Public Company News

The impending Vonex internet based telco float, backed by State One Stockbroking, will be fascinating to watch as the new ASX arrival muscles its way into big telco territory with its very own, in house, cloud based telephony technology. Every good float needs both a base load revenue story and a blue-sky pitch and Vonex certainly doesn’t disappoint in either department.

Underwater drone specialist Aquabotix has announced the launch of its “Swarm Diver” product, an autonomous underwater and sea-surface robot that can work in cooperation with other units of its kind on security, recovery and data collection missions. The Sydney and US-based company says the remote-controlled vehicle, which weighs 1.7 kilograms, is the first of its kind commercially available.

Nzuri Copper has appointed Lycopodium Minerals as its key engineering contractor for the Stage 1 Dense Media Separation plant at the Kalongwe copper-cobalt project in the DRC. Lycopodium was also retained for a Stage 2 economic assessment at the project. Nzuri are moving at a cracking pace now at Kalongwe which is in real danger of actually producing copper some time soon.

Auroch Minerals has opened up a new exploration front, targeting high-grade zinc, lead and maybe even a hint of cobalt in the metals-rich Adelaide Geosyncline after finalising the acquisition of two very interesting looking projects in South Australia. Previous exploration by the likes of Rio Tinto has produced drill hits of up to 26.9% zinc, however the two new projects are yet to be properly drill tested.

Things could move quickly for Geopacific after its DFS hits the streets in the third quarter of this year given that its Woodlark Island gold project in PNG is already sitting on a fully permitted and granted mining lease. The PFS was completed in March and showed a robust, 100,000 ounce a year, low cost, low stripping ratio open pit operation with an expected post tax 2 year payback.

Newly listed BlackEarth Minerals continues to set a cracking pace at its Maniry graphite project in Madagascar, with 15 diamond holes already drilled that will assist the Perth company to churn out a maiden resource by the middle of the year. Early results have been very encouraging, showing thick and highly consistent graphite beds that will allow wider-spaced drilling than previously planned.

Altech Chemicals’ vision of becoming the world’s leading producer of high-purity alumina has been de-risked with the Perth-based junior completing the purchase of 92 hectares of land at its Meckering kaolin mine, east of Perth. Settlement will give Altech unrestricted access to the area as it accelerates down the home straight towards construction of its high-purity alumina plant in Malaysia.

St George Mining has intersected additional high-grade nickel sulphides at the Stricklands prospect at the Mt Alexander project, near Leonora in W.A. The 10.9 metre combined intercept is true width, starting from 56m downhole and contained 1.1m @ 6.7% Ni and 1.9% Cu.

Calidus Resources has announced exceptional metallurgical test work results from its Klondyke project, at its emerging Warrawoona gold play in the Pilbara. Test work indicates that 63% of the gold is recoverable by gravity methods alone and more than 96% can be recovered by conventional cyanide leaching at coarse grinds. The ores are amenable to a conventional processing and are not refractory.

Metalicity will vend its mammoth Admiral Bay zinc project into a separate subsidiary to be called Kimberley Mining that will be listed on the TSX Canadian Venture Exchange. The decision was endorsed by project stakeholders and key North American institutions and will provide an opportunity for Metalicity to extract full value from the project that management believe is not fully valued in Metalicity’s market cap.

MGC Pharma has produced its first batch of CannEpil, from its European cannabis factory and the company is now one step away from final certification that will green light the facility for full scale production of medical marijuana products. The drug is set to provide medical relief for epilepsy sufferers with initial sales revenue predictions of AU$1 million per annum for the first year of distribution.

Nzuri Copper has announced that it has started its 2018 exploratory field program in the DRC, with drilling to target eight high priority copper-cobalt targets identified last year from geological and geophysical interpretation. The targets all lie within 30km of the existing ore reserve defined at the flagship Kalongwe copper-cobalt deposit and each target has potential for a new base metal discovery in this prospective district.