Public Company News

Classic Minerals has exercised an option to fully acquire two exploration licences over the prospective Kat Gap gold project at the southern end of its under-explored Forrestania gold project, near Southern Cross in WA. Drilling programs for Kat Gap will kick off later this month, to follow up on existing shallow, high-grade results and to confirm the width and tenor of historical drilling.

Alterra is laying the groundwork for the expansion of its agribusiness with the appointment of veteran agricultural executive Oliver Barnes as the incoming Managing Director to strengthen its executive team. Current Managing Director Andrew McBain will remain in his position until Mr Barnes takes up his new position in early April following a notification period, after which he will remain as an Executive Director.

Conglomerate gold developer Novo Resources has extended and expanded its non-binding 2017 MoU with Japanese heavyweight Sumitomo Corporation, to help develop its significant suite of Australian gold projects dotted throughout the Pilbara region of WA. Sumitomo has agreed to provide personnel and up to 5 billion Yen – about AUD$64.4m – to evaluate, advance and develop Novo’s vast tenement holdings into economic gold mining operations.

Venus Metals’ farm in partner Lepidico has intersected multiple lepidolite-bearing lithium pegmatites at the company’s Youanmi project tenements in the Murchison region of WA. Better results include 12 metres grading 0.68% lithium oxide from 6 metres down-hole, 2m @ 1.58% lithium oxide from 31m and 4m @ 0.76% lithium oxide from 23m.

King River Resources has discovered another high grade gold zone at its Mt Remarkable project, near Kununurra in WA. The 4m intersection at 19.88g/t gold from 21m down-hole, includes a metre at 69.3g/t gold from 21m. The same zone returned 2m @ 10.47g/t gold from 33m down-hole and 3m @ 4.29g/t gold from 27m down-hole in separate drill holes down-dip of the wider zone.

Calima Energy has kicked off its three well drilling campaign in the revered Montney formation in British Columbia, Canada, with the spudding of the Calima-1 vertical well. This will be followed immediately by the drilling of the two horizontal wells, which will be fracture stimulated and put on an extended production test over a period of 4-6 weeks.

88 Energy is just weeks away from spudding its high impact Winx-1 exploration well in Alaska’s North Slope oil province, which targets a gross, best estimate, prospective resource of about 400 million barrels of oil. The company submitted the key drilling permit application before the end of 2018 and has started construction of the ice road to the well site.

Caravel Minerals has the wind in its sails now after its recent diamond drilling program at its copper project in the Wheatbelt confirmed the presence of thick, higher grade zones at the Bindi Hinge zone with assays of up to 26m @ 0.69% copper from 182m down-hole. The new results have increased support for an alternative development model based on the initial mining of higher grade zones at its namesake copper project.

Coolgardie Minerals has received its first revenue cheque of $1.68 million from the sale of high grade oxide ore to Northern Star Resources from its Geko pit near Bullabulling in WA. The company is carrying out further grade control drilling to determine the extent of the remaining supergene zone in the western part of the pit and to define the Stage 2 oxide ore zones for mining this month.

Australian Potash has successfully transported its first raw salt products from the pilot pond network at the Lake Wells sulphate of potash project near Laverton in WA, for the processing and production of trade samples for its Chinese off-take partners. This processing work will commence immediately in the lead up to the company’s DFS for Lake Wells, which is expected in the latter half of 2019.

BlackEarth Minerals has delivered a maiden resource estimate of 9 million tonnes grading 5.8% total graphitic carbon at its Haja graphite prospect in southern Madagascar. The new estimate complements the nearby Razafy graphite mineral resource of 11.2 million tonnes grading 7.1% TGC, which is presently undergoing an internal scoping study due for completion early next quarter.

Northern Minerals has produced its first heavy rare earth carbonate product for export from its Browns Range pilot plant project, located near Halls Creek in the East Kimberley region of WA. The near 2.6 tonne ore parcel is being sent to Darwin Port for shipment to customers in China. According to the company, the first product shipment meets the high-quality specifications required by its offtake partners.