Matt Birney

Neometals has tabled an impressive pre-feasibility study on the proposed production of high-purity vanadium pentoxide from high-grade vanadium-bearing steel making by-products or slag in Finland. The company says its vanadium recovery project is tipped to generate total free cash flows before tax of $US764 million or almost $A1 billion at an average of about $US72.7 million a year across an estimated plant operating life of 10.5 years.

Development of ASX-listed Calidus Resources’ Warrawoona gold operation in WA has been progressing at “a rapid rate” as it looks to kick off preliminary mining in the middle of this year with an eye on pouring first gold in the first half of next year. The Perth-based company says construction at Warrawoona, which has an estimated CAPEX of $120 million, remains in line with budget and schedule.

Estrella Resources is getting close to joining the dots at its revived Carr Boyd nickel project after it hit 16.35m of disseminated to highly disseminated nickel-copper sulphides 75m below one discovery and 65m above another. The upper discovery previously returned 20.1m at 1 per cent nickel and 0.7 per cent copper and the lower discovery came in at 8.05m @ 0.8 per cent nickel & 0.5 per cent copper – assays are pending.

Aruma Resources continues to kick goals in its endeavours to grow its Australian project portfolio. Two new licences have been awarded at the Melrose project in the Pilbara, growing the prospective stratigraphic trend to 13 kilometres in the gold rich region. Other gold exploration licences at the Scotia South project in WA and the Capital gold project in NSW have also been secured.

Classic Minerals has ticked the last box on the pathway to production at its high-grade Kat Gap project after the Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety granted its mining lease application. Kat Gap threw up some spectacular high-grade results last year which prompted the company to purchase a mobile plant to mine the near-surface gold.

Australian Bauxite has just uncovered the highest level of rare earth elements to date from its DL130 bauxite project in north-east Tasmania. The company says near-surface results returned from its ongoing drilling campaign at DL130 reveal strong enrichment of the super-magnet rare earth element, neodymium. Assays from the stand-out drill hole include 1m grading 145.8ppm neodymium, 34.55ppm dysprosium, 34.52ppm praseodymium and 5.55ppm terbium.

Native Mineral Resources has upped the ante at its Palmerville project in north Queensland. A recently completed sampling program has delivered two new bumper grade copper samples going as high as 19.99 per cent copper at the Glenroy prospect and 7.99 per cent copper at the Fairlight prospect. Extensive follow-up exploration is now planned for the next quarter.

AVZ Minerals hopes to have a key precursor to the planned development of its Manono hard-rock lithium and tin mining and processing operation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo ratified by the end of May. The new DRC Government will shortly consider applying a proposed tax and fiscal incentive arrangement called the “Manono Special Economic Zone” to the project following AVZ’s presentation to a government delegation last month.

Torian Resources is set to dip its toe into the mining contracting business with the gold explorer exercising an option to buy both Carhill Contracting and the massive Tarmoola pastoral station where the business is operated from. The company’s purchase also delivers a ready-made logistical base to fast-track exploration across its flagship Mt Stirling gold project, north of Leonora in WA.

Lithium Australia’s advancing suite of lithium-related projects has prompted the company to beef up its board and senior management. The company has appointed veteran resources industry player and lithium specialist, Phil Thick as a Non-Executive Director and Stuart Tarrant as its Chief Financial Officer. Thick was previously General Manager of the part owner of the largest hard-rock lithium mining operation in the world at Greenbushes in WA.

WA focused nickel explorer St George Mining continues to intercept nickel sulphides beneath the high-grade deposits at the Mt Alexander project in the Goldfields. Step-out drilling from a recent discovery hole has commenced with the company now well-funded for future works via an oversubscribed $7 million capital raise. A maiden drilling campaign at the Paterson project is also due to begin in May.

Novo Resources’ commissioning of its Beatons Creek conglomerate gold mine at Nullagine in WA’s East Pilbara has been gathering a head of steam as the operation ramps up to steady state gold production over the coming months. The company says the Golden Eagle gold processing plant 10km south-east of Beatons Creek has produced a total of 7,375 ounces of gold since the first gold pour on February 16.

Troy Resources has delivered more impressive high-grade gold hits as it looks to grow the ounces beneath its operating Smarts open pit gold mine in Guyana, South America. One recent 3 metre drill intercept graded 17.35 grams per tonne gold from 176 metres and the company managed to grow its gold production for the March by a whopping 75 per cent from 4,195 ounces in the December quarter to 7,333 ounces.

ASX-listed Image Resources has chalked up record quarterly production numbers at its mineral sands mine about 80km north of Perth. The company says it churned out 85,200 tonnes of product for the March quarter at its zircon-rich Boonanarring mineral sands operation. The Perth-based company says the all-in sustaining costs of Boonanarring product sold also came in below the lower end of its guidance range for this year.

InteliCare Holdings has posted a lovely set of numbers as part of its latest financial update. The company recently announced an incredible 911 per cent increase in customer receipts for the March quarter when compared to the previous quarter and a significant 55 per cent hike in revenues for the year to date as its artificially intelligent, in-home monitoring systems for the disabled and elderly start to gain market acceptance.

Wiluna Mining Corporation’s expansion program in WA looks to be on-track, with the new sulphide processing circuit now under construction whilst new mine development and exploration continues apace. The company has completed a frenetic quarter that saw it push the button on the Stage 1 development program, which will likely see Wiluna double its gold production in the year ahead.

ASX-listed mining software-as-a-service provider, K2fly has wasted no time picking up contracts since its acquisition of the Decipher for Mining business from Wesfarmers subsidiary, CSBP earlier this year. Decipher recently secured a three-year, $250,000 contract with Evolution Mining for the implementation of a tailings storage software system at its Lake Cowal open-cut gold mine in NSW.

Kairos Minerals has kicked its exploration efforts into high gear with a drilling blitz across two projects in WA. A 3,000-metre campaign at Roe Hills targeting gold and nickel in the Goldfields has already begun, with a 20,000-metre program looking to grow the gold resources at Mt York in the Pilbara to follow.

Altech Chemicals has joined forces with Germany’s SGL Carbon to explore the production of an alumina coated graphite product for use in the budding lithium-ion battery sector. The company will contribute its high purity alumina, or “HPA” product and proprietary coating technology to the project whilst SGL will deliver ongoing engineering support and treatment systems for the production of HPA powders.

ASX-listed health care company, InteliCare is topping up its coffers to the tune of $2.5 million through a recent placement with the funds set to be put to work to accelerate the roll out of its range of innovative healthcare products across the country. The company has received firm commitments from a slew of investors and will boast an enviable cash balance of more than $4.3 million once its placement is completed.

ASX-listed explorer, Si6 Metals has its field team going full tilt now in Botswana as the company looks to identify deeper sulphide targets. The company is about to deploy a round of Geophysics and a 27 -line AMT Survey to map existing mineralisation with the ultimate goal of eking out some deeper targets to chase with the drill rig.

ASX-listed Lithium Australia has inked an exclusive licensing agreement covering Europe with a Germany-based resources group that paves the way for its proprietary “LieNA” fine-spodumene conversion technology to be commercialised. Under the terms of the exclusive licence agreement, Deutsche Rohstoff AG has indicated it intends building a LieNA pilot plant in Europe.

Legend Mining’s innovative exploration approach at its Mawson nickel find in WA is paying tremendous dividends, with drilling across the prospect area intersecting massive sulphides more than a kilometre east of the original discovery zone. Drilling has returned intervals of semi to massive sulphides up to 13.2 metres thick, containing both nickel and copper sulphides, with samples now being expedited through the labs.

ASX-listed explorer, TNT Mines is looking to secure a large footprint near a recent high-grade base metals discovery that was made in WA’s Earaheedy Basin about 110km north of Wiluna. The Perth-based company says it has lodged an exploration licence application for 930 square kilometres of tenure that it calls the Mount Lockeridge Fault project just north of Rumble Resources’ exciting Chinook zinc-lead discovery at its Earaheedy project.

ASX-listed explorer, Si6 Metals has successfully applied for exploration co-funding of $75,000 under the WA Department of Mines’ Exploration Incentive Scheme. The company says the funds will go towards a planned regional aircore drilling program targeting bulk-tonnage, syenite or intrusive igneous rock-hosted gold mineralisation at its Monument gold project within the Laverton Tectonic Zone.

Surefire Resources has just completed a major RC drilling campaign that comprised two programs at its exciting Yidby Road gold project in WA’s south-west Murchison province. The maiden 20-hole program late last year returned stellar, broad drill intersections of 56 metres at an average grade of 1.97 grams per tonne gold from 44m including 4m at 14.47 g/t and 40m going 3.01 g/t from 24m including 4m at 26.57 g/t.

Godolphin Resources has returned further encouraging drill intersections from resource definition drilling at its Lewis Ponds polymetallic project in NSW’s revered Lachlan Fold Belt region. The latest stand-out drill hit from the company’s second diamond hole at Lewis Ponds was a broad 43.2m grading an average 1.82 g/t gold, 14 g/t silver and 0.4 per cent zinc and lead combined for a gold equivalent grade of 2.36 g/t from 446m.

Mining software as a service provider, K2fly has reported some strong results in its March-2021 quarterly report, including a record $2.06m in quarterly invoicing, up 27 per cent on the corresponding quarter in the 2019/20 financial year. K2fly’s total contract value for its software as a service offering in the March quarter is also up a staggering 146 per cent on the same quarter last year after it hit $9.13m for the quarter.

Stock market darling, Chalice Mining has kicked off a ground electromagnetic survey at Venture Minerals’ South West nickel-copper-PGE project about 240km south of Perth as part of the first stage of the pair’s recent joint venture agreement. Chalice has the right to earn up to a 70 per cent stake in Venture’s South West project by spending $3.7 million on exploration over four years.

Things are heating up for up-and-coming nickel explorer, St George Mining at its Mt Alexander project in the Goldfields of WA. New gravity surveys and downhole electromagnetic surveys have identified multiple new nickel-copper sulphide targets as resource and exploration drilling continues. Additional drilling to test the newly identified high-priority targets is now on the cards

Torian Resources has received the final assay results from an RC drilling campaign planned to culminate in an updated mineral resource estimate next month for its Mt Stirling gold project about 40km north-west of Leonora in WA. The company piled on a number of high-grade drill hits in the run-up to the revised gold resource, with the latest stand-out intersection being 4 metres at 10.53 grams per tonne gold.

ASX-listed PharmAust continues to receive positive news from the ongoing Phase IIb trial of its “Monepantel” anti-cancer drug trial on dogs. The clinical-stage oncology company said the interim analysis of its drug trial provided further supportive evidence of the blood plasma levels of the Monepantel drug required to suppress B-cell lymphoma growth in pet owner’s dogs.