Doug Bright

In this week’s edition of Bulls N’ Bears Big Hits, we examine some of the notable drill intersections revealed on the ASX, including Wildcat Resources’ Tabba Tabba run of 67m at 1.9 per cent lithium oxide. We also look at other interesting intercepts as reported by Rumble Resources from its Western Queen project in WA and Strickland Metals at its Rogozna project in Serbia.

Image Resources has confirmed it has received the final approvals it needs to kick off the long-awaited onsite construction of its Atlas heavy mineral sands project in Western Australia’s Perth Basin. The company says it has now secured the vital go-ahead from the Federal Government after it satisfied proposed conditions relating to the Atlas development under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.

ABx Group says it has uncovered the potential for resource extension at its Deep Leads rare earths prospect in Tasmania after receiving the first 316 assays from its 37-hole maiden air-core drilling sortie. The company’s latest assay suite not only revealed thicker rare earths intercepts than usual, but also a high 4.3 per cent proportion of the high-value dysprosium and terbium elements.

Reach Resources says geophysics, geochemistry and rock microscopy have confirmed a 4.5-square-kilometre oval body as an alkaline intrusive and the likely source of big rare earths-niobium hits at its Wabli Creek project in Western Australia’s Gascoyne region. Wabli Creek is one of two exploration licences held by Reach in the highly-prospective Yinnetharra area that is well-known for its often unusual, but critical mineral assemblages.

Sabre Energy has agreed to stump up $6 million in drilling and testing costs at Buru Energy’s Rafael Shallow oil well in Western Australia’s onshore Canning Basin to earn 50 per cent of any commercial discovery and production. If the drilling leads to a commercial discovery, Sabre will also compensate Buru for its prior Rafael exploration expenses with a further payment of $1.5 million.

A Latitude 66 geophysics survey has identified strong conductors at the company’s K9 prospect in Finland that correlate with multiple conductors down-plunge from known gold-cobalt mineralisation and local shear zone orientation. The significance of the downhole electromagnetic results from two adjacent holes is that they confirm continuity of K9 mineralisation towards the south-west and north-east and also down-dip and down-plunge.

Buxton Resources is setting out on the trail of encouraging results gleaned last year from its Dogleg nickel-copper-cobalt project in WA’s Kimberley region as the company kicks off its new field season with up to eight diamond drillholes. Management is also planning to run extensive moving loop electromagnetic surveys to detect conductivity anomalies that could be related to nickel-copper-cobalt sulphide mineralisation away from previous drilling.

White Cliff Minerals has confirmed the locations of historical high-grade results for a suite of valuable minerals at its two key Canadian projects, defining multiple priority targets for early drilling after completing a maiden field work campaign. Field reconnaissance, mapping and sampling has identified four iron oxide-copper-gold targets at its Great Bear project and multiple styles of copper mineralisation at its Rae play.

Middle Island Resources has hit the ground running with the completion of the first of three diamond drill holes at its Flintstones-themed Georgina project in the Northern Territory where it is testing for iron oxide-copper-gold (IOCG) potential. The company recently kicked off its first round of drilling at Georgina and is expecting to drill three diamond drill holes between 600m and 650m deep.

Image Resources is continuing its push towards the construction of its Atlas heavy mineral sands project in Western Australia’s North Perth Basin after sealing State Government approval for its mining proposal. The approval from the WA Department of Energy, Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety is another step forward along the development path for the project located 170km north of Perth.

Aruma Resources has identified high-grade surface sample assays grading up to 36 per cent copper in data acquired from previous explorers in the company’s Fiery Creek copper project near Mt Isa in Queensland. The results come from surface rock chip sampling programs carried out across multiple prospects by previous explorers at Fiery Creek which include Sumitomo, Anglo American and MIM (now Glencore).

In this edition of Bulls N’ Bears Big Hits, we examine some of the notable drill intersections revealed on the ASX this week, including Far East Gold’s 20m intercept at 7.57g/t gold and 8.5g/t silver from 67.5m. We also take a close look at other interesting drill hits from last week as reported by Vital Metals in Canada and AIC Mines in Queensland.

White Cliff Minerals has unveiled extensive evidence of chalcocite-dominant, copper-rich vein systems along big strike distances after maiden field work at its Rae project in the Canadian province of Nunavut. The company has reported significant – sometimes spectacular – hard surface evidence of the red metal at its PAT, HALO, Cu-TAR, DON CALMAL and Kilauea targets, with abundant native copper observed at surface in the latter.

Octava Minerals is on the cusp of kicking off a soil sampling program in a bid to expand the Razorback gold prospect at its 202sq-km Talga lithium-gold project, 30km east of Marble Bar in WA’s Pilbara region. Despite Razorback showing significant gold intersections in previous drilling, including 5m at 2.23g/t from 24m, only 700m of its interpreted 4km strike has been drilled.

American West Metals has extended the high-grade Thunder copper zone at its Storm project in Canada’s Nunavut province to more than 300m after completing 66 reverse-circulation and diamond drillholes. The company has also received encouraging visible indications of mineralisation in its first 22 drillholes, with nine step-out holes exhibiting thick copper mineralisation to confirm the 300m strike extent of the target.

Quantum Graphite says its airborne geophysics have defined a new high-grade graphite zone about 2.5km long in the north-west area of its Uley 2 exploration licence on SA’s Eyre Peninsula. It comes after the company confirmed in April the completion of its helicopter-borne versatile time domain electromagnetic (VTEM) and magnetics survey that was part of its planning for Uley 2 and Uley 3 project extensions.

Gold Mountain has defined extensive multi-element anomalism pointing to iron oxide copper-gold (IOCG) and lithium potential in two areas covered by an initial 231 stream sediment samples from its Iguatu Project in Brazil. The company says it has identified clusters of broad halo-style iron and sodium anomalies and copper-gold-mercury anomalies generally associated with the more strongly-mineralised parts of Australia’s renowned Olympic Dam IOCG deposit.

Gold Mountain has defined several new drill targets at its Down Under project in Brazil following the completion of extensive scout stream sediment sampling and 85 line kilometres of radiometric surveying. While 800 stream sediment samples have been collected to date, only 25 per cent of the results have been returned, with about 61 of them revealing strong potential for high-grade, monazite-hosted rare earths-niobium-uranium-scandium mineralisation.

Aurum Resources says it has obtained outstanding gold leach results exceeding 93 per cent recovery in recent metallurgical testwork on 50 samples from its Boundiali BDT1 target in Côte D’Ivoire, West Africa. Samples selected for 24-hour cyanide bottle-roll leach tests were drawn from diamond core at various stages of oxidation and across a range of gold grades expected in routine open pit mining.

Lycaon Resources has completed a crucial heritage survey for its multi-element Stansmore carbonatite project in Western Australia’s West Arunta region, marking a significant step towards drilling. The clearance relates to three priority drill targets at the company’s Stansmore, Volt and Ions targets where it is chasing niobium, rare earths and iron oxide copper-gold and it is now eyeing a drilling program later this year.

In this week’s edition of Bulls N’ Bears Big Hits, we examine some of the notable drill intersections revealed on the ASX, including Santana Minerals’ impressive 48m slice at 5.8g/t gold from 167.3m in New Zealand. We also take a close look at other interesting drill hits from last week as reported by Predictive Discovery, Venture Minerals and DevEx Resources.

GreenTech Metals has knocked off the first 1743m of a planned 2200m reverse-circulation drilling program to test the Austin, Shelby and Ayshia targets at its Whundo copper-zinc project in Western Australia’s Pilbara region. The first phase of the program was designed to test the company’s unexplored Austin and Shelby targets and for possible extensions of its Ayshia deposit – all associated with fixed-loop electromagnetic geophysical anomalies.

Kalgoorlie Gold Mining has extended a prospective gold strike at its Pinjin project in Western Australia to 21km after being granted a new 3.5-square-kilometre parcel of contiguous ground at the site that sits 140km north-east of Kalgoorlie. The ground is centred about 3.75km south along strike from the company’s Wessex target and about 8km north along strike from its Kirgella Gift and Providence gold prospects.

ABx Group has polished off a 37-hole air-core drilling campaign that explored a previously-untested north-west area of its Deep Leads rare earths project sitting 45km west of Launceston in northern Tasmania. Previous success at ABx’s high-grade Deep Leads target has led it to interpret the area as prospective for rare earths and the latest drilling has yielded 316 samples that have been sent for analysis.

Meeka Metals has secured a greater-capacity ball mill than envisaged in its definitive feasibility study in May for its Murchison gold project in WA, paving the way for significantly enhanced economies of scale. The company says the $318,000 purchase reduces its DFS mill capex by 75 per cent, lifts processing capacity by 30 per cent to 640,000 tonnes per annum and increases ore processing options.

In this week’s edition of Bulls N’ Bears Big Hits, we examine some of the notable drill intersections revealed on the ASX, including Encounter Resources’ 46m at 3.1 per cent niobium pentoxide from 60m to hole end at 106m. We also take a close look at other interesting drill hits from last week as reported by Future Battery Minerals, Riversgold and Spartan Resources.

Middle Island Resources has kicked off its first round of drilling for the year, with three deep diamond drillholes to test three iron oxide-copper-gold (IOCG) targets at its Barkly “super project” in the Northern Territory. The program entails three holes targeting depths between 600m and 650m, constituting the company’s maiden testing of the Wilma, Pebbles and Dino IOCG prospects within its Georgina project.

After pocketing $5 million in new money, Larvotto Resources is on the cusp of launching a 5250m exploration drilling program to infill and extend its Clarks Gully gold-antimony resource that sits just 4.7km north-west of its Hillgrove Mine in NSW. The measured and indicated Clarks Gully resource contains 266,000 tonnes at 3.8 per cent antimony and 2g/t gold, or 8.40g/t gold equivalent.

Kalgoorlie Gold Mining is planning to kick off an air-core drilling program at its Pinjin project in WA’s Eastern Goldfields next month to follow up an April campaign that hit zones running up to 3.07g/t gold. The program will centre on the company’s Wessex target at the project that sits on the eastern flanks of the prospective Laverton Tectonic Zone, about 140km north-east of Kalgoorlie.

GreenTech Metals has reinforced evidence for three major lithium trends within its Kobe and Osborne tenements in Western Australia’s Pilbara region following an infill geochemical soil sampling program. The campaign has confirmed continuity of the Kobe South lithium anomalism that is well-defined through a 5.5km east-to-south-east-trending corridor, with maximum responses in the range of 200ppm to 467ppm lithium oxide.

Buxton Resources is aiming to get back in the black – the black-coloured carbon at its Graphite Bull project in Western Australia’s Gascoyne region, that is – when it kicks off a new diamond drill program to explore deep geophysical targets in the hope of expanding its existing resource numbers. The company’s two diamond drillholes have been designed to target potentially significant extensions of its graphite mineralisation.

Initial geochemical results from 260 regional stream samples at Gold Mountain’s Down Under project in Brazil have thrown up anomalous rare earths responses from a combined area of about 80 square kilometres. The company says the results indicate good potential for ionic-adsorption clay (IAC)-hosted rare earths deposits and ultra-high-grade, hard-rock monazite-hosted mineralisation featuring niobium, uranium and scandium.