Matt Birney

Barton Gold has locked away a permit-wide heritage agreement allowing the company to chase after gold in its ‘game-changing’ channel prospect, covering a 3.5-kilometre strike length of the Tarcoola Ranges in SA. The mega-rich Gawler Craton mineral field contains numerous geological, geophysical and geochemical targets with multiple historical, high-grade gold workings including Barton’s own Perseverance open pit.

Neometals has successfully demonstrated its proprietary vanadium recovery flowsheet in a continuous mini-pilot test program, yielding exceptional product purity better than 99.5 per cent vanadium oxide and vanadium recoveries of more than 75 per cent. The company said its ‘leach residence’ times were 50 per cent below its scoping study design parameters, providing a positive future impact on capital costs.

Budding gold producer, ASX-listed Horizon Minerals, reported further high-grade gold hits at the Crake and Coote projects within its 100 per cent-owned Binduli project, located west of Kalgoorlie. The strikes included a shallow high-grade hit at Crake of 3m at 14.85 g/t gold from only 9m below surface, within a thick 12m interval going 6.68 g/t gold from just 6m.

ASX-listed Blue Star Helium continues to build out its strategic land bank in the USA that surrounds the historic Model Dome helium gas field which once produced helium at good rates with awesome yields. Blue Star has increased its net acreage holding to 120,000 acres, recently adding 12,557 net acres, mostly within its highly ranked Galileo prospect, due west of Model Dome.

Calidus Resources has stepped up its exploration program in the Pilbara, completing first pass drilling over the Otways copper prospect near Nullagine in WA. Reconnaissance drilling has confirmed the results of previous work, delineating wide intercepts of near-surface copper mineralisation including an impressive 40m at 0.70 per cent copper, hosting 10m at 1.64 per cent copper, from surface.

Primobius GnbH, a joint venture company owned by ASX-listed urban metals player Neometals and its 50 per cent partner, German industrial giant, SMS Group GmbH, has signed an MoU with European battery producer InoBat j.s.a. The intended JV plans to investigate the business case for sustainable recycling of lithium-ion batteries, InoBat production scrap and other, third-party feedstock in Central/Eastern Europe.

ASX-listed gold and base metals explorer, White Cliff Minerals, has completed an extensive geochemical soil sampling program at its Midas copper-gold project in the coveted Paterson Province of WA. Just over 500 samples were gathered across five of seven priority target areas previously identified by the Perth-based junior, with pending assay results expected to help form the basis of a maiden drilling program at the project.

ASX-listed medical technology company, Proteomics International Laboratories’ coffers have been further boosted by a $1.1 million research and development tax rebate following a recent successful capital raise of $6 million. The Perth-based company, known for its predictive diagnostic tests, now has approximately $8.5 million in cash reserves including the funds from the share placement and the rebate of $1.13 million from the Australian Taxation Office.

Victory Mines has completed the purchase of the Coogee gold project with the company expediting the terms of its farm-in agreement through a share purchase agreement. The company will issue the current holders of the project, Ramelius Resources, $1 million in shares to deliver full ownership to Victory Mines.

A potentially lucrative base metals joint venture project between Classic Minerals and Independence Group in the revered Fraser Range nickel province of WA has been quietly bubbling away at the same time as the ASX-listed junior explorer looks to develop its flagship Kat Gap gold project about 170km south of Southern Cross.

Gawler Craton stalwart and former managing director of neighbour, Marmota Limited, David Williams, has bolstered the Board of Indiana Resources. Williams joins as a non-executive director, just a month after Indiana locked away a deal for around 2,700 square kilometres of fresh gold ground in South Australia from private player, Patron Resources, also led by Williams.

Northern Minerals has launched a major drilling campaign at its Browns Range heavy rare earths project in WA’s East Kimberley region, with 8,000m of the 16,500m RC program planned for the financial year set to be completed before Christmas. It has also recently started building a $5.9 million ore sorter at the front end of the project’s pilot plant that is flagged as a low-cost method of potentially doubling the ore feed grade.

Middle Island Resources’ 50,000m-plus drilling campaign this year has reaped a mind-boggling array of high-grade gold hits from its historic Sandstone gold project in the East Murchison mineral field in WA. The positive results from its drilling blitz aimed at upgrading existing deposits, infilling and extending five new satellite open-pit deposits saw the Sandstone gold resource climb to the latest total of 732,100 ounces.

Novo Resources has completed a battery of test work on the bulk samples from its Karratha gold project, successfully recovering fine nuggety gold from the conglomerate ores found at both the Purdy’s Reward and Comet Well deposits. The recovery of this size fraction, via mechanical sorting, significantly enhances the potential economics of the operation and validates the process flow sheet being designed for the developing operation.

Adriatic Metals has been buoyed by early diamond drill hits from a 10,000m confirmation drilling program at its historic Kizevak silver-lead-zinc deposit, part of the recently acquired Raska project in Serbia. The new asset in the company’s project portfolio, courtesy of an all-scrip acquisition of fellow Balkans precious and base metals play, Tethyan Resource Corp, is located approximately 200km from its advancing flagship Vares silver-lead-zinc project in neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina.

ASX-listed Lithium Australia’s 90 per cent-owned subsidiary, Envirostream Australia, has been allocated just over $200,000 in grant funding from the Victorian State Government for the further development of its “electrolyte management in rechargeable battery recycling” project. The battery recycling company’s electrolyte management process safely captures electrolyte components in liquid form from the recycling of spent lithium-ion batteries.

Deep Yellow has completed drilling over its Tumas 3 uranium deposit in Namibia, ticking off yet another box as it charges toward the completion of its pre-feasibility study in south-west Africa. The company has completed 53 drill holes over the target which exceeding expectations returning results of up to 515 eppm uranium oxide.

ASX-listed explorer, Oakdale Resources, has received regulatory approvals for a maiden aircore drilling program at its Gibraltar halloysite-kaolin project on SA’s Eyre Peninsula. The company says a drilling contractor has been locked in and the drill rig and geological crew are expected to be on site early next month.

White Cliff Minerals has wasted no time in releasing a maiden inferred and indicated gold resource at its historic Reedy South gold project 40km north of Cue in WA’s resurgent Murchison goldfields. The company, which only completed the acquisition of the project three weeks ago, has already come out with a resource of 779,000 tonnes going 1.7 grams per tonne for 42,400 ounces of contained gold.

Blackstone Minerals has moved quickly to put a mine-to-market management group in place to develop its Ta Khoa nickel-copper-PGE project in Vietnam. The appointments come just a fortnight after the company tabled a scoping study with a tantalising set of numbers including a A$1 billion present-day valuation and net pre-tax cash flows in excess of US$1.2 billion over the projected 8.5-year life of mine.

ASX-listed 3D metal printing developer, Aurora Labs, is exploring software innovation with US computing giant HP Inc., investigating the potential compatibility of HP software to generate 3D print files with Aurora’s printers. HP said its new Universal Build Manager leverages its software to enable simplified and automated build preparation across multiple additive manufacturing technologies at super-charged speeds.

King River Resources is back in WA’s East Kimberley region, with the drill rods turning again as the company chases more high-grade gold veins across its Mt Remarkable land package 60km south of its mammoth Speewah Dome speciality metals project. Its best historical drill result came from the Trudi vein in 2018 where it hit 4m at over 3.5 ounces to the tonne.

ASX-listed gold explorer, Kairos Minerals, has detected some encouraging gold sniffs at its Croydon project 120km south-west of Port Hedland following an initial reconnaissance RC drilling program. The company drilled 29 wide-spaced RC holes totalling 5,586m including 20 holes for 3,815m at the greenfields Fuego prospect. Fuego falls under the Croydon project, which in turn forms part of the company’s overarching Pilbara gold projects “hub”.

K2fly is on the acquisition trail, this week picking up fellow “software as a service” specialist, SATEVA. The company is building a strategic position in the resource’s software space and this week’s acquisition looks like it may come with bottom line and client sharing synergies. Both companies already enjoy tier one client relationships with goliath sized companies and the opportunity to cross sell software looks real.

ASX-listed Lithium Australia has succeeded in securing critical protection for the intellectual property around its revolutionary lithium recovery technology after scoring a US patent for its proprietary extraction process. The US Patent and Trademark Office has approved an application for “SiLeach”, a low-energy process for the recovery of lithium from micas and clays.

Dampier Gold’s gamble to refocus its exploration onto the Zuleika Shear, north-west of Kalgoorlie in WA, looks to be paying off with the company hitting paydirt with recent aircore drilling over the Paradigm East prospect. Shallow drilling has hit high-grade gold mineralisation at the prospect returning an impressive 24m at 6.39 g/t gold including a stellar 4m at 34.74 g/t gold from only 28m down-hole.

Wiluna Mining Corporation has penned another page in its comeback story as management’s turnaround strategy appears to take hold. With high-grade, wide intersection gold strikes continuing to roll off the bit, headlined by a 37.52m intersection at 10.77g/t, the company is enjoying a renaissance built on a trifecta of steadily increasing cash flows, rising production and reduced operating costs.

Adriatic Metals has rattled the tin for US$28 million across two capital raises as it cashes up to fund an imminent definitive feasibility study on its Vares silver-lead-zinc project in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The company has entered binding agreements to raise US$20 million from a private placement of unsecured convertible debentures to Queen's Road Capital Investment and US$8 million from a share placement to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

ASX-listed Proteomics International Laboratories has locked away $6m in cash via a heavily oversubscribed placement to UK and local institutions and other sophisticated investors to progress the marketing and development of its ‘PromarkerD’ predictive kidney disease test. Euroz-Hartleys Securities Ltd acted as sole lead manager for the placement to new and existing investors and Candour Advisory acted as Corporate Adviser.

ASX-listed Kalgoorlie gold producer, Horizon Minerals, has released an encouraging pre-feasibility study on its joint-ventured Richmond-Julia Creek vanadium project in north-west Queensland that envisages an initial 20-year mine life and development CAPEX of US$157.4 million. The JV also released maiden ore reserves for the project’s Lilyvale deposit of 459.2 million tonnes going 0.49 per cent vanadium pentoxide for 2.25 million contained tonnes.

ASX-listed gold explorer, Aruma Resources, is gearing up for a maiden drilling program at its Saltwater gold project about 100km south-west of Newman in WA’s resurgent Pilbara goldfields province. Despite the current resources exploration boom, the company has managed to lock in drilling contractors to carry out the first phase of RC drilling totalling up to 5,000m.

InteliCare has delivered a 29 per cent spike in quarterly sales as its predictive analytics software that monitors the daily movements of the sick and the elderly is deployed across the aged-care and healthcare sectors. The upwards swing in sales coincided with a lowering of costs which has delivered a 23 per cent increase in overall margin.