale to private company Newcam Minerals of an exclusive six-month option on the iron ore rights at its Central Sandstone gold project in WA. Newcam will conduct due diligence across the site that consists of three mining leases and it may lead to a JV agreement between the two parties, resulting in a further $500,000 payment.

Octava Minerals says it has locked in the relevant regulatory approvals required to begin exploration works at its high-grade Yallalong antimony project to the north-east of Geraldton in Western Australia. Geological fieldwork including mapping and rock-chip sampling is already underway as the company advances its activities towards the drill-testing of four high-priority targets along a vast 10km antimony corridor identified at the project.

Meeka Metals has confirmed its newly-acquired 750kW ball mill is now en route to its new home as a key component of the company’s expanded Murchison processing plant near Meekatharra in WA. The “Outokumpu” mill is slated to increase plant processing capacity to 640ktpa – a 30 per cent increase on the throughput of the 500kW mill that was included in a DFS in May.

De Grey Mining has invested $7 million to achieve its minimum first-stage spend at Novo Resources’ Egina gold project in Western Australia’s Pilbara region, with a further $18 million to be tipped in to create a joint venture operation. The earn-in is part of a required $25 million cash plunge within four years to create the 50:50 equal share at the site.

Kalgoorlie Gold Mining has revealed thick new gold intercepts that extend mineralisation to 2km of strike at the Wessex prospect within its Pinjin project, 140km north-east of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia. Results from a recent aircore campaign include 4m going 2.06g/t gold with 3m at 2.69g/t and hits of 4m at 2.37g/t and 4m at 1.72g/t within longer primary intercepts.

Fresh from delivering a feasibility study on its massive Kangankunde rare earths project in Malawi, Lindian Resources has completed a successful North American roadshow to promote the project’s economic credentials and explore finance options. The company says it has fielded strong interest in helping it fund the first two stages of the operation and is in the process of reviewing potential partners.

Surefire Resources has confirmed it has secured clearance to launch an 11-hole, 2200m maiden drilling campaign at its recently-discovered Phat Boy copper prospect in Western Australia’s Mid West region. The prospective ground consists of four coincident copper-zinc anomalous zones and is interpreted to sit within a similar geological and structural setting to the world-class Golden Grove massive sulphide deposit.

Buru Energy’s hunt for onshore oil in Western Australia’s mighty Canning Basin has moved up a gear with the spudding of the Rafael Shallow 1 exploration well. The drilling is targeting the Rafael Shallow oil prospect where a prospective resource of between 3.2 million stock tank barrels (MMstb) of oil and 79 MMstb has already been identified, including a best estimate of 19 MMstb.