Matt Birney

Deep Yellow is continuing to extend the boundaries of its uranium find in Namibia as it charges towards the delivery of a feasibility study over the proposed mining centre at Tumas. Shallow drilling over the Tubas deposits, which are located 10km west of Tumas, has returned a wealth of uranium mineralisation including an intercept of 4m at 442 eppm uranium oxide from 4m.

ASX-listed White Cliff Minerals is leaving no exploration stone unturned at its Reedy South gold project in WA’s Murchison Goldfields as it buckles up for a large aeromagnetic survey having almost completed an upsized 4,500m RC drilling program. The company plans to fly 6,100 line kilometres at 50m line spacing across its Reedy South tenement holdings prior to further in-field exploration earmarked for early next year.

Venus Metals has stumbled across a new gold discovery after getting the drill rods spinning again in the hills around Youanmi, Western Australia. The Hope prospect turned up gold mineralisation in fresh granite adjacent to the area’s classic granite-greenstone contact, with one RC drill hole hitting 1m at a solid 9.3 g/t gold from 103m downhole.

Blackstone Minerals has racked up some of its longest nickel sulphide intersections to date across the King Cobra discovery zone at its Ban Phuc disseminated sulphide deposit in Vietnam. Infill and extension drilling included one drill hole that produced a 127.6m intersection going 1.17 per cent nickel, 0.22 per cent copper, 0.02 per cent cobalt and 0.24 g/t PGE.

ASX-listed aspiring gold producer, Calidus Resources, has moved to top up its coffers with a heavily oversubscribed $31.8 million share placement to institutional and sophisticated investors and an additional $5 million placement to eligible existing shareholders. The capital raises come hot on the heels of the company securing $110 million in debt funding for its planned Warrawoona gold mining and processing operation currently in the initial development stages.

Si6 Metals is set to hit the ground running in Botswana as it builds on a developing program in southern Africa. Drilling is poised to kick off on the Maibele North nickel-copper project, where geophysical surveying has identified a deep electromagnetic target. The company is also seeking approval for drilling at the Monument gold project in WA after completing a $2 million placement.

ASX-listed Calima Energy has released the preliminary findings of an independent technical study which confirms the rich liquids potential and strong gas productivity of the Upper and Middle Montney zones across its 60,000-plus acres of ground in Canada. More importantly, the review points to fresh oil and gas resource volumes in the currently ‘unbooked’ Lower Montney interval on Calima’s ground.

Lithium Australia has granted privateer, Charger Metals, an option to acquire a suite of its projects in WA and the NT. The option will see Charger pick up the Coates and Lake Johnson polymetallic projects in southern WA and the Bynoe lithium-gold project south of Darwin. Charger will pay $100,000 and issue Lithium 8.8 million shares in the new entity to take a 70 per cent stake in the project positions.

ASX-listed aspiring manganese producer, Element 25, has struck an offtake agreement to sell half the manganese ore produced under a proposed stage two expansion of its Butcherbird project development in WA’s southern Pilbara region. The Perth-based company says its new offtake partner, private equity firm and commodity trader Semeru Energy, will buy between 175,000 tonnes and 200,000 tonnes per annum of Butcherbird manganese ore.

Victory Mines has confirmed the presence of solid grades of copper at its Bonaparte project in WA following a short, sharp drilling program which was completed in October 2020. Results from the drilling include 4m at 1.18 per cent copper and 34.4 grams per tonne silver, hosting 1m at a stunning 3.9 per cent copper and 117 g/t silver from only 47m down-hole.

Horizon Minerals has firmed up the mineral resource estimate for one of its quintet of key satellite deposits which are set to complement its proposed flagship Boorara gold project development 10km east of Kalgoorlie-Boulder. The updated resource for the Rose Hill deposit, which is less than 1km south-east of Coolgardie, now stands at 793,400 tonnes grading 3.65 grams per tonne for 93,200 ounces of contained gold.

InteliCare has joined the winners list in this year’s Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Rising Star Awards. The coveted program is in its 20th year and looks to rank Australia’s fastest-growing public or private technology companies, providing international recognition for local innovation. InteliCare is successfully harnessing artificial intelligence to provide smart home monitoring solutions to help care for the elderly and disabled people.

Dampier Gold has locked in a $6 million capital raise to fund its ongoing exploration program in WA’s Eastern Goldfields. The company’s placement was oversubscribed and well supported by both institutional and strategic investors, with the funding ear-marked to expedite exploration across its Zuleika Shear projects, including more than 8,000m of aircore drilling planned for early 2021.

ASX-listed Calidus Resources is marching towards the start-up at its flagship Warrawoona gold mining project in WA’s Pilbara region after ticking a few infrastructure and permitting boxes. The installation of a 65m tall telecommunications tower is complete, 10 per cent of its 240-bed accommodation village is operational and the company has received regulatory sign-off on its project management plan from WA’s Department of Mines and Petroleum.

ASX-listed aspiring Chile copper developer, Hot Chili, has been granted crucial water extraction rights for its overarching Costa Fuego porphyry copper-gold project located about 600km north of the country’s capital, Santiago. The company says the maritime concession, which was granted following an exhaustive seven-year application process, represents a critical infrastructure requirement for Costa Fuego by securing sufficient water supply to support a large-scale copper-gold operation.

Okapi Resources has narrowed its focus at Lake Johnson in WA, zeroing in on the Mount Day gold prospect. The company has amended its previously announced farm-in agreement with Lithium Australia, electing to concentrate on the Mount Day tenure, which hosts a 10km long surface geochemical anomaly and has produced rock chips of up to 10.68 grams per tonne gold.

ASX-listed explorer, Venus Metals Corporation, says it has picked up a couple of early polymetallic sniffs at its Bridgetown East nickel-copper-PGE project in WA’s south-west region as the company looks to emulate the feats of Chalice Mining following its exciting Gonneville nickel-copper-PGE discovery at the Julimar project further north.

ASX-listed explorer, Godolphin Resources, has encountered further hints of a gold-copper porphyry-style mineralised system at its Turrawonga discovery within the company’s Copper Hill East project 35km north of Orange in NSW’s Lachlan Fold Belt. It recently completed a couple of new deep infill drill holes at Turrawonga after an initial two holes returned 32m at 0.29 g/t gold and 0.13 per cent copper from 210m.

Western Australia-based gold miner Troy Resources, which has become a South American specialist, is now stepping up both production and exploration at its exciting frontier site Guyana. Having navigated various recent obstacles ASX-listed Troy Resources is now setting a course to rebuild mill production and its broad exploration program at its Karouni gold project in Guyana.

ASX-listed gold explorer, Great Southern Mining, has received $109,000 as part of a total $136,000 grant under the WA Government’s 2020 Exploration Incentive Scheme. The money was approved for the company’s drilling work at its Cox’s Find gold project about 80 kilometres north of Laverton in WA.

88 Energy has sealed the deal in Alaska, farming-out the company’s wholly owned Project Peregrine on the lucrative North Slope oil field. Under the terms of the farm-out agreement, Alaska Peregrine Development Company can earn a 50 per cent holding in the project by spending US$11.3 million towards the cost of the planned Merlin-1 well.

Kairos Minerals is continuing to work the drill bit in the WA’s Pilbara Goldfields, with the company’s rig rolling on to the Mt York project where it will kick into development drilling. The company has designed fourteen drill holes across the Old Faithful gold deposit, with the drill rig set to smash out the program in the lead up to Christmas.

ASX-listed gold developer, Calidus Resources, has struck a farm-in deal allowing it to earn up to 75 per cent of a greenfields gold project, which sits immediately along strike from the high-grade Blue Spec gold project and about 75km from its flagship, under-construction Warrawoona gold mining and processing operation in WA.

Latin Resources continues to build its portfolio of projects in Australia, having landed a new lease in NSW’s prolific Lachlan Fold Belt. The new Burdett project lies immediately to the south of the company’s recently acquired Manildra tenure, delivering Latin a strategic position over the historic Burdett goldfield.

St George Mining looks to be making a solid run into the new year, with recently completed down-hole geophysics lighting up like a Christmas tree identifying eleven new nickel targets for drill testing in WA. This latest assortment of targets is clustered at the western end of the company’s Mt Alexander discovery suggesting the nickel-bearing ultramafic horizon extends beyond the recognised boundaries of the mineralised system.

ASX and London-listed precious and base metals hopeful, Adriatic Metals, has discovered gold mineralisation at depth in the course of peeling off more cracking high-grade base metals drill hits at its recently acquired brownfields Raska polymetallic project in Serbia. The newly discovered gold-bearing vein zone at the Sastavci prospect returned an assay of 31m grading 1.3 grams per tonne gold from 279m including 1m at 13.6 g/t.

Terrain Minerals has more than tripled the size of its ground holding at the Smokebush gold project in WA. The company has pegged a new exploration licence which covers approximately 26 square kilometres, linking its two existing ground holdings in the region and picking up the high-grade Paradise City prospect, where historical surface sampling returned rock chips grading over 38 grams per tonne gold.

On the back of a recent $17.8m raising which welcomed new overseas institutions to the register, ASX-listed Blackstone Minerals has listed its stock on the USA-based OTCQB market. After tabling healthy scoping study numbers for its flagship Ta Khoa nickel-copper-PGMs project west of Hanoi in Vietnam, Blackstone is looking to bolster investor support from both North American individuals and institutions.

ASX-listed aspiring gold producer, Calidus Resources, has extended the strike length of known gold mineralisation at its Coronation satellite deposit only 8km from the company’s developing Warrawoona gold project in WA’s East Pilbara following encouraging near-surface drill results. Better intersections from its recent 29-hole round of RC drilling at Warrawoona were 14m going 3.77 g/t gold from 52m and 3m at 4.00 g/t from 54m.

Lithium Australia has successfully developed a new lithium-ion cell by introducing manganese into its lithium ferro-phosphate battery technology which results in a 25 per cent energy density increase and subsequent output. According to the company, the addition of manganese gives the energy output density a boost without compromising the batteries superior attributes.

ASX-listed budding manganese producer, Element 25, has come out with even more “compelling” financial metrics for its developing Butcherbird mine 130km south of Newman in WA’s southern Pilbara region after the company completed a fine-tuning of the project’s pre-feasibility study. The revised base-case net present value and internal rate of return for the project now stand at $583 million before tax and 387 per cent, respectively.

ASX-listed explorer, Impact Minerals, has returned high-grade, near-surface platinum group elements and base metals drill results from the Plat Central prospect at its Broken Hill project in NSW. The stand-out intercept was 1m going a scintillating 22.7 grams per tonne 7PGE, 3.3 per cent nickel, one per cent copper, 23 g/t silver and 755 g/t cobalt from 62m.