Matt Birney

TSX-listed conglomerate gold explorer, Novo Resources, has inked an important heritage agreement with the Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation that covers a total of 1,492 square kilometres of country across a substantial portion of the company’s Pilbara gold exploration play. The agreement facilitates and potentially expedites the process of exploration.

Aurora Labs has executed on a strategy to refresh its board in line with its vision to get set for the commercialisation of its 3D printing technology. Perth corporate finance player, Grant Mooney of Mooney & Partners corporate advisory is now in the Chair and COO Peter Snowsill will step up into the interim CEO role as founder and 3D printing specialist, Dave Budge moves into the role of Chief Technical Officer.

Podium Minerals’ non-executive chairman and major shareholder, Clayton Dodd has stepped up into the executive chair role in a move that is part of a plan to cut corporate overheads by $300,000 per annum whilst continuing to leverage the expertise of the existing management team. Podium’s CEO, Tom Stynes will step down but will continue to manage the company operations and Grant ‘Rocky’ Osborne has resigned as a director in support of the cuts.

Coziron Resources will soon have a diamond rig operating at its Croydon Top Camp project in WA’s Pilbara region after the company’s maiden drill program hit some notable results recently, including 8m grading 10.2 g/t gold. The maiden program was drilled on wide-spaced sections and the company says the new drilling will provide valuable structural information on the orientation of its emerging discovery.

Coronavirus willing, Hammer Metals will have the rods turning soon at its Mt Isa project in Queensland after being awarded Government grants amounting to $283,000. The windfall will fund a diamond drilling program at the Koppany copper-rare earths project and two magneto telluric surveys, one at the Kalman copper, molybdenum, gold and rhenium deposit and the second across part of the Mt Philp Breccia that is prospective for gold and copper.

Hot Chili has struck a win-win deal with the Chilean Government by accepting an offer for lease mining and processing of ore from its Productora copper-gold deposit in Chile, which will see Hot Chili realise surprise revenues from Productora way ahead of any internal planning. The company said its agreement potentially represents between US$400,000 to US$500,000 in annual payments for its 80% interest in the Productora JV.

Altech Chemicals is continuing research at the Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramic Technologies and Systems in Dresden, Germany on HPA battery applications with a focus on lithium-ion battery separator technology and the impact of alumina impurities on battery safety. Altech also said this week that construction at its Malaysian HPA plant had been suspended due to the imposition of a COVID-19 movement control order.

Infinity Lithium has managed to tap an innovative, European, public private partnership known as EIT InnoEnergy for at least AUD$1.5m in funding to support stage one of a lithium pilot plant at its San Jose lithium project in Spain. EIT InnoEnergy is the manager of the European Battery Alliance whose stated goal is a competitive and fully integrated battery manufacturing chain in Europe and preventing technological dependence on Asia.

King River Resources and its consultants are pushing hard to achieve the holy grail of high purity alumina purity levels of 99.99% ahead of the tabling of a PFS for the ASX-listed company’s giant Speewah HPA/titanium/vanadium/iron project in WA. King River recently pivoted away from titanium/vanadium/iron in favour of the highly sought after HPA product. All are present at the project.

Big River Gold is forging ahead with its efforts to develop the Borborema gold project in Brazil, despite the current global economic headwinds. With a DFS for a multi-million ounce gold project on the street and over A$3m in the bank, Big River is well placed to weather the Coronavirus storm and the prospect of potentially adding a newly identified waste by-product that is potentially saleable should change the economic dynamics.

As AVZ Minerals approaches the home straight of its definitive feasibility study, the lithium developer has revealed that the first phase of its heavy metals test work has yielded potentially saleable tin and tantalum concentrates from its Manono lithium project in the DRC. AVZ recovered a total of 63% tin at a grade of 64.1% cassiterite, using the company’s existing lithium metallurgical flow sheet.

Novo Resources has finalised the acquisition of its remaining joint venture interests from Artemis Resources in its Purdy’s Reward and 47K gold leases south of Karratha in WA’s Pilbara. Novo issued 1,640,000 shares to Artemis and paid out A$820,000 in cash consideration for the remaining interests in the leases. Sorrento Resources, Artemis’ JV partner has also been paid A$180,000 and issued with 360,000 Novo shares.

ASX-listed K2fly management has smashed its year 2 recurrent revenue targets just 9 months after picking up its “RCubed” mining software business for around $450k plus some delayed payments on the back of revenue targets being achieved. The rapidly growing ASX-listed software company said this week that its annual recurrent revenues have now hit $1.83m, representing a spectacular 247% compound annual growth rate.

Legend Mining has kicked off its planned diamond and air core drill campaign at the Rockford Project in the Fraser Range of Western Australia, where drilling late last year hit a near 15-metre long zone grading 1.07% nickel, 0.75% copper and 0.06% cobalt from 114 meters downhole. Legend has outlasted a swag of other juniors in the Fraser Range and is now well blooded for the hunt.

ASX-listed smart home product supplier, Quantify Technologies, says it is well placed to face the Coronavirus-inspired market headwinds after raising A$1.75m back in February and a number of previously placed orders are now starting to be delivered. The Perth-based company has also managed to slash $1m off its annual cash burn as it focuses on its manufacturing and distribution deals in the East coast.

ASX-listed Hot Chili cant put a foot wrong, with its ongoing drill program continuing to deliver blistering numbers at the Cortadera project in Chile. Latest results include 542m grading 0.5% copper and 0.2 grams per tonne gold from 422m at the Cupero 3 deposit. The most recent drill hits have extended the deposit’s high grade core to well over 500m in length and 200m in width.

Neometals has stunned the market by delivering another cash windfall to its shareholders with a 2 cent, partially franked dividend set to hit their bank accounts on April 3rd. The ‘mine to market’, battery metals innovator will pay out A$10.9m of its December 31st cash balance of over $100m to fund the dividend which comes on top of $45m worth of cash returns paid in the last four years.

Lithium Australia looks set to drill test an exciting swarm of stacked pegmatites at Lake Johnston that outcrop over 450m x 100m. The company previously said it is looking at an exploration target at its Medcalf project in the Lake Johnston region of between 5 million tonnes and 8 Mt at between 0.8% lithium oxide and 1.2% Li2O. Lake Johnston is exquisitely located near three major lithium deposits.

Ramelius Resources’ takeover bid for ASX-listed Spectrum Metals has gone unconditional after Ramelius’ relevant interest in Spectrum surpassed 50 per cent. The cash and scrip offer by Ramelius, announced on February 10th and quickly endorsed by the Spectrum board, implied a 50 odd per cent premium to Spectrum’s closing share price at the time.

Blina Minerals’ new Barkly project near Tennant Creek in the NT has taken on a new complexion after the Perth ASX-listed company tabled some exciting drill results from its maiden drill program at the project. Best numbers include 20m grading 1.67% copper and 1.79g/t gold from 156m at the Bluebird prospect and 15m going 3.46% copper and 0.61g/t gold including 1m grading 4.8% copper and 3.9g/t gold at the end of hole.

Local heavy rare earths developer, Northern Minerals, has sold its second shipment of the year to trading company, Thyssenkrupp, with 114 tonnes exported from Darwin and bound for separation facilities in China. Northern also sold 22 tonnes of heavy rare earth carbonate back in January this year from its pilot plant in north-eastern WA, signalling an increase in output from its Browns Range project.

Venus Metals has entered into a binding term sheet with ASX-listed eMetals for the sale of its Nardoo Hill lithium exploration tenement in WA’s Gascoyne region. Under the terms of the deal, Venus will receive $15,000 in cash, 25 million shares in eMetals priced at $0.014 cents per share and it will retain some upside to the project courtesy of a $0.50 cent per tonne royalty for any ore extracted from the tenement.

The total contract value of all current clients on the books at ASX-listed K2fly, utilising its “Infoscope” and “RCubed” mining software products is up 41 per cent quarter on quarter to over A$4.7 million. In a positive sign this week, mining giant and foundation K2fly client, AngloGold Ashanti, re-signed with K2fly for another three years with a total contract value in excess of A$240,000.

Buru Energy has received $1.9m cash for its share of the latest sale of crude oil from its Ungani oil field in Western Australia’s Canning basin. The sale rounds out a solid quarter of oil sales for Buru who previously predicted it would achieve $5.4m in oil sales for the March quarter – a prediction that is looking good despite the recent drop in oil prices.

After an aggressive exploration campaign across its Menzies and Goongarrie projects in WA, Kingwest Resources has now surpassed the 250,000-ounce milestone for near surface gold resources across the two project areas. 233,336 of those ounces are housed at the company’s jewel in the crown, the Menzies gold project with the previous combined shallow resource estimate across both projects jumping from 171,000 ounces.

Horizon Minerals has picked up a respectable $6M in a combined debt and equity that looks like it will be enough to see the ASX junior pour it first gold bar from the Boorara gold project near Kalgoorlie. As part of the package, Horizon made a $2M placement before costs at A$0.08c per share representing a 10% discount to its 15-day VWAP of $0.089c, an astounding effort in a terrible market.

Australian Potash has secured its first “take-or-pay” term sheet for the supply of 20,000 tonnes of “K-Brite” premium Sulphate of Potash fertiliser per annum from its Lake Wells project to massive Sydney-based chemicals and ingredients distributor, Redox who boasts sales of over A$700 million per annum. The binding term sheet runs for ten years and gives Redox exclusive distribution rights through Australia and New Zealand.

Perth-listed lithium developer, AVZ Minerals, has achieved an impressive average of 69% fine lithia recoveries from stage two metallurgical flotation test work at its giant Manono lithium and tin project in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Elsewhere at the nearby Carriere de l’Este deposit, AVZ conducted initial test work and found randomly sampled high grade sections from diamond core that produced a 2.37% lithium oxide sample.

Venus Metals, along with its JV partner Rox Resources, has just finished flying an Xcite airborne electromagnetic survey, or “HEM” at its Penny West Deep South Project near Youanmi in WA that has identified what looks to be some compelling geophysical zones of interest along the prospective Youanmi shear zone. These zones have a higher electrical conductivity than the surrounding rocks, which may indicate that sulphide minerals are present at depth.

Spectrum Metals has followed up the highest grade drill results seen to date outside of its Penny North deposit in WA and made some further encouraging hits including 3 metres grading 9.62 grams per tonne and 2m grading 13.0g/t gold from its Magenta prospect. It looks as if the company may also be onto a new discovery with a “stratigraphic” hole at the Golden Hinde prospect returning 1m grading 54.9g/t gold from 77m downhole.

Fast-moving telco innovator Vonex, has been granted a US patent for its “Oper8tor” smart phone voice and messaging App, just as it completes third-party testing. Vonex said the patent validates the unique, cross-platform communication capability of the App and the upstart telco will now move to a closed user group for a review of the App’s stability and scalability ahead of the commercial roll-out of the product.

Alterra has tapped into the database, knowledge banks and networks of well-known Harvey avocado and citrus grower, Richard Eckersley. The parties have inked “Local Partner and Data Access” agreements that provide Alterra with access to the expert grower’s cropping data for 15 years and Eckersley will also act as something of a forward scout in the South West for Alterra who is on the hunt for investment grade crops.