Matt Birney

Unlisted Gawler Craton-focused Barton Gold has just completed an over-subscribed, un-brokered private placement of A$3.75 million to fund an upcoming drilling program at its Tarcoola high-grade open pit gold mine in South Australia ahead of a planned IPO in early 2021. Barton is targeting mineral resource additions below Tarcoola’s existing pit floor to support the re-start of the Tarcoola mine.

Novo Resources continues to add to its stable of thoroughbred gold projects in the Pilbara, this week entering into an option agreement with local privateers to acquire the Bellary Dome project. The tenure shows marked similarities to the company’s existing conglomerate-gold targets in the area, with the acquisition being the second in as many weeks as the company eyes a production hub in the region.

St George Mining has swung into action at Mt Alexander in WA with an ‘around the clock’ drilling program over the Stricklands deposit designed to quickly define an open pit resource and produce metallurgical samples for its scoping and mining studies. The company is also nearing the completion of a regional geophysical survey designed to highlight additional targets for deeper drilling testing.

ASX-listed Agribusiness developer, Alterra Ltd, has appointed corporate finance veteran, Mike Franklin as its Chief Financial Officer, strengthening a team that recently added capital markets specialist, John McGlue to its ranks of non-executive directors. Franklin was previously CFO then CEO of Titan Australia, a fully owned subsidiary of NYSE listed Titan International, Australia’s largest wheel and axle manufacturer for the agricultural, mining and construction industries.

ASX-listed mining ‘software-as-a-service’ provider, K2fly, continues to build the annual recurrent revenue stream from its software contracts which hit A$2.2m this quarter after mega miner, South 32, locked in a 5-year contract for its “RCubed” mineral resource governance software. The company said its total contracted value for all multi-year contracts has jumped 45% to nearly A$7m.

A major clinical study involving 3,000 patients has validated ASX-listed Proteomics’ “PromarkerD” predictive test for diabetic kidney disease with the study confirming that PromarkerD has a high probability of predicting a clinical decline in kidney function up to four years in advance of it actually happening. With the major milestone achieved, Proteomics is now looking to commercialise the technology in the USA.

Lithium Australia’s patent application for its second generation “LieNA” lithium processing technology received a boost this week after the International Preliminary Examining Authority said its technology was “novel”, “inventive” and “industrially applicable”, all of which are precursors required to progress the patent application and seek legal protection in selected jurisdictions. LieNA recovers lithium from fine and variable grade spodumene that may otherwise report to waste.

Pilbara conglomerate gold pioneer, TSX-listed Novo Resources, has consolidated its position in WA’s East Pilbara after acquiring three new leases covering 19 square kilometres along trend with its Beatons Creek project, 75 km north east of Nullagine. The vendors will receive A$100,000 in cash and 324,506 Novo shares for the exploration areas known as the Mt Elsie project.

Venus Metals Corporation is reaping the rewards of its highly successful corporate strategy after Rox Resources and eMetals agreed to exercise agreements with Venus that will see over $3.16 million in cash and shares delivered into the company’s already burgeoning coffers. JV partner Rox Resources has agreed to boost its stake in the Youanmi gold project whilst eMetals has moved to purchase a second lithium project from Venus.

Just a week after closing a significant $20 million capital raise on the back of a recent 30 m massive sulphide drill intercept at its Mawson nickel-copper prospect, ASX-listed Legend Mining has again extended the prospective footprint at Mawson using gravity and aircore geochemistry data. Legend has now scheduled an RC drilling campaign to test the new gravity and geochem anomalies.

ASX-listed Blackstone Minerals has now threaded three drill holes into a lucrative looking EM target at its Ban Chang prospect at its Ta Khoa nickel-PGE project in Vietnam, extending the known massive sulphide mineralisation to an impressive 1 km in strike length. The latest drill hole intersected a healthy 4.6 m of massive and semi-massive sulphide veins within a 9 m sulphide interval.

Great Southern Mining has wasted no time in getting drill rigs back on site at its northern Goldfields Cox’s Find project to follow up on the high-grade gold shoots that were left behind by the old timers at the long abandoned artisanal underground mine. The Perth based explorer is planning to drill nine kilometres of RC in over two phases.

Impact Minerals has doubled down on its ground position in the emerging Southwest nickel province of Western Australia with the company applying for an additional 1,050 square kilometres of ground surrounding its already extensive Arkun Nickel-Copper-PGE project southeast of Perth. Arkun now covers over 1,900 square kilometres, with the company looking to hunt down a look-alike of the spectacular Julimar Nickel-PGE discovery to the northwest.

ASX-listed Agribusiness developer, Alterra Limited, has appointed corporate communications and financial markets specialist, John McGlue to its board. McGlue is the Principal of capital markets and shareholder advisory firm, Castle Gates Australia. In 2002, Mr McGlue acquired a 50% interest in financial PR firm Porter Novelli Perth and in 2008, the combined business was acquired by NYSE-listed FTI Consulting.

Controlled field testing is underway near Kojonup in Western Australia’s Wheatbelt for Lithium Australia’s unique spent alkaline battery waste fertiliser product. The company is testing both the slow release nature of its product and the benefits of recycled manganese and zinc as a micro-nutrient supplement for WA’s broad acre pastoralists in a region with soils that lack these two critical nutrients.

Kairos Minerals has jumped into a large-scale exploration program across the Pilbara as it looks to replicate DeGrey Mining’s stunning Hemi gold discovery just down the road. The move comes hot on the heels of Kairos’ successful $4.2 million capital raise last month. Exploration will focus on the Kangan, Mt Yorke and Fuego targets with drilling scheduled to commence in July.

After shedding its non-core assets to focus on the Dragon & Knight nickel projects in the Goldfields, Tyranna Resources is pulling out all stops to set some smart drill targets. The company said this week it has unearthed a trove of historical geophysical survey datasets that have led to at least two priority targets being identified at Lightning Gossan and the east-west trending regional dykes.

Horizon Minerals has encountered some fresh, solid gold hits at its Rose Hill project near Kalgoorlie as its first gold pour looms at the company’s Boorara project. Rose Hill, which is 35km west of Kalgoorlie, already boasts a 95,200oz gold resource. Best intercepts from three holes drilled in April were 3.4m at 17.92g/t gold, 3.7m at 9.77g/t gold and 2.5m at 3.16g/t.

Just a week after ASX-listed engineering group, Primero, became a substantial shareholder in unlisted, Gawler Craton-focused Barton Gold, Primero’s GM of Operations and Maintenance, Graham Arvidson, has accepted an invitation to sit on Barton’s board. Arvidson is a Mechanical Engineer whose fifteen years of mining industry experience will no doubt be put to use optimising Barton’s myriad of processing and mining options.

TNT Mines has been quick to get an early exploration team into the field at its promising new East Canyon uranium-vanadium project in the USA. The East Canyon project is situated in the Dry Valley, East Canyon District in Utah where the USA’s only operating conventional uranium mill resides. TNT’s share price has quadrupled since the start of last month in anticipation of a successful field season.

Middle Island Resources is set to build on its exceptional success at Sandstone with its Phase 2 drill campaign already underway. The new campaign comes hot on the heels of the company’s recent run of discoveries with five new gold deposits uncovered during Phase 1. The company is looking to upgrade its existing resources whilst keeping one eye firmly trained on even more new discoveries.

Ora Banda Mining’s turnaround of Eastern Goldfields Ltd’s Davyhurst gold project has been remarkable after the new owner this week racked up 2m ounces in gold resources. The company has posted an impressive 46% increase in the underground resource at Riverina, adding 139,000 ounces to the project that went onto care and maintenance after Eastern Goldfields went belly up in 2018.

Classic Minerals has fired up the drill rig again at its Kat Gap gold deposit near Southern Cross in WA with the dual aims of infilling its existing 92,856 oz resource and testing for extensions of the deposit. Classic will no doubt be looking to duplicate recent high-grade hits that returned double-digit grades up to a serious two ounces of gold to the tonne.

Calidus Resources has struck upon a bold growth strategy as it steams towards the development of its rapidly advancing Warrawoona gold project in the Pilbara. Drilling has kicked off at its flagship Klondyke deposit, targeting the rich inventory of gold speculated to sit below the existing resource.The company is scrubbing up a pipeline of resources to extend the life of the developing mine.

Blackham Resources’ Golden Age gold deposit at Wiluna is living up to its name, delivering some outstanding high-grade drill results. Underground drilling of the reef continues to produce impressive intercepts including 1.8 metres at 39.68 g/t gold, 2.6 metres at 21.74 g/t and 2.7 metres at 17.32 g/t gold. The company is getting set to deliver on its staged upgrade to start mining the sulphides.

Buru Energy has received an extra US$200,000 in cash for its share of the recent sale of crude oil from its Ungani oil field in Western Australia’s Canning basin. Buru’s third oil sale for the year originally settled in mid-May at A$1.2m, net to Buru, however contractual terms saw the final price tag upped by USD $200k due to rising oil prices throughout the month of May.

ASX-listed PharmAust Limited has produced some early stage positive results from laboratory testing of the effects of its anti-cancer drug, Monepantel, on the Coronavirus. The testing, which took place at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne, showed suppression of the virus by between 50% and 95% after treatment by Pharmaust’s Monepantel.

Blackstone Minerals has vectored in on a new massive sulphide nickel vein at its Ban Chang prospect in Vietnam with two separate drill holes intersecting the vein 200m apart within metres of where its EM plate modelling says it should be. One hole intersected 1.05m of massive sulphides from 58.5m whilst the second hole hit 1.2m of massive sulphides from 87m down hole.

Hot Chili is fast-tracking the development of its world-class copper-gold project in Chile after the ASX-listed company inked an agreement with Chilean Government owned ENAMI, to mine and process the high-grade copper-gold ore from its massive Productora porphyry project. The proceeds from the deal will underpin the development of Hot Chili’s nearby Cortadera porphyry deposit that is even more impressive.

ASX-listed Primero Group has become a “substantial” shareholder on the unlisted Barton Gold’s share register as the private equity backed company gears up its ready-to-mine South Australian gold assets and makes preparations to go public. Barton has a swag of solid mining assets in South Australia that it will list on the back of including the high-grade but mothballed Tarcoola open pit gold mine.

Middle Island Resources has continued its extraordinary track record at the Sandstone project in Western Australia, identifying a fifth new gold deposit from its latest drilling program that took in an impressive 13.4 kilometres. The company’s recent evaluation of historical data identified the Ridge prospect, which contains solid intercepts like 13 metres grading 3.81 grams per tonne gold from just 24m.

Kingwest Resources continues to hit gold at depth at its Menzies project 130km north of Kalgoorlie after it hit its deepest-ever intercept below the Princess May shoot, returning a metre at 25.4g/t gold from 731.5m. Kingwest said the result proves that gold mineralisation continues below level 21 at the underground workings beneath the historical Yunndaga open pit.