Matt Birney

Native Mineral Resources has stocked up its tucker bag, landing the Arcoona gold project in the Eastern Goldfields of WA, next door to the revered Carosue Dam gold mine. The new acquisition covers 170 square kilometres of prospective ground just 4km to the west of Saracen’s multi-million-ounce operation where Native Minerals is targeting rich intrusive-related gold mineralisation.

Hot Chili has shaken the tin and come away an impressive $25.6 million, completing a placement to fund an accelerated development program in Chile and maintain its wholly owned position in the massive Costa Fuego project. The company will use the proceeds of the raising to fund the second US$10 million instalment payment for the purchase of Cortadera and to accelerate its drilling across the project area.

ASX and London-listed aspiring Balkans polymetallic project developer, Adriatic Metals, has nailed down a US$20 million capital raise from the private placement of 8.5 per cent unsecured convertible debentures to TSX-V-listed Queen's Road Capital Investment. Adriatic says Queen’s Road, a resources-focused investment group, is backed by a number of significant investors including Australian entrepreneurs Andrew Forrest and Jack Cowin.

ASX-listed gold explorer, Anglo Australian Resources, has added a second RC drill rig to its exploration program chasing extensions to the known mineralisation at its 100 per cent-owned, historic Mandilla gold project, 70km south of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia. In a rush to firm up some fresh gold resource numbers, Anglo has the drill rods spinning in tandem at both the Mandilla East and South targets.

Calidus Resources has bought out the royalty attached to the tenements covering most of the ore reserves at its developing Warrawoona gold project in WA’s East Pilbara region. The company will issue 4 million Calidus shares to the vendors and says removing the net smelter return royalty tied to the project will free up more cash flow during the early years of gold production at Warrawoona.

Legend Mining has ended its 2020 field season in dramatic style with its latest drill hole at the Mawson nickel discovery in WA intersecting a total of 43.1m of massive sulphides, including one continuous intercept of 31.1m. The company’s ongoing, almost uninterrupted recent success at Mawson hints that exploration has perhaps only scratched the surface of the discovery.

Buru Energy is debt free and set to bank $1.8m from its last crude oil sale for the calendar year as production at the Ungani oil field in WA’s Canning Basin continues at around 1,000 barrels per day. The shipment of crude is bound for a refinery in SE Asia from the export port of Wyndham in the State’s top end.

ASX-listed Impact Minerals has added another feather to its exploration hat acquiring the Beau permit, located just 15km north of Impacts existing Arkun project approximately 100km east of Perth in WA’s emergent South West Mineral Field. The region has been an area of increasing interest for explorers in the aftermath of the stunning nickel-platinum group elements discovery at Julimar.

ASX-listed Podium Minerals has revealed a significant metals inventory lift at its Parks Reef PGM project in the heartland of the Murchison province of WA. The company unveiled an increase of 22 per cent in its three elements of platinum group metals to 1.39 million ounces and an impressive 44 per cent increase in the overall copper content to 53,900 tonnes.

ASX-listed gold and base metals player, White Cliff Minerals, has upsized its maiden RC drilling campaign at the historic Reedy South gold project in WA’s Murchison Goldfields after managing to lay its hands on a larger second drill rig. The Perth-based company intends expanding the current Reedy South drill program from 3,000m to approximately 4,500m.

Surefire Resources’ share price vaulted more than 50 per cent higher in opening trades on Monday following news the gold explorer had hit a bounty of broad gold intercepts in the Murchison Goldfields of WA. The company’s maiden drilling program over the Yidby Road prospect returned mineralised intercepts up to 56 metres wide including a stunning 40m at 3.01 grams per tonne gold.

ASX-listed Kalgoorlie gold miner, Horizon Minerals, has picked up a 50 per cent stake in the high-grade Penny’s Find underground satellite gold deposit in WA’s Eastern Goldfields for $1.5 million cash. As part of the transaction that sets up a 50:50 joint venture, the company has also agreed to fund the proposed development of the historic gold mine 50km north-east of Kalgoorlie to the tune of $1 million.

ASX-listed gold developer, Calidus Resources, appears to have locked in the final step on its pathway to production securing $110 million debt funding from Macquarie Bank towards the development of its new Warrawoona gold mine. As part of the debt financing package, Calidus also entered into an associated gold hedging facility covering approximately 105,000 ounces of forward gold production from Warrawoona.

Infinity Lithium has added further weight to the company’s technical committee as it charges through its feasibility study over the San Jose lithium project in western Spain. The company has appointed lithium processing specialist, David Maree to the company’s technical committee. Mr Maree will work with Executive Director Jon Starink to refine and innovate the process flow sheet as test work continues at Dorfner Anzaplan in Germany.

Native Mineral Resources looks as though it might have a tiger by the tail in north Queensland, with its maiden drilling program over the Leane’s copper prospect possibly already pushing through paydirt. The fledgling base metals explorer, which only listed on the ASX in early November, has hit shallow, anomalous copper mineralisation and deeper porphyry veining in the initial few drill holes of the program.

Gerard Private Holdings’ wholly owned subsidiary Zimi Powermesh, which is on the cusp of merging with smart home technology group, Quantify Technology, has just received an order for a whopping 10,000 units of its internet-connected devices. Once the acquisition of Adelaide-based Zimi has been ratified by Quantify shareholders at its annual general meeting next week, the merged entity plans to undertake a $4 million capital raise.

Victory Mines continues to deliver a barrage of solid drill intercepts from its recently completed drilling program at the Coogee gold project in WA. Drill hits from the latter half of the company’s maiden program across the target include 12m at 2.85 grams per tonne gold, hosting 4m at 5.52 g/t gold from 76m and 20m at 2.07 g/t gold, hosting 8m at 3.41 g/t gold from 92m.

Lindian Resources has completed the acquisition of its 75 per cent interest in the leviathan Lelouma bauxite project in Guinea following shareholder approval. The company recently reported Lelouma’s near-surface resource had been increased to 900 million tonnes grading 45 per cent aluminium oxide and 2.1 per cent silica containing a higher-grade portion totalling 398 million tonnes at 48.1 per cent aluminium oxide and 2 per cent silica.

InteliCare has banked more than $410,000 following the receipt of its research and development tax refund for the 2019-2020 financial year. The substantial return comes from the development of the company’s InteliLiving and InteliCare Pro product lines, which are being increasingly adopted for use across Australia in aged and disability care.

ASX-listed Calidus Resources has added one of the richest-grade gold mines in the Pilbara hinterland to its growing arsenal of projects after striking a deal with Canadian miner Novo Resources Corporation for the Blue Spec gold mine near Nullagine in WA. The deal will also see Calidus pick up the smaller Gold Spec mine to the south.

ASX-listed gold explorer, TNT Mines, has wasted no time in getting the drill rods turning at its newly acquired historic Eureka gold project about 50km north of Kalgoorlie. Eureka currently hosts an indicated and inferred mineral resource of 762,000 tonnes grading 1.8 grams per tonne for 43,100 ounces of contained gold based on previous drilling.

Classic Minerals is edging closer to cashflow after its mining license application for development of the near-surface Kat Gap gold project in WA cleared a major hurdle when Western Areas Ltd withdrew its objection to the application. Fresh from an over-subscribed $1.2 million placement earlier this week, Classic has clear air to move forward with planning to begin mining and gold production at Kat Gap next year.

ASX-listed Indonesia gold explorer and aspiring developer, Sihayo Gold, has returned solid gold assays from the first hole of a significant diamond drilling campaign at one of a surfeit of targets at its Sihayo gold project in North Sumatra. The Brisbane-based company kicked off the broad-spaced diamond program comprising 22 holes for an aggregate of 5,500m at the Hutabargot Julu epithermal gold-silver prospect last month.

ASX-listed Aurora Labs has taken receipt of major equipment to upgrade its flagship RMP-1 3D printer prototype, keeping the Perth-based industrial tech and innovation player on the path to commercialising the potentially game-changing printing device next year. The new equipment means a “fume extraction upgrade” on the prototype 3D printer can now go ahead as planned.

ASX-listed K2fly has had its Land Access, Communities and Heritage, Ground Disturbance and Rehab software K2fly Solutions certified as an Endorsed App by global business processes provider SAP. K2fly is now one of only 12 companies around the world to be endorsed by SAP whose salesforce and marketing muscle will now be let loose selling K2fly solutions across its global network.

Comet Resources has wasted no time in kicking rocks at its Barraba copper project in the New England Fold Belt region of NSW after only recently securing exploration access to the historic mining area. It has just completed an initial field program around the old high-grade Murchison copper mine and the Gulf Creek North prospect consisting of geochemical soil sampling, rock chip sampling and geological mapping.

InteliCare is continuing to expand its network across the east coast of Australia, signing a distribution agreement with Technology for Ageing and Disability ACT in the Australian Capital Territory. The contract covers initial 12-month term with the not-for-profit organisation assuming an agency role and receiving a commission from all of its InteliCare sales, which will include the company’s flagship InteliLiving and InteliCare Pro products.

ASX-listed West Africa bauxite hopeful, Lindian Resources, has started the next significant phase of technical analysis at its Gaoual bauxite project in Guinea as it looks to tackle the relatively high content of the impurity silica in the high-grade conglomerate deposit. The Perth-based company has just sent its geological crew to the project site to carry out all-important screening tests on Gaoual’s aluminium oxide ore.

ASX-listed Blackstone Minerals has whipped out yet another high-priority prospect from a seemingly endless production line of brownfields exploration targets at its historic Ta Khoa nickel-copper-PGMs project about 160km west of Hanoi in Vietnam. The company says its internal geophysics work came up trumps again identifying the new King Snake prospect, located just 1.5km north-east of its flagship Ban Phuc disseminated sulphide deposit.

Aruma Resources has kicked off its gold hunt in WA, with drilling commencing at its Saltwater project in the Ashburton Basin, south-west of Newman. The company has locked in 5,000m of reverse circulation drilling to test key mineralised geological features on the western extremities of its “Saltwater Ring” target. Drilling is expected to be completed before Christmas, with results in early January 2021.

ASX-listed gold explorer, Surefire Resources, has picked up the first of several tenements it is looking to secure near the town of Perenjori in the Mid West region of WA. The Perth-based company was this week granted the 69-square-kilometre patch of under-explored territory in the Koolanooka Greenstone Belt that has returned intriguing hints of gold from a limited amount of historical drilling.

ASX-listed Kalgoorlie gold miner, Horizon Minerals, has cranked out further promising near-surface drill intersections from one of the four core satellite deposits supplementing its advancing Boorara gold project 10km east of Kalgoorlie-Boulder. The company recently completed a round of resource extension drilling at the Crake deposit consisting of 10 holes totalling 804m to a depth of 132m, as part of its continuing 70,000m drilling blitz this financial year.