Public Company News

ASX-listed Aspire Mining has received fresh support from its giant Chinese engineering partner for a 550km railway to bring its Ovoot coking coal deposit to market in China and Russia. Under a new MOU promoted by both the Chinese and Mongolian governments, Aspire’s Chinese partner aims to finalise its feasibility study on the planned railway as early as next month.

Classic Minerals has reported that exploration and resource drilling has commenced at its Forrestania gold project, south of Southern Cross. The program aims to upgrade mineral resources for the Lady Lila and Kat Gap prospects and target a new area at Van Uden West. The company also announced it had secured further strategic tenements in the area and is finalising drill approvals for Lady Magdalene

US police have deployed DroneShield’s anti-drone technology to protect the popular NASCAR Cup motor racing series in Texas. DroneShield’s partnership with US police at NASCAR is another signal of the growing desire to use the company’s DroneSentinel, DroneSentry and DroneGun products to keep people safe at complex, top tier global events that could be targeted by aerial drones.

MGC Pharmaceuticals has raised $5 million in an oversubscribed share placement to construct a 4,000 square metre state-of-the-art medical cannabis production and cultivation facility in Malta. MGC will build the fully-licensed medical cannabis facility after the company was awarded the landmark contract paving the way for it to operate a fully vertically-integrated medical marijuana operation in Europe.

King River Copper is forging ahead with its concept study for the Speewah vanadium project in the Kimberley. The company is investigating an innovative hydrometallurgical process to produce premium high grade vanadium pentoxide for direct sale. The study will incorporate relevant mining, beneficiation and processing costs to optimise a future open pit mining scenario for high grade mineralisation at the project

EON NRG has announced an expansion of its exploratory land holdings in the Nevada Basin and Range Province in western America. The district was mined historically for silver, lead and gold a century ago, however high grade cobalt also looks to be present in an area where with the now highly sought after battery mineral was possibly never sought out in the past.

Southern Gold is now riding shotgun with Northern Star Resources after the multi-billion dollar miner took over Westgold’s South Kalgoorlie assets, including the Cannon underground mine. Southern said this week that its 5 year “right to mine” agreement with Westgold had been transferred to Northern Star and was unaffected by the transaction. The company will receive a revenue stream from Cannon this year.

St George Mining continue to make impressive nickel-copper hits at Mt Alexander near the Agnew-Wiluna belt, with the latest drill hole intercepting massive sulphides with in-field, XRF readings of 4.75% nickel and 1.5% copper. The latest hole suggests the very high grade mineralisation discovered last November at the Stricklands prospects is still open to the north and west.

It seems that Calidus Resources hits gold almost every time it sinks a drill bit into the Warrawoona gold project near Marble Bar with 12 recent RC holes now extending the gold mineralisation a further 2kms east of the known Klondyke resource. Field mapping has also revealed the gold-rich host rocks extend another 2km further east, adding even more weight to the company’s view it is on to a serious system.

Galena Mining has moved to appoint contractors to work on a PFS at its world-class Abra lead-silver deposit, which the ambitious junior says is on track for completion in September. The appointments were made just weeks after a massive increase in the high grade resource estimate that was part of a defined strategy to isolate a large, high-grade portion of the huge tonnage project for fast tracked development.

Tests on lithium concentrates from the Mt Marion mine near Coolgardie have produced exceptionally high quality lithium hydroxide with a 99.99% purity, making a compelling case for part owner Neometals to move into downstream processing by making use of its off-take agreement with its partners. Neometals is planning to build a 10,000 tonne per annum lithium hydroxide plant for the off-take.

Reconnaissance exploration at Auroch Minerals new base metals project in South Australia’s Flinders Ranges has produced spectacular copper and zinc assays from rock chip samples and confirmed high-potential Sedex mineralisation. The aggressive junior explorer is planning a drill campaign in the September quarter, just months after settling the acquisition of the project in a metals-rich corridor.