Doug Bright

Aurumin has smashed its previous ASX trading volume record out of the park after it revealed a bonanza gold grade hit of 1m going 344 grams per tonne from 43m in drilling at its Sandstone project in Western Australia’s Mid West region. The immediate market response saw 56 million of the company’s shares change hands – more than six times its previous record volume.

Si6 Metals has increased its tenement area in the Limpopo Mobile Belt in Botswana by 45 per cent to a total of 2868 square kilometres after being granted a new 903sq-km prospecting licence. The newly-granted ground in the South African country sits 7km south of the company’s high-grade copper-silver projects at Airstrip and Dibete and the Maibele North nickel-copper-cobalt.

Neometals is looking to stage a US$10 million ($AU15.1 million) cash-and-shares payment to grab an 80 per cent share in a United States-based company which has developed a hydrometallurgical process that selectively recovers precious metals from industrial waste streams. The company says it has secured an option for the acquisition, believing its expertise could increase production by further refining the pilot-plant process.

Terrain Minerals says the latest gallium and rare earths hits at its Larin’s Lane project have provided more compelling evidence of an emerging mineralisation province in Western Australia’s Mid West region. The company’s air-core sample assays show total rare earth oxides (TREO) to a high of 3254ppm and surprisingly-elevated gallium signatures to a maximum of 53.74ppm gallium oxide.

In this week’s edition of Bulls N’ Bears Big Hits, we unravel some of the more curious drill intersections revealed on the ASX last week, including Turaco Gold’s long 105m hit at 1.61 grams per tonne gold from 135m. We also take a close look at other notable drill hits from Everest Metals Corporation, Toubani Resources, Venture Minerals and Aurum Resources.

Image Resources has edged a step closer to its mining plans at its high-grade Atlas mineral sands project 90km north of Boonanarring in Western Australia after securing environmental approval for the proposed development. Atlas’ 18 million-tonne resource features a heavy mineral grade of 6 per cent, including 9.3 per cent zircon, 46 per cent ilmenite, 4 per cent leucoxene and 6.5 per cent rutile.

Askari Metals has revealed some tantalising high-grade copper-silver mineralisation in rock chip sampling at its Callawa project in WA’s Pilbara region, jagging a top hit of 6.78 per cent copper with 2.34g/t silver. The headline result is supported by a second sample that produced 4.35 per cent copper with 8.25g/t silver and a third offering of 2.02 per cent copper with 6.42g/t silver.

A granted 21-year mining lease over two gold deposits set to join Classic Minerals’ stable of operations will give the company what it says is a bigger play at its Forrestania project area near Southern Cross in Western Australia. The new 1804-hectare lease complements the company’s existing Kat Gap mining operation and clears the pathway to an expanded operation.

American West Metals has delivered three holes intersecting between 30.5m and 47.2m of visible copper sulphides after reverse-circulation drilling at its Storm copper project in Canada’s Nunavut territory. The second hole in the program revealed a visible copper sulphide run of 36.5m dominated by chalcocite – an important copper ore mineral – between 79.3m and 115.8m downhole, just north of the company’s Cyclone deposit.

Askari Metals’ mapping and sampling at the Kestrel target within its Uis project in Namibia has unveiled visible high-grade spodumene – a lithium mineral – with rock chips assaying up to 3.06 per cent lithium oxide. Ten of the 32 samples taken produced lithium grades exceeding 1 per cent lithium oxide, with the top five assaying 3.06, 2.97, 2.91, 2.88 and 2.28 per cent, respectively.

In this week’s edition of Bulls N’ Bears Big Hits, we unravel some of the most curious drill intersections revealed on the ASX, including Warriedar Resources’ stunning gold hit of 4m at 14.49g/t. We also take a close look at other notable drill hits in the past week from Ora Gold, Australian Gold and Copper, Dateline Resources and Patriot Battery Metals.

GreenTech Metals has taken the first steps towards forming a copper alliance with its neighbour Anax Metals in Western Australia’s Pilbara region after the pair signed a memorandum of understanding aimed at establishing a new processing hub. The pair will now move to assess the potential to treat base metals from GreenTech’s Whundo project at Anax’s proposed Whim Creek processing facility.

Aurum Resources has added extra punch to its Boundiali gold project in northern Côte d'Ivoire, adding more ground to the north of the West African operation that last week recorded a glittering hit of 90m at 1.16g/t gold. The company can earn up to 70 per cent in the adjacent ground after signing an agreement with local Ivorian company Geb & Nut Resources.

Horizon Minerals has inked a toll milling agreement with FMR Investments to process 200,000 tonnes of gold ore from its Cannon underground mine at the Greenfields Mill near Coolgardie in Western Australia. The binding agreement comes alive in December, with Horizon arranging contract mining and the 67km haulage of ore to Greenfields by road. Milling is expected to take up to eight months to complete.

With world copper prices remaining close to all-time highs, GreenTech Metals believes it now has a “significant exploration opportunity” after an exhaustive review at its Whundo project in Western Australia’s Pilbara region. The review highlighted four significant volcanogenic massive sulphide copper-zinc targets within a 2.2km-long zone, offering considerable scope for resource extensions to the 5.3 million-tonne Whundo copper-zinc deposit.

A project-wide lithium sweep of St George Mining’s Mt Alexander operation near the historic Western Australian town of Menzies has isolated multiple new drill targets for a campaign slated to launch in the second half of this year. The company’s soil sampling and lithium pegmatite fertility review also identified geochemical analogues and a relationship between local gold mineralisation and pegmatites.

The identification of multiple new high-grade copper targets at American West Metals’ Cyclone prospect in Canada has the company contemplating its potential for resource growth at its wider Storm project. The company’s recent moving loop electromagnetic survey at the Somerset Island site in Nunavut has unveiled what it says are “outstanding” new copper targets that include likely resource extensions in most directions.

White Cliff Minerals is ready to scratch into the surface at Canada’s Great Bear Lake after securing Federal Government approval for all of the licences at its Radium Point uranium-copper-gold-silver project. The company’s total project tenure at the Northwest Territories site encloses 2900 square kilometres of the Great Bear magmatic zone that is known for its iron oxide-copper-gold and uranium potential.

Meeka Metals has strengthened the indicated mineral resource for its optimised Turnberry open pit in WA’s Mid West, lifting it by 26 per cent to 290,000 ounces of gold. The revision follows infill drilling to December last year and retains a resource of 10.7 million tonnes at 2g/t gold for 690,000 ounces – but 85 per cent of the resource now sits in the indicated category.

In the first of Bulls N’ Bears’ new weekly series, “Doug Bright’s Greatest Hits”, our senior analyst gets the dirt under his well-worn fingernails to pull apart some of last week’s most intriguing ASX finds. The column will run the rule each week over a range of commodities, geological successes, oddities and matters of processing and metallurgical interest.

ABx Group has expanded the rare earths resource at its combined Deep Leads-Rubble Mound-and Wind Break deposits in Tasmania by 70 per cent, to 89 million tonnes at a grade of 844ppm total rare earths oxides. Importantly, the resource contains what the company describes as “the highest proportion of combined dysprosium and terbium magnet rare earths oxides of any clay-hosted rare earths resource in Australia”.

A recent drone aeromagnetics survey by Buxton Resources has unveiled a north-east-trending cluster of magnetic anomalies in the south-central part of the company’s 100 per cent-owned Wolverine prospect in Arizona. The cluster coincides with the orientation of copper-molybdenum mineralised porphyry dykes, with rock chip sampling yielding 1.2 per cent copper and 383ppm moly next to Buxton’s permitted drill site.

Horizon Minerals has tipped $2.93 million into its till after selling a share package it received from Vox Royalty late last year following a royalties divestment deal relating to gold projects in WA’s Goldfields region. Horizon also collected an initial $4 million when the agreement was struck and Vox later decided to complete the deal via the share package instead of a further cash consideration.

Larvotto Resources says engineering studies have shown it can double the process plant throughput at its Hillgrove gold-antimony operation in NSW up to 500,000 tonnes per annum, with only minimal upgrade and modification required. The company says its capacity to produce gold concentrate and doré in conjunction with antimony concentrate can easily be increased by expanding the crusher feed rate from 220,000 tonnes per year.

Strickland Metals says it has delivered samples from its first three diamond drillholes in Western Australia’s Yandal gold belt to the laboratory for assay, while reverse-circulation and diamond drilling is continuing. The company says it expects assay results to be returned in June. All three holes were drilled at Palomino, with two being put into the existing mineral resource for structural information.

DiscovEx Resources is on the cusp of a major transformation after its bid to snare Finland-based private Australian company Latitude 66 Cobalt was given a unanimous tick of approval from that firm’s board of directors. Latitude owns several projects in Finland, with its most advanced project containing Europe’s second-biggest undeveloped cobalt-gold resource that features 5800 tonnes of cobalt and 650,000 ounces of gold.

Buru Energy’s interpretation of 3D seismic data from its wholly-owned conventional Rafael condensate-rich wet gas discovery has thrown up a new shallow resource in its exploration permit in the Canning Basin. The new target zone, which it has designated Rafael Shallow, consists of two clastic reservoirs sitting at less than 1200m depth, with one stacked about 130m to 170m above the other.

The door has been kicked open for Lycaon Resources to start exploring its Stansmore niobium-rare earths project in Western Australia’s West Arunta region after it secured consent from Mines Minister, David Michael. The company says the approval will allow it to start exploration programs, including heritage and gravity surveys and drilling campaigns, on a site designated for the use and benefit of its Aboriginal inhabitants.

American West Metals has vowed to uncover new zones of copper mineralisation at its Storm project on Canada’s Somerset Island after kicking off this year’s exploration and resource definition drilling program. The initial RC campaign will also further explore the resource potential at the company’s Thunder prospect where last year’s drilling jagged a 48.6m copper intercept going 3 per cent copper.

Galan Lithium has lifted the resource estimate for its 100 per cent-owned Argentine Hombre Muerto West lithium project to 8.6 million tonnes contained lithium carbonate equivalent at 859 mg/l lithium. The significant increase, the fourth since March 2020, amounts to an 18 per cent uplift in tonnes alongside another uptick in grade improving what was already one of the highest grade brine estimates in the country.

White Cliff Minerals’ review of historic datasets for its Radium Point project in Canada has highlighted multiple high-grade uranium-copper-gold-silver targets including 14.15 per cent uranium oxide. The project forms the northern half of the approximately 2,900 sq km licence area held by the company which says results exceed its expectations and that the targets will be assessed in the upcoming 2024 field program.

Askari Metals is preparing for a flood of results from a major trenching campaign after submitting 2000 samples for analysis at its Namibian Uis lithium project. The company says it has now completed mapping and sampling of priority pegmatites on its north-easternmost exploration permit at Uis where it targeted four key pegmatites with 135 trenches for a total of 7269m of trenching. It is now working to generate additional targets.