Matt Birney

ASX-listed Lithium Australia says its wholly owned subsidiary and cathode powders developer, VSPC has produced lithium manganese ferro phosphate cathode powder of “advanced and consistent quality” for use in lithium-ion batteries. Some of the lithium manganese ferro phosphate product will be made available next month to battery manufacturers for commercial testing focused on the electric vehicle market.

Blackstone Minerals continues to return high-grade nickel intercepts from its Ta Khoa project in north Vietnam. The company is drilling out a nest of new sulphide discoveries across the nickel-copper-rich terrane, with exploration at the new Taipan Zone intersecting an impressive 20.4 metres at 1.35 per cent nickel and 0.8 per cent copper from only 27m down-hole.

ASX-listed healthcare provider, InteliCare Holdings has received a welcome boost from this week’s Federal budget. The company is now looking forward to lifting sales of its innovative suite of in-home healthcare technologies as the government commits more than $6.5 billion to funding home care packages and pledges a further $13.2 billion to the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

Kairos Minerals aims to kick off an aircore drilling program at its Skywell gold project in WA’s Pilbara region this quarter after analysis of its 2020 geochemical and airborne geophysics results highlighted multiple intrusion-related gold targets south-west of the exciting Hemi gold find. The company recently set up camp at nearby Kangan and expects to start 5,000 metres of aircore drilling there within weeks.

WA-focused Torian Resources has discovered new gold zones at Mt Stirling in WA’s prolific Leonora gold district with hits including 4m grading 3.01 grams per tonne from surface. Drilling continues on the large Mt Stirling gold system as the company closes in on a resource update. New high priority regional targets are also to be drill-tested.

Okapi Resources has picked up more than 2,000 square kilometres of prospective kaolin ground and joined Australia’s lucrative halloysite hunt. White Knight in South Australia and Holly in Western Australia are two key projects secured by the company with its acquisition of private resource group Bulk Mineral Holdings.

ASX-listed Classic Minerals has successfully commissioned its Australian-designed “Gekko” mobile processing plant in a key step towards producing gold from its Kat Gap gold project south of Southern Cross in WA by August this year. Classic has a granted mining lease and circa-93,000 ounce JORC gold resource at Kat Gap.

Busy ASX-listed junior explorer, Comet Resources has added geographic and commodity diversity to its portfolio by forging ahead with a deal to acquire large tracts of prospective copper-gold and base metals exploration ground in the Northern Territory. Limited past exploration has turned up promising precious and red metal results. The company now has its foot on 840sqkm of prospective ground in central Australia.

Podium Minerals has upped the ante at its Parks Reef platinum group metals project in WA, having secured a government grant to co-fund the drilling of two holes to test for continuity of the existing mineralisation at depth. The holes will be drilled to more than twice the depth of any previous drilling at the deposit with a third hole also on the cards.

Victoria-focused explorer Dart Mining is shifting its exploration efforts at the Granite Flat copper-gold project into higher gear. A 1,000m diamond drilling campaign has commenced to follow-up on previous eye-catching hits that include a 3m interval going 41.1 g/t gold as the company also looks to test for a monster copper-gold porphyry body at depth.

Impact Minerals’ PGM-base metals hunt at its Broken Hill project in NSW is starting to get interesting. Drilling is set to commence at the Red Hill and Little Broken Hill Gabbro prospects to follow-up previous stellar hits including 138m going 0.3 grams per tonne palladium, platinum and gold, or “3PGM”. Further drilling is also on the cards for the third quarter.

Victory Mines is zeroing in on a potentially serious porphyry copper-gold discovery at its Coogee project in WA. The target is located a mere 15 kilometres north-west of Lefroy’s coveted Burns copper-gold deposit. Resampling of recent drilling at Coogee has revealed a bounty of copper and gold mineralisation including 15 metres at 1 per cent copper and 1.49 grams per tonne gold from only 80m down-hole.

AVZ Minerals continues to make giant strides towards its goal of becoming a significant lithium producer in central Africa, this week securing approval for a draft “Cooperation Agreement” with the newly installed government in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The accord opens the door for the establishment of a Special Economic Zone to assist in bringing the world class Manono project into production.

Kingwest Resources will start a new round of deeper drilling at its Menzies gold project north of Kalgoorlie in WA later this month after reporting more high-grade hits from below shallow existing resources at the historic mine. Best new intercepts include 12m at 3.7 grams per tonne gold from 102m and 2m at 17.3 g/t gold from 125m.

Comet Resources has been given the green light to begin drilling at its high-grade Santa Teresa gold project in northern Mexico. The Environmental Impact and Risk assessment department in Baja California has now completed its evaluation of the company’s planned drilling program, clearing the way for diamond drilling to commence in the weeks ahead.

ASX-listed explorer Todd River Resources is waiting for a truckload of assays from nearly 300 drill holes in a large maiden drilling campaign at Berkshire Valley, north of the exciting Julimar nickel and platinum group element discovery in WA. The company suggested the intersected rocks indicate it is in the right geological environment for nickel-copper-PGE mineralisation.

White Cliff Minerals has reported high-grade rock chip sample results from the Cracker Jack gold prospect in WA’s Cue goldfield, including one grading 37.3 g/t gold. More sample assays are due soon and a maiden drilling program at the site, part of the company’s Reedy South project, is just around the corner.

ASX-listed Neometals’ 50 per cent-owned joint venture company, Primobius has finalised CAPEX and operating cost estimates for its proposed lithium-ion battery recycling operation in Germany. The company is contemplating building and operating an 18,250 tonnes per annum commercial-scale recycling plant, with the forecast CAPEX coming in at US$165 million and operating costs averaging US$1,560 per tonne of batteries processed.

Ardiden Limited is set to receive an $8.7m shot in the arm from the proposed sale of 80 per cent of its lithium assets in Canada. The sale will allow the company to focus on the Pickle Lake gold project whilst retaining some lithium upside courtesy of a proposed 20 per cent free carried interest in the lithium assets to be sold.

Lithium Australia’s 90 per cent-owned subsidiary, Envirostream Australia looks likely to be a major beneficiary from the introduction of an accredited process for the collection and recycling of spent, or end-of life batteries with the launch of the Battery Stewardship Council's national battery collection network early next year. Under the Battery Stewardship Council’s scheme, approved entities will be paid to collect and recycle hazardous and toxic spent batteries.

Aspiring gold miner Classic Minerals has bolstered its board with the appointment of non-executive director, Ms Gillian King as the company looks to bring the Kat Gap gold project in WA into production. Ms King is of Noongar and Gurindji heritage and adds human resource and indigenous affairs expertise to the company’s board.

Estrella Resources says it is sizing up Great Boulder Resources’ high-grade gold discovery along trend from and immediately to the south of its Carr Boyd nickel discovery north of Kalgoorlie. Estrella says its field team is weighing up the latent potential of its project area around Carr Boyd for gold after Great Boulder’s stock quadrupled in the last month based on its gold discovery.

PolarX has been quick to get more samples to the lab after previous samples from its Humboldt Range project in Nevada threw up some crazy grades including 3,384 g/t gold and 2,837 g/t silver. The company says it is now eagerly awaiting assays from the new samples which it says are progressing well through the system.

Western Australia gold producer, Wiluna Mining Corporation continues to demonstrate powerful exploration upside at the historic Wiluna gold centre east of Leonora with results of a 2D seismic survey highlighting large prospective structures outside the existing central 4.26-million-ounce resource envelope. Ongoing drilling has meanwhile added to the immediate enticing production picture, with more high-grade hits to be fed into a new 2021 resource update.

More shallow high-grade drill hits continue to highlight the resource extension potential at emerging WA gold developer Bardoc Gold’s 1.7-million-ounce Aphrodite gold deposit north of Kalgoorlie that cornerstones the 3.07m ounce Bardoc project the company is moving towards a 2022 production start. The drilling underlines the latent prospectivity of Bardoc Gold’s large land position in the middle of the prolific Kalgoorlie-Menzies area.

Altech Chemicals continues to power through its pre-feasibility study in Germany that is looking to firm up the economics of building a plant that can make use of Altech’s high purity alumina coating technology. The company has now secured space for a research and development facility adjacent to a 14-hectare site in Saxony where it has extended an option over the site as it completes engineering and marketing studies for the plant.

Indiana Resources has signed a native title mining agreement that paves the way for an expansion of its exploration activities across a major mineralised shear structure at its Central Gawler Craton gold project in SA’s venerated Gawler Craton region. The company will now be able to test a bevy of “high-priority” prospects within its massive project landholdings, one of which has already returned bonanza gold drill intersections.

Impact Minerals has secured a shot at what it sees as a “walk-up drill target” at Doonia in Western Australia’s Eastern Goldfields after being granted tenure over an area covering an impressive 3km-long porphyry target near Lefroy’s promising Burns copper-gold discovery. The company is now planning first-pass exploration at the project and expects to kick off drilling in the second half of 2021.

Surefire Resources has returned another impressive batch of wide, high-grade gold intersections from a follow-up reverse circulation drilling program at its exciting Yidby Road gold discovery in Western Australia. The stand-out drill hit from five holes assayed so far is 44m at 2.77 g/t gold from 149m including 3m at 26.47 g/t from 150m and 5m at 6.27 g/t from 177m.

Things just got interesting for Podium Minerals at its Parks Reef platinum group metals project in WA. Five prior drill holes have been re-assayed for a full suite of PGMs and delivered materially higher grades of rhodium and iridium than previously reported Some assays went as high as 1.35 grams per tonne rhodium and 0.70 g/t iridium. Follow-up drilling is now underway.

Active junior gold and copper explorer Native Mineral Resources will move forward with diamond drilling to test for depth extensions of high-grade surface quartz vein gold at Music Well, north of Leonora, after securing a $68,000 Western Australia government grant. Recent sampling has returned some bonanza grade results including one going over 100 grams per tonne gold.

ASX-listed King River Resources has confirmed previously reported output of high-purity alumina at purity levels greater than 99.99 per cent from its Speewah Dome project in WA’s Kimberley region via recently conducted assay tests. The Perth-based company says the high-purity alumina batches were produced by calcining high-purity precursor materials purified by its refining process from an industrial chemical feed stock material.