Public Company News

Terrain Minerals is about to kick off its maiden drill program at the Red Mulga project, 100km east of Kalbari. The company believes that a large mafic-ultramafic geological complex may exist at the project, based on anomalous nickel, copper and chromium assays returned from surface sampling. Drilling will also target elevated gold, copper, silver and lead assays returned from extensive quartz veining.

Legend Mining has announced anomalous nickel-copper assays from an aircore drill program at its Rockford project in the Fraser Range of W.A. The work returned results up to 37m @ 0.34% nickel and 0.22% copper from 56m depth, extending the mineralisation at the Area D prospect to over 300 metres. The company also reported that end-of-hole drill chips contained nickel-copper sulphide minerals.

Blackham Resources suddenly has more gold reserves available for processing through its existing Carbon in Leach plant at the Matilda-Wiluna project thanks to positive results from recent metallurgical testwork. The testing found that transitional ore between oxides at the surface and the bedrock sulphides is suited to CIL treatment, and can be processed at a 30% lower cost than previously thought.

After a period of relatively low activity, ASX listed junior, Spectrum Rare Earths looks like it has stumbled across a potential company maker in Northern California. The Perth based company has locked down an option to purchase a mothballed, fully permitted gold mine that has historically produced around 250,000 ounces of gold at an amazing average grade of around an ounce to the tonne.

Northern Minerals’ heavy rare earths project at Browns Range in the East Kimberley appears to be timed to perfection following last week’s shock announcement of production cut backs by China. With construction of Browns Range on track to be completed next month, there could hardly be a better time for Northern to emerge as the only dysprosium source outside of China.

Strike Energy’s share price has been on a white knuckle ride over the last few weeks as investors desperately try to work out if it is going to be the next large cap gas producer in Australia, or fail whilst daring to create a new technical frontier in the search for coal seam gas riches. Strike significantly de-risked its Jaws-1 well this week with the installation of a liner and its fracture stimulation sleeves.

In what appears to be a serious opportunity for W.A, the smart money in the lithium space is now moving downstream into the production of lithium-ion battery chemicals such as lithium carbonate and lithium hydroxide and the mining of lithium is now looking a bit like the poor cousin. Neometals has kicked off its engineering and design study for a proposed Kalgoorlie lithium hydroxide plant.

In what looks to be an astute move, Calima Energy is set to race from 20% to outright ownership of its coveted Montney shale liquid/gas project in Canada through friendly, all-scrip takeover bids for its joint venture partners. The Perth-based junior has secured board recommendations and pre-bid acceptances from several major shareholders in a deal that will bulk up its profile in the revered oil and gas basin

Hot Chili has announced a $4m placement to fund a drill program at the El Fuego copper project in Chile. The program is aimed at increasing high grade mineral resources and extending the initial mine life of the flagship Productora asset beyond 10 years. The small scale mines at San Antonio and Valentina will be targeted first, having defined potential for extended shallow, high grade copper sulphide mineralisation

Phylogica has continued its march towards commercialisation of its game-changing drug delivery platform, after the Perth company boosted its disease-fighting genome library in the March quarter. Phylogica said it has improved both the complexity and biodiversity of its collection of genomes as it progresses its journey towards animal-based clinical trials of the unique intracellular drug delivery technology.

Geopacific has announced a $10M placement to advance its resource development drilling at the Woodlark gold project in PNG. The company is completing a DFS and the new drill programs are aimed at increasing resource and reserve inventories to extend the initial mine life beyond 10 years. The capital raise had strong support and the company said it could now potentially triple its gold endowment.

In a tour de force of drilling expertise, Strike Energy and its big-name drilling contractors have successfully completed one of the most difficult wells ever attempted onshore in Australia. Strike reported that the Jaws-1 horizontal well had met its objectives and was being prepared for hydraulic stimulation, sending the junior explorer’s shares up by more than 10%.