Matt Birney

Radiopharm Theranostics is aiming for the Big Apple. The Melbourne-based medical technology company that specialises in developing radiopharmaceutical products to diagnose and treat cancers is applying to list on the Nasdaq. If successful, the company expects to be given the ticker RADX. The Nasdaq listing will complement the existing primary listing of its ordinary shares with the ticker RAD on the ASX.

Billionaire geologist Robert Friedland’s Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold discovery in Mongolia is of biblical proportions and just 120kms to its north west, ASX-listed Xanadu Mines is onto a copper-gold discovery that has already ticked over a billion-tonne resource and counting. Xanadu’s Kharmagtai deposit is now taunting the market with its potential in a region that is capable of brewing ridiculous sized mineral deposits like Oyu Tolgoi.

Origin Energy has agreed to assign its interests in joint venture exploration permits in WA’s Canning Basin, including the massive Rafael gas and condensate discovery to Buru Energy for no upfront payment. Origin will also pay Buru up to $4 million to fund a 3D seismic survey for its gas and condensate discovery Rafael 1.

Budding silver miner Adriatic Metals has drawn down its second $30m tranche, along with accessing an additional $22.5m from a $142.5m debt package to steer development of its high-grade Vares silver mine in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is all systems go as the company passes the halfway mark of construction with production of the first concentrate slated for the third quarter of 2023.

Gold explorer Godolphin Resources and its joint venture partner Orange Minerals have announced a maiden ore resource for the Calarie project in central New South Wales. The maiden resource contains 870,000 tonnes of mineralisation, with some 50,796 ounces of gold at an average grade of 1.83 grams per tonne and a cut-off grade of 0.3 g/t.

Construction of Classic Minerals’ gold mine at Kat Gap in WA is moving closer to becoming a reality with the tailing storage facility 45 per cent complete and the Turkey’s Nest pipeline edging towards completion. The company says tailings facility liners will be installed in early March. Kat Gap boasts a 2.96 g/t gold head grade and Classic’s Gecko gravity processing plant is expected to recover over 73 per cent of the gold at low cost.

Minerals explorer Surefire Resources NL’s optimism about its massive vanadium resource in WA’s Mid West has been boosted by a detailed study that concludes its Victory Bore-Unaly Hill project can provide clean vanadium concentrate. Surefire’s next step includes further investigation of its resource to determine its suitability for the burgeoning vanadium redox flow batteries sector for clean energy storage.

Everest Metals has signed a binding joint venture agreement with Stelar Metals covering all of its large Broken Hill NSW projects and giving Stelar a 90 per cent interest. Everest Metals will receive $250,000 cash and a similar value in Stelar shares upfront. Milestone payments add a further $500,000 in cash or shares. The company says it retains a 10 per cent free-carried interest.

A strategic land grab by Reach Resources has resulted in the company building a dominant presence in the Gascoyne region after picking up the Morrissey Hill lithium project, the Camel Hill rare earths project in addition to the White Castles manganese project. The three projects cover a total of four tenements and build on the company’s two established operations with the Skyline and Critical Elements projects in the region.

The gentle hum of the RC drill rig can be heard at Auric Mining’s Chalice West project near Norseman. Auric is plumbing the depths of its prime goldfields tenure to seek the source of significant gold, nickel and rare earths anomalism. The rig will also be wheeled to the company’s Miitel South prospect where a compelling gold target lies beneath a smattering of historical alluvial workings.

ASX-listed Aurum Resources is another step closer to launching exploration on its flagship Ryan’s Find gold project, north-east of Southern Cross in WA. The company says once it receives heritage clearance, which has now been scheduled it will immediately kick off an air-core drilling campaign. A gradient array induced polarisation survey is also planned for its Penny South gold project.

Ora Banda Mining is on track to deliver an updated mineral resource estimate at its Riverina gold system near Kalgoorlie this month after positive results from phase 1 drilling at the site. Assay highlights from exploration at the company’s Main Lode East prospect showed some impressive grades including a 2m hit at 49.8 grams per tonne gold from 163m.

West Perth-based gold explorer DiscovEx Resources says assay results from its air-core drilling at the company’s Spartan prospect at its Edjudina project in WA’s Eastern Goldfields have confirmed bedrock gold mineralisation, generating three high-priority drill targets. The company believes it has also discovered significant gold within transported overburden and now plans to determine the connection between the bedrock and transported gold.

Perth-based company and USA focused explorer American West Metals has posted a maiden resource for its multi-commodity base metal West Desert deposit in Utah which the company says continues to ill

WA-focused explorer Infinity Mining has been granted a five-year extension for an exploration licence that constitutes the largest component of its Hillside gold-copper-lithium project that lies over the Coongan Greenstone Belt in the Pilbara. Hillside covers almost 400 square kilometres and is located roughly 50km south-west of Marble Bar and 185km south-east of Port Hedland.

White Cliff Minerals has generated numerous targets after completing detailed geophysical surveys looking for rare earth elements at its Yinnetharra lithium and rare earths project in the world-class Gascoyne province of WA. The company says it has uncovered multiple strong and discrete thorium anomalies, which are well-known pointers to rare earths mineralisation in the region.

Kairos Minerals’ flagship 1.1-million-ounce Mount York Pilbara gold project looks set for a serious growth spurt after high-grade gold intersections below the existing resource over much of the strike length paves the way for an increase. Best results include 5m at 4.25 g/t gold from 73m, 7m going 3.35 g/t from 172m and 8m at 3.67g/t gold from 185m. The Mount York project is located in the emerging Pilbara Craton gold region of WA.

Valor Resources has identified four priority drill targets for its 2023 field season at the company’s Cluff Lake uranium project in Canada in the world-class Athabasca Basin, home to many of the world’s richest uranium mines. The Perth-based explorer describes two of the project’s four prospects as walk-up drill targets and they have been prioritised for drill testing later this year.

Galan Lithium has secured 100 per cent ownership of the Candelas lithium brine project in Argentina, only 40kms from its developing Hombre Muerto West project. The company has completed the payment for the final instalment of a options agreement. A preliminary economic assessment completed in late 2021 tabled a stunning set of numbers that shows its Candelas project will make $270m a year for 25 years for a net present value of $1.76b.

Lithium Australia has entered into a binding agreement to sell its 30 per cent share in the Lake Johnston lithium project to Charger Metals as the company concentrates on its battery recycling portfolio. The agreement will see Charger take 100 per cent control of the project to the west of Norseman in WA and grants Lithium Australia first right of refusal for offtake of up to 30 per cent of lithium produced at the site.

West Perth-based and WA-focused explorer Terrain Minerals has started what the company expects to be a very busy year with boots on the ground at its Smokebush gold project in WA’s Yalgoo minerals field. Two programs at Smokebush spearhead a major exploration and drilling campaign across its portfolio of projects with the ultimate objective a maiden mineral resource within 12 months.

Altech Chemicals believes the commissioning of its Silumina lithium-ion battery anode pilot scale plant in Germany is destined for the third quarter of 2023. The plant will be scaled up to a 10,000 tonne per annum production facility for which a Definitive Feasibility Study is progressing in tandem with the plant’s construction. The company is racing to meet the demand of the white-hot battery technology market.

Coda Minerals is putting the finishing touches on a scoping study for its Elizabeth Creek copper project in South Australia with final test work currently underway before the report’s expected release in April. The company says it has now completed work to assess all material inputs into the pending study up to the point of production of a copper-cobalt concentrate from a centrally located on-site flotation plant.

NSW-based reproductive technology specialist Memphasys has received another feather in its cap with a supportive paper published for its patented Felix system which aids IVF procedures in a renowned scientific journal. The paper praises Felix as a “positive technical development”, citing the speed of the Felix process and the low level of DNA damage in sperm samples as two of the system’s key features.

Askari Metals has confirmed high-grade lithium and tin mineralisation in rock samples from one of two promising tenements the company acquired recently in Namibia. Headline results from the samples, analysed as part of due diligence for the acquisition, include 3.3 per cent lithium oxide, 3.2 per cent tin, 4280 parts per million tantalum and 7980ppm rubidium.

BMG Resources’ metallurgical testing has confirmed that it achieved a 93 to 95 per cent gold recovery using typical gravity and cyanide carbon-in-leach processing at its Abercromby gold project near Wiluna in Western Australia. The ore was found to be free milling with the majority of the gold leached in the first eight hours with low reagent consumption. The gravity circuit recovered between 34 and 41 per cent of the gold.

Oil explorer 88 Energy is set to get the drill bit spinning at its Hickory-1 well target on Alaska’s North Slope after the state’s Oil and Gas Conservation Commission handed the company an all-important Permit to Drill. The bore is now on track to be spudded early next month and is tipped by the enterprise to hold 647 million barrels of oil within six key reservoir targets.

St George Mining has recommenced lithium exploration at its emerging WA Mount Alexander lithium pegmatite field covering 15km by 5km. Latest rock chip assays to 2.8 per cent lithium oxide and 1.26 per cent rubidium oxide build excitement for the assays from its first 23 RC drill holes, due within weeks, lithium minerals were logged in 20 of the drill holes. More drilling is set to recommence later this month.

Lindian Resources has recorded its best drill hit to date after its latest assays confirmed a 35m intercept at a whopping 3.94 per cent total rare earth oxides at its Kangankunde project in Malawi. The impressive section was part of a wider 179m intercept going 2.2 per cent TREO from surface and also included a 4m hit at a massive 7.82 per cent TREO.

WA-based producer Triangle Energy has squared away a cool $4.5 million after receiving payment for its second oil shipment to a refinery in Thailand over the December period. The shipment is part of the company’s Cliff Head joint venture with Pilot Energy which sees the duo complete production at the Cliff Head oil field about 270km north of Perth before mobilising it to buyers in Asia.

Surefire Resources is eyeing a rapid return to drilling at its promising Yidby Road gold prospect in WA with a drill rig locked in to start exploration later this month. 2500m of RC drilling is planned to follow up on the company’s recent discoveries at Marshall and Fender and the campaign will step out to the north and the south on both gold mineralised structures.

Quantum Graphite has completed the design of its pilot thermal energy storage and power generation system as it moves one step closer to producing long-duration energy devices at an industrial scale. The finalised design of the systems follows the company’s successful high-temperature testing in November that was introduced to mimic the conditions inside a thermal energy cell throughout its charging and discharging stages. Testing was completed alongside the operation’s project engineers, ProTherm Systems.