Doug Bright

Askari Metals says its first exploration licence has been granted at the company’s Yarrie lithium project, just 100km east/north-east of Pilbara Minerals’ giant 214.2 million tonne Pilgangoora lithium resource. The entire project area comprises nine contiguous exploration licences which enclose a total of 1711 sq kms across ground adjacent to and along strike from other significant hard rock pegmatite-hosted lithium deposits.

ABx Group has revealed high grade critical rare earths in drilling at its Wind Break prospect, only 15km northeast of the company’s 52 million tonne Deep Leads-Rubble Mound rare earths resource in Tasmania. Seventeen of the holes yielded samples where more than 4.5 per cent and up to 6.7 per cent of the total rare earth oxide content is made up of the more lucrative heavy rare earths dysprosium and terbium.

Venture Minerals has wound up stage one resource drilling at its 40 sq km, large-scale, clay hosted Jupiter rare earths prospect, 80km south-west of Mt. Magnet in WA’s Mid-West region. The project previously threw up some eye-watering results including 32m at 1629ppm TREO from 22m including 16m at 2397ppm TREO and a further 2m at an eyebrow-raising 7367ppm TREO from 36m.

Infinity Mining has tabled a maiden resource estimate of 60,300 ounces of gold and an exploration target estimate for its Central Goldfields project in WA’s Leonora gold district. The exploration target points to the scale of potentially discoverable mineralisation in just two of the company’s prospects and is between 116,000 and 592,000 ounces of gold with a significant grade range of between 2.2 and 3.7 grams per tonne gold.

Larvotto Resources has finished a metallurgical auger drill program to determine just how much gold, tungsten and antimony was left behind in tailings from mining campaigns dating back to the eighties at its Hillgrove project in NSW. Encouragingly, old records show gold averaging 1.34 grams per tonne and plenty of tungsten was shipped into the 1.4m tonnes of tailings during historic antimony mining.

Alma Metals has expanded the Briggs, Mannersley and Fig Tree Hill joint venture it shares with Canterbury Resources in central Queensland after grabbing two new exploration permits adjacent to the project. The JV ground includes the Briggs porphyry copper-molybdenum deposit that contains an inferred mineral resource of 415 million tonnes at 0.25 per cent copper and 31ppm molybdenum.

Senior geologists from giant Chinese battery raw materials supplier Huayou Cobalt have made a snap visit to Namibia to assess Askari Metals’ trenching and channel sampling progress at its Uis lithium project. Huayou, a major supporter and key strategic and technical partner of Askari, is listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange with a market capitalisation of about US$12.8 billion (AU$19 billion).

Mercedes Benz has put in a $30.7 million purchase order for Neometals’ JV company Primobius to build a hydrometallurgical “hub” to complete the motoring giant’s new lithium-ion battery recycling plant in the German town of Kuppenheim. The order continues a growing relationship between Primobius and Mercedes and includes the fabrication, installation and commissioning of the innovative plant.

Everest Metals Corporation has placed its foot firmly on strategically important new ground, with the acquisition of two new exploration licenses and an application for a third at its Revere gold and base metals project, 90km north-east of Meekatharra in Western Australia’s Mid West region. The acquisitions more than double the area of the company’s existing tenure in the area.

Chariot Corporation has vowed to break out from a freezing Wyoming winter and polish off its diamond drilling campaign at Black Mountain, following its scheduled halt for the Christmas holiday season. Management says that since beginning its phase-one program in mid-November, it has drilled six diamond-core holes for a total of 652m of triple-tube HQ core and results are expected this month.

Analytical results from Askari Metals’ Uis lithium project in Namibia have turned up lithium oxide grades going as high as 2.91 per cent in its southern licence and 1.92 per cent in its northern licence. Tantalum oxide grades of up to 339ppm and 757ppm were returned from the north and south licences, respectively, accompanied by a best tin oxide hit of 0.52 per cent.

Lithium Universe has laid the foundation for a targeted assault with the drill bit at its Apollo lithium project in Quebec having completed soil sampling, airborne magnetic surveys and related fieldwork, with the rods expected to start turning early in the new year. The fieldwork included 666km of mapping and sampling traverses, with 209 rock chip samples being collected over much of the company’s 240 square kilometre Apollo permit area.

Horizon Minerals has bumped up its resource estimate for the company’s 100 per cent-owned Penny’s Find gold mine project 50km north-east of Kalgoorlie by nearly 50 per cent to 63,000 ounces. The latest estimate is based on a compilation of all drilling results below the 260m relative level and a lower cut-off grade of 1.5g/t gold, yielding a total resource estimate of 429,000 tonnes at a grade of 4.57g/t gold.

Aurumin has cleared the final outstanding amount owing on a convertible note and is now debt free having completed the sale of its suite of thirteen Mt Dimer tenements to Beacon Minerals for $3 million. Executed as part of a series of financial and corporate deals, the company is now squarely focused on further developing its recently acquired Sandstone Gold Project, 520km north-east of Perth.

St George Mining has completed a soil sampling and rock chip program over a previously untested area of its flagship Mt Alexander project with assay results expected about mid-January. The company also has plans in place for a new year drill program at its Lithium Star group of projects and at Destiny - a 3,000 square kilometre landholding south-west of Kalgoorlie where a high-grade rare earths discovery, announced just weeks ago, identified numerous potentially lithium-bearing pegmatites.

Radiopharm Theranostics is poised to open a second site for conducting human trials of its RAD 204 treatment for advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) having received the green light from Perth’s Hollywood Private Hospital’s Human Research Ethics Committee. The approval follows its successful Brisbane site initiation visit at Princess Alexandra Hospital prior to trials which are slated to begin as soon as next week.

Radiopharm Theranostics has stepped closer to kicking off what it says could be a “game-changing” trial for patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) after a successful initiation site visit to Brisbane’s Princess Alexandra Hospital. The visit was made ahead of the trial that will evaluate the safety and efficacy of the company’s treatment for advanced NSCLC – the most common type of lung cancer.

Novo Resources has committed to stepping up its hunt for gold in 2024 within several priority targets at its Egina Gold Camp and Balla Balla project that both sit in Western Australia’s Pilbara region. The company is awaiting assays from more than 10,500m of drilling at its Becher project and says it gleaned positive shallow results in a maiden RC program at Nunyerry North.

Estrella Resources will use a $1.327 million research-and-development tax rebate from the ATO to repay a loan facility, with about $181,000 in surplus cash to be aimed at further exploring its Carr Boyd nickel project in Western Australia’s Goldfields region. The company says it will continue its R&D work into mineralisation genesis and make a further claim at the end of the next financial year.

GreenTech Metals has wrapped up what it says has been a “transformative” year for the company after finishing a maiden diamond drilling program for both its Osborne JV and Ruth Well projects in the West Pilbara region of WA. The program involved four holes for a total of 1611m and was designed to assess stratigraphic and structural aspects of the lithium-rich pegmatites in both areas.

Strickland Metals is finishing off a prosperous 2023 in style, today revealing new assay results from air-core drilling at its Horse Well prospect in Western Australia’s Mid West region, that include a highlight hit of 36m at 1.2g/t gold from 24m, with 16m going 2.5g/t gold from 32m. The company says the intercept highlights new mineralisation potential between its Filly SW and Warmblood resources.

The addition of fluorine to the Australian Government’s list of critical minerals has put ABx Group in prime position to impact global supply after it successfully pilot tested its new fluorine reactor process. The batch-scale testing that involved the processing of waste bath was recently carried out by the company’s 83 per cent-owned subsidiary, Alcore.

AVZ Minerals has laid claim to having the world’s biggest hard-rock lithium deposit after pumping up the resource at its Manono play in the DRC to a whopping 574 million tonnes at 1.63 per cent lithium oxide. It comes on the back of tabling a maiden resource for its Carrière de L’Este pegmatite of 173 million tonnes at 1.58 per cent lithium oxide.

Meeka Metals says it has gathered high-grade gold results from 10 infill air-core drillholes at its St Anne’s resource target about 30km north-east of Meekatharra, including a 7m hit at a grade of 3.51g/t gold with 2m going 9.84g/t. The company says the results are supported by other high-grade intercepts in adjacent holes, including 1m at 13.45g/t gold.

A Strickland Metals decision to lock its full focus on its Marwari target at Yandal in Western Australia is paying almost immediate dividends, with new high-grade gold hits including 24m at 7.4g/t from 29m and a second hole yielding 3m at 8.9g/t gold from 71m. The company says the 24m intersection also contained a 5m slice going 28g/t gold.

Everest Metals has determined a JORC-compliant rubidium-lithium exploration target at its Mt Edon project in WA’s South Murchison region, but says more work is required to quantify the geological system. The company has today outlined a resource target range of between 3.2 and 4.5 million tonnes, with potential grades going 0.23 to 0.35 per cent rubidium oxide and 0.08 to 0.12 per cent lithium oxide.

ABx Group says three runs of its new bath reactor under standard process conditions have removed more than 90 per cent of fluorine from test samples and is producing hydrogen fluoride gas from each batch. The company says metal sulphate samples from the process have been sent for analysis to confirm yields, with results expected next month.

Everest Metals is on the hunt for potential ore-grade gold and base metals mineralisation in an area of about 22 square kilometres at its Revere project in Western Australia’s Mid West region following an initial drilling program. The company interprets the results as evidence of proximity to potentially significant styles of mineralisation such as base metal sedimentary exhalative deposits and possible orogenic gold.

BMG Resources’ second round of drilling at its Bullabulling project near Coolgardie in Western Australia has nailed high-grade gold hits up to 4m at 10.12g/t in shallow drilling and confirmed stacked, lithium-rich pegmatites with a best slice of 4m at 0.56 per cent lithium oxide. The company says it highlights its discovery potential in a “world-class Australian lithium and gold region”.

Gold Mountain’s stream sediment sampling has identified anomalous lithium in four of its five Juremal licences in Brazil and has defined targets for follow-up soil sampling to home in on the sources of the anomalies. The company says the three best stream targets are associated with west-flowing tributaries originating at or beyond the eastern boundaries of its easternmost block of licences.

A GreenTech Metals rock-chip sampling campaign has nailed new lithium hits along an east-west-trending, 2.5km-long pegmatite zone at its Kobe trend in Western Australia’s Pilbara region, with the best results ranging from 1.01 to 2.31 per cent lithium oxide. The company says the results demonstrate the local persistence of high-grade lithium along the western part of the Kobe trend.

Recent RC drilling at Kalgoorlie Gold Mining’s Providence prospect in Western Australia’s Goldfields region has turned up promising gold grades from just 20m depth, with broad runs of lower, but supportive grades prompting thoughts of open-pit mining. Management says the similarity of mineralisation to its adjacent Kirgella Gift prospect – and a possible plunge intersection between the two plots – may provide thicker or higher-grade zones.