Craig Nolan

Meeka Metals has unveiled a 60 per cent boost for its St Anne’s gold resource in Western Australia’s Mid West region, increasing to 40,000 ounces at more than 3 grams per tonne. The resource forms part of the company’s 1.23 million-ounce Murchison gold project that sits in the area bearing the same name, about 650km north of Perth.

Thunderbird Resources has assembled a surprising array of interesting-looking uranium and lithium targets in some of the hottest mineral territories in the world, including Canada’s Athabasca uranium basin. The Athabasca basin is remarkable for its average uranium grades of about 2 per cent and its massive-scale deposits – and Thunderbird appears to have picked the eyes out of it.

Aurumin is looking to join the ranks of Western Australia’s coveted million-ounce gold club after completing its latest reverse-circulation drill program at its Central Sandstone project, 520km north-east of Perth. Drilling was completed for 38 holes and tested seven new open-pit targets, as part of the company’s bold push to extend its current 946,000-ounce gold resource.

Bulls N’ Bears takes a look at the listed companies that have enjoyed share price explosions on the back of 16-year high uranium prices. With lithium taking a breather, the uranium renaissance has filled a gap as demand for uranium to power a clean-energy future pushed the commodity’s fortunes and propelled it to US$106 per pound earlier this year.

Aurumin has kick-started its reverse-circulation drill campaign as it hunts for gold at its Sandstone project in WA. The program will consist of 40 drill-holes and test up to nine new open-pit targets. The existing resource is tantalisingly close to the magical one-million-ounce mark and the company will be looking for some solid results to help it burst through that all-important level.

Si6 Metals has secured a second license at its JV Caldera rare earths project in the mining region of Minas Gerais in Brazil and will charge a drill-rig into the area to kick-off its latest program. The newly granted land borders that of Meteoric Resources exciting Caldeira rare earths project, where high-grade ionic-clay rare earths have been discovered at grades that are generally considered to be amongst the best in the clay based rare earths sector.

Strickland Metals is ready to put its WA gold hunt into overdrive, as it prepares to drill a multitude of high-grade gold targets at its highly prospective Yandal project, about 85km north-east of the town of Wiluna. The company’s liquid assets are impressive, with $54 million in cash and Northern Star shares available to fund its exploration programs.

Allup Silica’s shares soared by more than 300 per cent today after confirmation that silica sands from the company’s Sparkler project near Albany in WA will be suitable for the solar panel industry and high-tech manufacturing. Allup also tabled some stellar results from its Cabbage Spot project near Wyndham showing grades up to 99.4 percent silica. Its stock touched 13c from its close yesterday of 2.9c.

Novo Resources has boosted its recent gold drilling results by re-assaying larger sample sizes from its WA Nunyerry North project, using modern high-tech multi-pot photon-assays, due to the nature of its coarse-gold. The improved results highlight several significant intersections, including 6m at more than 6 grams per tonne at the project it has in joint-venture with the Creasy Group.

ABx Group’s latest assay results have further expanded the rare earths zone at its Deep Leads-Rubble Mound project in northern Tasmania, showing mineralisation enriched in the valuable heavy rare earths, dysprosium and terbium. The company says the results prove the site west of Launceston retains the highest proportion of the two elements of any clay-hosted rare earths resource in Australia.

Si6 Metals has unveiled clay-hosted rare earths hits from surface sampling at its joint-venture Caldera project in the State of Minas Gerais in Brazil, in addition to discovering further nickel-copper-cobalt at its Maibele North deposit, part of the company’s base and precious metals play in Botswana. Si6 will now kick-off an auger drill campaign at Caldera to test for higher-grade rare earths mineralisation at depth.

ChemX Materials has pulled in $1.1m from sophisticated investors to help fund the completion of its High purity alumina pilot plant in Perth. The company will also look to raise another $500k from shareholders in an SPP and ChemX directors will kick $65,000 into the raise. The company’s HPA pilot plant is already 80 per cent complete.

Venus Metals is on a roll with the first drill campaign at its Deep South prospect within its Youanmi project in WA’s Murchison hitting lithium paydirt. High-grade lithium pegmatites were intersected at both the East and North zones, with strong tantalum enrichment also recorded. The best grade recorded in the maiden campaign came in at a significant 2.89 per cent lithium oxide.

Altech Batteries has revealed a compelling set of numbers for its planned Cerenergy battery project in Germany, with its DFS forecasting a NPV of €169 million and annual revenue of €106 million generating EBITDA earnings of a juicy €51million per annum. The company says capital cost estimates of €156 million and a steady-state payback period of 3.7 years add to the project’s appeal.

Galan Lithium has continued to ramp up its Hombre Muerto West lithium chloride project in Argentina, with evaporation in its first pond continuing, a second now filling up and construction of a third well underway. The company says the first pond already contains about 500 tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent, with production planned to start in the first half of next year.

Toro Energy is poised to launch drilling at its Wiluna uranium-vanadium play in Western Australia in a bid to provide sufficient ore samples to feed its upcoming pilot plant that is expected to begin operating in the next quarter. The company’s aim is to generate sufficient drill-core to provide a bulk sample of 20 tonnes to the pilot plant that is being designed in Perth.

Tests conducted by rare earths metallurgical specialists ANSTO Minerals have validated Red Metal’s breakthrough leach results using chip samples from its new Sybella discovery near Mt Isa in North Queensland. Red Metal says ANSTO’s supplementary findings back up its phase-one testwork that showed high recoveries and low impurities using low levels of acid consumption for both valuable magnet and heavy rare earth oxides.

ABx Group has expanded the rare earths zone at its Deep Leads-Rubble Mound project in northern Tasmania, with new drill hits showing mineralisation enriched in the valuable heavy rare earths, dysprosium and terbium. The company says its latest drilling proves that the site west of Launceston retains the highest proportion of the two elements of any clay-hosted rare earths resource In Australia.

Larvotto Resources has identified multiple new copper-gold-cobalt drill targets following a recent induced-polarisation geophysical survey at its Mt Isa project, adjacent to the historic town of the same name in north-west Queensland. The company is now planning reverse-circulation and diamond drilling at three main targets in the tough and hilly terrain across its prospective project area.

Reach Resources has linked up with emerging developer Delta Lithium, signing an earn-in and JV agreement on its Morrissey Hill and Camel Hill projects in Western Australia’s prospective Gascoyne region. Delta will pay Reach a non-refundable $3.2 million and can earn an initial 51 per cent interest by spending $3 million on exploration within the first two years.

Aruma Resources appears to have landed a decent fish after nailing higher-grade rare earths drill hits and samples at its Salmon Gums project, about 200km south of the regional town of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia’s Eastern Goldfields. The company says one surface sample produced the highest recorded rare earths grade to date in the emerging Esperance ionic clay region.

DiscovEx Resources has stretched its Hercules prospect to a whopping 7km of anomalous gold found in soil after a sampling program at its Edjudina project, about 200km north of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia. The extensional program completed north of the Hercules target produced multiple higher-tenor results within the broad anomalous zone, adding to several prospective targets already identified at the project.

Everest Metals Corporation is scaling up its Mt Edon critical mineral project in WA’s Mid West region after securing Edith Cowan University’s mineral research arm to help develop an innovative rubidium extraction process. The pair’s new research agreement will represent a key stage towards developing the dual-mineral deposit that sits about 350km from the town of Geraldton.

American West Metals is set to launch a new drill attack and smash into an exploration and resource expansion program at its Storm copper play on Somerset Island, within the Canadian territory of Nunavut. After recently boosting its cash holdings by $10 million, it expects the drill program to begin next month, with about 22,000m of reverse-circulation and diamond drilling planned.

American West Metals is cashed up and ready to tear into an exploration and resource expansion program at its Storm copper play in Canada after pumping up its bank account with $10 million in fundraising. The company says the raise was oversubscribed, with several of its directors intending to stump up their cash and participate in the placement.

King River Resources is set to kick off a new drill campaign at its Tennant Creek East project in the Northern Territory as part of a $2 million commitment to hunt for high-grade copper-gold this year. Drilling will target the promising Commitment, Langrenus and Providence prospects, all in proximity to several head-turning copper-gold drill intersections recorded in recent years in the highly-regarded Tennant Creek region.

88 Energy is poised to launch into the critical flow-testing phase for the Hickory-1 well at its Phoenix project in Alaska after commissioning its rig and finishing off the construction of its ice pad. With joint venture partner Burgundy Xploration contributing its share of the costs, testing is expected to start within the next 10 days once the rig mobilisation is completed.

Strickland Metals’ aggressive gold hunt in Western Australia is steaming ahead at full pace, with its recent air-core drilling program highlighting consistent hits in a newly-defined 750m zone at its Yandal project near Wiluna. The company says bottom-of-hole intercepts indicate a new structure west of its highly-promising Dusk til Dawn prospect that contains an inferred resource of 109,000 gold ounces.

Valor Resources has secured an 80 per cent share of the highly-prospective Hook Lake uranium project in Canada, just two days after acquiring the 83sq-km Frazer Lake lithium play across the country in Ontario. Hook Lake is in the Athabasca Basin in northern Saskatchewan – a region that has become widely known as being the world’s leading producer of high-grade uranium.

Infinity Lithium has continued its chase for the rights to mine lithium and establish a conversion facility at its San José project in Spain by formally lodging an application with the local government. The project, with a mineral resource of 111.3 million tonnes grading 0.61 per cent lithium oxide and 206 parts-per-million tin, is in Extremadura – a remote mountainous region that borders Portugal.

Joint venture (JV) partners Horizon Minerals and Dundas Minerals have hit high-grade gold from an initial drilling program at their Windanya gold project after the two companies recently completed an option agreement.

Venus Metals has kicked off its maiden reverse-circulation drill campaign at its Youanmi lithium project where lithium-bearing pegmatites were recently discovered at its highly-compelling Deep South lithium prospect. The Deep South lithium prospect sits 44km south of the Youanmi Gold Mine, which is about 450km north-east of Perth in Western Australia’s rugged Murchison region.