Matt Birney

ASX-listed mineral sands miner, Image Resources, has managed to relieve itself of a previously unloved heavy mineral concentrate inventory that was mounting in the wake of uncertain economic conditions brought on by coronavirus restrictions. The company’s key Chinese offtake customers have now purchased 100,000 tonnes of HMC from the Boonanarring mineral sands operation 80km north of Perth.

ASX-listed base metals hopeful, Blackstone Minerals, has purchased another diamond drill rig to accelerate its exploration at the emerging Ban Chang nickel prospect where it is looking to take the closed down Ta Khoa processing plant out of mothballs. The third rig in the company’s armoury will pepper Ban Chang with new holes after its first round of drilling there encountered sulphide nickel mineralisation.

Another weighty suite of nickel-copper-cobalt results from Legend Mining’s Mawson prospect in Western Australia’s Fraser Range has again eclipsed all previous drill numbers, with combined intercepts from two separate drill holes spanning a length of 53.85 metres and nearly 100 metres respectively. Included in the new results is a 19.2m interval grading 1.69 per cent nickel, 1.23 per cent copper and 0.09 per cent cobalt from 97.9m.

Kingwest Resources has identified multiple new high-grade lodes at its Menzies gold project in Western Australia. The company is now undertaking optimisation studies on its near surface gold resources to determine how the recent aggressive drilling campaign has potentially enhanced the economic viability of the project. New high-grade lodes have been discovered at the Central Zone.

PolarX has set the date for two diamond drill rigs to arrive on site at its exciting Zackly East gold-copper prospect at its USA based Alaska Range project. Around 3,000 metres of diamond drilling is planned to follow up on previous broad, high-grade gold and copper hits including an impressive 55m intersection grading 2.8 grams per tonne gold and 0.6 per cent copper.

ASX-listed mining “software-as-a-service” provider, K2fly, has defied the financial fallout of the global coronavirus pandemic as its RCubed mineral resource and reserve reporting software solution continues to attract more resources big hitters. The latest multinational group to take up K2fly’s mineral resource governance software package is French-headquartered nuclear energy giant, Orano, who has signed a five-year contract with K2fly that has a total value of A$300,000.

Just weeks after Kairos Minerals moved to double its Pilbara land holdings, the Perth based company has collected a suite of high-grade rock chips going up to nearly 13 grams per tonne gold at its Skywell project in the Pilbara with five samples coming in at an average grade of 4.8 grams per tonne gold across a 130-metre length of outcropping quartz vein.

Venus Metals and Rox Resources have kicked off an RC drilling program at their Penny West Deep South and Sovereign prospects at the JV partners’ Youanmi gold project in WA as they continue their quest to revive the historic gold mining region. The partners have already enjoyed significant success at the project with long, ounce plus intersections already rolling off the drillbit at Youanmi.

Element 25’s sub-sampling of diamond core drilled back in 2013 from the Coodamudgi deposit resulted in manganese grades going up to 42.3 per cent right from surface. Coodamudgi is located near the company’s Yanneri Ridge resource within its Butcherbird project in the Pilbara. Butcherbird already has an outstanding pre-feasibility study wrapped around it showing a pre-tax NPV of $283m at a manganese concentrate grade of 33 percent.

Blackstone Minerals’ Ban Chang prospect has delivered another set of impressive numbers with a nearly 10 metre long drill intersection going 1.45 per cent nickel, 0.9 per cent copper, 0.08 per cent cobalt and 0.7 grams per tonne platinum, palladium plus gold, from 57m down hole. The new result is from a step-out hole at the company’s Ta Khoa nickel-copper-PGM project in Vietnam that was drilled over one kilometre away from Blackstone’s maiden hole at Ban Chang.

Middle Island Resources' Sandstone project looks to be the gift that just keeps on giving with latest drill results showing a 4m hit going 50.5 g/t gold which includes a 1m section at a crazy 198 grams per tonne gold – and only 3 metres from surface. Additional results from the Ridge prospect are expected to flow over the coming weeks.

St George Mining has entered the next phase of development and drilling at its Mt Alexander nickel sulphide project in Western Australia. A deep diamond drilling program kicked off this week at the Investigators prospect with the collaring of a massive, 800-metre deep hole targeting the depths of the ore system. The company has now completed drilling at the Stricklands deposit with a maiden resource expected in weeks.

ASX-listed tech player, Aurora Labs’ 3D metal printing business strategy has pivoted from a manufacturing and distribution model to a less costly and lower risk partnership, licensing and royalty model. The major strategic shift follows the completion of a review of the company’s 3D metal printing technology to determine what is needed over the next 12 months to advance its fast RMP-1 printer in particular towards commercial readiness.

Venus Metals and JV partner, Rox Resources have tabled their first set of metallurgical test work numbers at the Youanmi gold project in West Australia’s Goldfields. The results show an impressive average gold recovery from the oxide material at the Grace prospect of 97 per cent. The test work also returned a gold recovery of 94 per cent in oxide material at the Plant Zone and Main Lode.

With the gold price piercing the US$1,800 per ounce mark and threatening to test the A$2,600/oz level, emerging gold developer, Calidus Resources, is moving quickly to get its ducks in a row in order to meet an accelerated development schedule at its planned $116 million Warrawoona gold project in WA’s East Pilbara district.

ASX-listed Great Southern Mining has hit visible gold in drill core from quartz veins from 164.5m down-hole at its high-grade Cox’s Find underground gold deposit near Laverton in WA’s Goldfields. Assays are being fast-tracked after one diamond hole was drilled immediately down-plunge from historical workings where high-grade gold mineralisation was observed last year.

After a hiatus period that was partly caused by Government policy decisions and COVID-19, Northern Minerals is looking to start producing rare earths in WA again. The company has begun planning the logistics to restart its Browns Range pilot plant in WA’s Kimberley region which will be the only substantial heavy rare earths producer outside of China.

Ora Banda Mining has delivered its inaugural definitive feasibility study at the Davyhurst project in WA that it picked up when Eastern Goldfields went bust. The DFS is underpinned by an existing 1.2 million tonne per annum processing plant, which is reflected in the project’s extraordinarily low CAPEX figure of just AUD$45m that it intends to pay back in only 14 months.

Legend Mining’s ascension from ‘explorer’ to the ranks of ‘discoverer’ has been an admirably fought geological crusade in Western Australia’s Fraser Range, with its Mawson prospect returning another cracking suite of nickel-copper-cobalt assays. Spectacular visible massive sulphide intersections previously pointed to the potential for some exciting grades, however, the latest numbers went beyond expectations with nearly 36 metres of combined high-grade mineralisation.

Barton Gold is set to launch into a new drilling campaign at its Tarcoola gold project in South Australia, with a recent geophysical survey identifying ten, shallow, near-mine targets for testing. The company has already issued a 10,000 metre drilling contract, with the rods set to start turning towards the end of July 2020 and continue through into September.

Element 25 has inked its first non-binding off-take Memorandum of Understanding with OM Materials who is looking to purchase manganese concentrate from its Butcherbird project in the Pilbara. The project is hurtling towards production and slated to churn out AUD$24.4m a year in free cash. The MoU will ultimately see between 50 and 100 per cent of the product spoken for over five years.

Ora Banda Mining has delivered a solid increase to its gold inventory at Davyhurst in WA after it tabled a maiden resource for the Callion underground deposit of 77,000 ounces of high-grade gold, paving the way for the company to complete a DFS over the project. The new resource bumps the global resource for Davyhurst up to 2.13 million ounces.

Calidus Resources’ updated PFS for its Warrawoona gold project in the Pilbara shows another $20m a year falling to the bottom line compared to previous estimates. The latest set of numbers which have been tabled on the back of a simplified mine plan will no doubt be helpful for Calidus who is now getting dangerously close to production at Warrawoona.

Godolphin Resources is set to drill test its Gundagai South project with recent mapping and sampling pointing to some interesting looking ‘walk up’ gold targets. Recent field work has identified priority areas associated with historical mine workings at the Surprise North, Highway and Stoney Creek South prospects. Work is expected to kick off in August 2020.

Terrain Minerals has acquired the mineral rights to a prospecting licence known as Wilsons Patch, a postage stamp sized tenement right in the middle of its Wildviper gold project, located north of Leonora in Western Australia. The ground has been in private prospecting hands for decades and Terrain has inked a simple milling royalty agreement with no upfront payment to access the prospecting license.

Element 25 is on track to meet an aggressive development schedule at its Butcherbird manganese project in the Pilbara, with a production water bore drilling program now underway. The bore holes will supply process water for Element 25’s proposed manganese beneficiation plant and they are a very necessary piece of infrastructure required to catapult the project into production.

Middle Island Resources is hitting its straps at Sandstone with the latest drilling results from its Ridgeway discovery delivering outstanding high-grade intercepts including 4 metres at 99.5 g/t gold which hosts a 1 metre resample topping the scales at an extraordinary 390 g/t gold. This continues a run of impressive results from the company which has seen it bank five new gold deposits since the start of the year.

Anglo Australian has entered into a farm out agreement with ASX-listed AuKing Mining that will see AuKing earn up to 75 per cent of its Koongie Park base metals project in WA’s north by paying A$1m in cash and spending $3m on exploration over three years. Anglo said cash proceeds from the deal will be used to advance its flagship Mandilla gold project near Kambalda.

With its market cap now sitting comfortably over $100m, the hurdles are starting to drop now as Calidus Resources races towards gold production in the Pilbara. Arguably the most difficult hurdle to navigate on the pathway to production is EPA approval and Calidus now has this important one behind it at the Warrawoona gold project after getting the nod from the EPA.

Neometals Ltd is looking to create a low-cost vanadium production hub in Sweden by utilising its innovative processing technologies to treat waste from SSAB’s Lulea steel mill. A recently tabled scoping study over the project estimates it will throw off almost A$80 million a year in cash flow over an initial 10.5-year life with the next stage of test work already underway.

Delecta Ltd looks set to ride the next uranium wave that is already starting to form with the ASX-listed company announcing it has picked up a controlling interest in a USA uranium project that is littered with old workings including high grade vanadium. Delecta will pay $150k and 20 million options for the Colorado based project entity.

In a sign that it is nearing the pointy end of development, AVZ Minerals has tested the market by calling for pre-mining tender submissions at its massive Manono lithium project in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The tenders are for infrastructure estimated to be worth USD$300m at Manono that boasts a gigantic 400 million tonne resource grading 1.65 per cent Li2O.