Doug Bright

Aurum Resources continues its stellar run of quality gold intercepts from its Boundiali project in Cote d'Ivoire, nailing a best hit in the latest results of 34 metres assaying 2.32 grams per tonne gold. The hit, from 56m depth in the company’s BDT1 target, includes 9m at an average grade of 5.44g/t gold. A second-best result delivered 48m going 1.27g/t gold from 73m, including 8m running 3.11g/t gold.

In a significant step for the company, lab tests have confirmed Green360 Technology’s new high-reactivity metakaolin is well suited for producing low-carbon cement and low-carbon, high-performance structural concrete. The company produced metakaolin samples from its kaolin resources and deposits that exceed the quality benchmarks of other metakaolin products currently available in Australia.

Larvotto Resources has discovered tungsten lurking in its already economic Hillgrove gold and antimony project in NSW, setting the scene for another payable by-product from the project that is already showing big numbers based on gold and antimony alone. Larvotto has delivered an initial mineral resource estimate for tungsten of 8.77 million tonnes at 0.05% tungsten trioxide at the project for 4774 contained tonnes.

Strickland Metals is picking up the pace at its south Serbian Rogozna gold and base metals project which includes a further 20,000m of drilling at its Gradina target and a slew of new middle managers that are capable of guiding it into production. The company’s pre-development programs have expanded to include environmental baseline surveys, the opening of a local office, well-advanced metallurgical studies and ongoing drilling by six rigs across three targets.

Reach Resources has punched out another 5,800 ounces of shallow gold at its Murchison South project near Paynes Find. The new resource at the company’s Pansy Pit was confirmed by independent consultant Mining Plus and adds to the 61,300 ounces already banked at the Blue Heaven deposit at the project. The combined 67,000 ounces now make a compelling case for toll treating.

Aurum Resources has nailed a series of additional high grades gold hits at its Boundiali Project in Côte d'Ivoire, including 1m at 73.10 grams per tonne from Target 3 in its eastern BM licence, ahead of an expected upgrade to its mineral resource. The company is also working towards a pre-feasibility study at the site which it expects to complete before year’s end.

King River Resources has acquired a new exploration licence, which encloses its Kurundi gold prospect in the Northern Territory and includes possible north-westward extensions from the Kurundi targ

Terrain Minerals is on the cusp of launching a reverse circulation drilling program next week to follow up on the company’s recent discovery of shallow high-grade gold and silver at its Lightning and Monza prospects. The two prospects lie in the northern extremity of its Smokebush project, 350km north of Perth. The drill program co-incides with Terrain’s mid-May ex-date, $1.8M rights issue.

Novo Resources’ recent field exploration activity at its farm-in John Bull gold project in NSW has provided a host of new exploration targets, which the company plans to drill in June. Novo has also extended its known 100ppb soil gold anomaly to more than 1.5km of strike with a peak result of 1.59g/t gold, while sampling of quartz veins has nailed grades of 67.9g/t and 29g/t gold.

Bulls N’ Bears Big Hits examines some recent notable drill intercepts revealed on the ASX, including Riversgold Ltd’s 10m intercept at 8.89g/t gold from 46m, including 1m at 77.96g/t, in the WA Goldfields. Resouro Strategic Metals, Indiana Resources and Chilwa Minerals also reported interesting results that are worth considering.

Askari Metals has entered into a binding agreement to acquire 100% of Rift Valley Metals which owns a gold portfolio of five tenements enclosing 460 square kilometres of highly prospective ground in Ethiopia. The company’s landholdings are within the Adola Greenstone Belt in the under-explored southern segment of the Arabian-Nubian Shield, about 350km south of Ethiopia’s capital of Addis Ababa.

Javelin Minerals has completed a maiden 22-hole reverse circulation drilling program at its recently acquired Eureka gold project, 54km north of Kalgoorlie in WA’s Eastern Goldfields. The 2779m campaign was planned to confirm and possibly expand the existing 2.45Mt JORC-compliant resource, which averages 1.42g/t gold for a contained 112,000 ounces of gold. About 62,000 ounces are in the indicated category.

Great Southern Mining has assayed 3m at 2.55g/t gold from 33m, including 1m at 6.48g/t gold, in the final results from a February RC drilling program at its Golden Boulder East trend at its Duketon project in WA. The hole included a separate 2m hit going 1.81g/t gold from 42m. A second hole probed 1m assaying 1.02g/t gold from 53m and 2m at 1.42g/t gold from 60m.

Latitude 66’s KSB project in Finland is a key part of a wide-scale, European Union-funded geophysical and geological exploration and innovation program hunting for new critical mineral resources. The imminent $9M UNDERCOVER project aims to increase Europe’s raw materials production and will include the Kuusamo Schist Belt, which hosts Latitude’s flagship project.

This edition of Bulls N’ Bears Big Hits singles out an exceptional recent hit. Patriot Battery Metals’ latest caesium discovery in Quebec, Canada, includes a best hit of 5m at 13.2% caesium oxide, while another hole produced a top grade in 1.1m at 26.61% caesium oxide.

Image Resources has shipped its first heavy mineral concentrate from its new Atlas project in the Dandaragan shire, 170km north of Perth, under an existing off-take agreement used for its previous Boonanarring project. The company shipped a nominal 10,000 tonnes of wet HMC from the port of Geraldton last week, just two months after commissioning the plant.

GreenTech Metals has hailed significant results from its first two diamond drill holes at its Whundo volcanogenic copper-zinc project south of Karratha, including 7.14m at 1.46% copper and 1.23% zinc from 277.16m. That intercept from the company’s unmined Austin conductor target includes 6.3m going 1.84% copper and 1.4% zinc from 278m, including 3.45m assaying 2.42% copper and 2.41% zinc from 278m.

Askari Metals’ recent trawl through a historical exploration database at its Uis project in Namibia has identified significant tin, tantalite and rubidium mineralisation within its licence area. The review reveals “exceptionally high” tin, tantalum and rubidium responses from a 492-sample rock chip database, with assays including 3.17% tin oxide, 5226ppm tantalum pentoxide and 0.87% rubidium oxide.

St George Mining plans to start a maiden drill program within weeks focussing on expanding a 40.64Mt rare earths resource estimate from early April for its Araxá project in Brazil. The company’s mineral resource estimate for the venture came in at 41.2Mt and 0.68 per cent niobium pentoxide and 40.6Mt and 4.13 per cent total rare earths oxides.

Ardea Resources has completed a 287-hole infill reverse circulation drilling program to support potential resource classification upgrades at its vast Goongarrie Hub nickel project, 5km south of Menzies. The company drilled 186 holes at its Big Four prospect for 10,238m, while 101 holes were put in at Scotia Dam for 6332m. Ardea has sampled a total of 16,570m of vertical holes at 2m intervals over their full depths.

Aurumin Limited's first RC drilling program, along with pulp re-sampling of old holes, has thrown up some high-grade iron hits at its Central Sandstone project in WA’s Mid West region, including a best 10m at 62% iron. The 2000m drilling campaign across two of Aurumin’s three granted mining leases was co-funded as part of private company Newcam Mineral’s due diligence before exercising its option to enter a joint venture with Aurumin.

Neometals has responded to the current heady gold prices and somewhat lukewarm battery metals market with a strategic re-evaluation of its Barrambie gold project in WA’s Murchison region. The company says it has identified “a compelling opportunity” to use its in-house expertise, infrastructure, strategic position and existing Barrambie exploration target to bring a gold prospect to a decision to mine status in the second half of 2026.

American West Metals has entered into a partnership and funding agreement for the development of its 2200-square-kilometre Storm copper project in Nunavut, Canada, which will underpin the project’s long-term future. The binding agreement with Ocean Partners Holdings includes an US$2M (A$3.32M) private placement, provision of up to 80% of initial capital for project development and Ocean Partners’ offtake of 100% of the project’s copper and silver production.

Aurumin has launched a 1250m reverse circulation drilling program at the 64,700-ounce Gwendolyn gold deposit in its Johnson Range project, between Southern Cross and Sandstone. The validation and infill campaign is the first drilling undertaken since 2013 at the 803,000-tonne, 2.51g/t resource and, in the current heady gold price market, it has the potential to prove up an impeccably timed resource development opportunity.

Aurum Resources will kick off a maiden diamond drill program this month at its newly acquired Boundiali South tenement in Cote d’Ivoire to pursue some big hits from previous reverse circulation drilling, including a 20m intercept at 10.45 grams per tonne (g/t) gold. With government approvals on track, Aurum sees no further impediment to future exploration or obtaining mining rights for the prospect.

Novo Resources will launch a 2000m reverse circulation drilling program this month at Tibooburra in northwestern NSW to test high grade gold results from soil and rock chip geochemistry and other exploration. Recent surface sampling at the Clone prospect produced results of 89.6g/t and 41.9g/t gold in mullock around old workings and 31.4g/t and 10.4g/t gold from quartz vein outcrop along a 700m strike.

St George Mining has delivered a maiden resource estimate for its Araxa carbonatite-hosted niobium and rare earths deposit from the world’s premier niobium-producing region in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. The estimate comprises a globally significant deposit containing 280,000 tonnes of niobium pentoxide and 1.7 million tonnes of total rare earth oxides, which are both in high global demand.

Meeka Metals has installed its newly acquired 750kW per hour ball mill at its 1.2-million-ounce Murchison gold project development, 50km north of Meekatharra in the Murchison Goldfields in Western Australia. The ball mill is arguably the heart of the processing plant, and its installation is sure to be celebrated, although it is but one item in Meeka’s dizzying inventory.

Aurum Resources has taken a key step towards the establishment of an open pit mining operation at its Boundiali project in Cote d’Ivoire following the appointment of local specialist consultancy firm Envitech to undertake an environmental and social impact study of the venture. The study will cover five deposits within the company’s BD, BM and BST (Nyangboue) licences, which make up three of the company’s four tenement areas.

Strickland Metals has added 143,400 ounces of gold to the combined mineral resource for its Horse Well camp, boosting its resource to 4.68 million tonnes at a respectable 1.94 grams per tonne for 291,500 ounces. Combined with the 108,900 ounce Dusk ‘til Dawn deposit, the update lifts the total Yandal project inferred resource to an imposing 8.17 million tonnes at 1.52 g/t gold tonne for 400,400 ounces of gold.

Strickland Metals has reinforced its drilling capacity at its Rogozna gold-base metals project in southern Serbia with the addition of a fifth rig, which has already begun work at its Obradov Potok prospect. Coincident multi-element gold-arsenic soil and an induced polarisation anomaly with surface hydrothermal alteration were identified at the 4sqkm prospect, which is 3.5km southwest of the company’s 5.3-million-ounce gold equivalent Shanac gold resource.

Aurum Resources has spectacularly ticked another box in a recent string of gold hits at its Boundiali project in Cote d'Ivoire, with an 83m best run assaying 4.87g/t gold from 106m at the company’s BD Target 1. Two runs in Aurum’s primary 83m intercept jagged 6.29m at 34.94g/t gold and 8m at 14.81 g/t gold.