Announcements

Element 25 has inked its first non-binding off-take Memorandum of Understanding with OM Materials who is looking to purchase manganese concentrate from its Butcherbird project in the Pilbara. The project is hurtling towards production and slated to churn out AUD$24.4m a year in free cash. The MoU will ultimately see between 50 and 100 per cent of the product spoken for over five years.

Ora Banda Mining has delivered a solid increase to its gold inventory at Davyhurst in WA after it tabled a maiden resource for the Callion underground deposit of 77,000 ounces of high-grade gold, paving the way for the company to complete a DFS over the project. The new resource bumps the global resource for Davyhurst up to 2.13 million ounces.

Calidus Resources’ updated PFS for its Warrawoona gold project in the Pilbara shows another $20m a year falling to the bottom line compared to previous estimates. The latest set of numbers which have been tabled on the back of a simplified mine plan will no doubt be helpful for Calidus who is now getting dangerously close to production at Warrawoona.

Godolphin Resources is set to drill test its Gundagai South project with recent mapping and sampling pointing to some interesting looking ‘walk up’ gold targets. Recent field work has identified priority areas associated with historical mine workings at the Surprise North, Highway and Stoney Creek South prospects. Work is expected to kick off in August 2020.

Terrain Minerals has acquired the mineral rights to a prospecting licence known as Wilsons Patch, a postage stamp sized tenement right in the middle of its Wildviper gold project, located north of Leonora in Western Australia. The ground has been in private prospecting hands for decades and Terrain has inked a simple milling royalty agreement with no upfront payment to access the prospecting license.

Element 25 is on track to meet an aggressive development schedule at its Butcherbird manganese project in the Pilbara, with a production water bore drilling program now underway. The bore holes will supply process water for Element 25’s proposed manganese beneficiation plant and they are a very necessary piece of infrastructure required to catapult the project into production.

Middle Island Resources is hitting its straps at Sandstone with the latest drilling results from its Ridgeway discovery delivering outstanding high-grade intercepts including 4 metres at 99.5 g/t gold which hosts a 1 metre resample topping the scales at an extraordinary 390 g/t gold. This continues a run of impressive results from the company which has seen it bank five new gold deposits since the start of the year.

Anglo Australian has entered into a farm out agreement with ASX-listed AuKing Mining that will see AuKing earn up to 75 per cent of its Koongie Park base metals project in WA’s north by paying A$1m in cash and spending $3m on exploration over three years. Anglo said cash proceeds from the deal will be used to advance its flagship Mandilla gold project near Kambalda.

With its market cap now sitting comfortably over $100m, the hurdles are starting to drop now as Calidus Resources races towards gold production in the Pilbara. Arguably the most difficult hurdle to navigate on the pathway to production is EPA approval and Calidus now has this important one behind it at the Warrawoona gold project after getting the nod from the EPA.

Neometals Ltd is looking to create a low-cost vanadium production hub in Sweden by utilising its innovative processing technologies to treat waste from SSAB’s Lulea steel mill. A recently tabled scoping study over the project estimates it will throw off almost A$80 million a year in cash flow over an initial 10.5-year life with the next stage of test work already underway.

Delecta Ltd looks set to ride the next uranium wave that is already starting to form with the ASX-listed company announcing it has picked up a controlling interest in a USA uranium project that is littered with old workings including high grade vanadium. Delecta will pay $150k and 20 million options for the Colorado based project entity.

In a sign that it is nearing the pointy end of development, AVZ Minerals has tested the market by calling for pre-mining tender submissions at its massive Manono lithium project in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The tenders are for infrastructure estimated to be worth USD$300m at Manono that boasts a gigantic 400 million tonne resource grading 1.65 per cent Li2O.

TNT Mines’ punt that the old workings on its East Canyon project in the USA should still be harbouring some uranium and vanadium riches looks to have been bang on after the company said it could see “visible” uranium and vanadium in the old workings at its Bonanza and None Such prospects

Infill drilling at the emerging Grace prospect near the Youanmi mill in WA’s Goldfields has thrown up more stellar gold intercepts for the ASX-listed JV partners Venus Metals and Rox Resources, including 2m at 176.03 g/t from 28m, within a total interval of 4m at 88.81 g/t gold from 27m. The latest results have extended the shallow deposit, with further, deeper results still pending.

Impact Minerals has been exploring its ground in the prolific Lachlan Fold Belt of New South Wales and the company’s efforts have unearthed some exciting results with rock chips from the Greenobbys prospect returning up to 9.5 g/t gold, 215g/t silver and 745ppm bismuth. Rock chip samples from the Boda South prospect also returned up to 0.1 per cent copper, 2g/t silver and 40ppm bismuth.

With a combined gold ore reserve of some 1.4 million ounces grading 1.7 grams per tonne and a total resource of 93.2Mt grading a solid 2.13g/t for around 6.4m ounces, Wiluna Mining is having no trouble finding even more gold – all within the shadow of the old headframe. The company’s exceptional recent results coincide with its recent rebrand from Blackham Resources to Wiluna Mining.

Podium Minerals is about to embark on a resource drilling program to test the prospective 15km strike length of its Parks Reef platinum group metals deposit near Cue. The company is aiming to define continuity in its west resource sector over a 6.1km length within the 15km Parks Reef zone. Drilling is also aimed at increasing the combined total strike length of resources within the reef to an impressive length of 8.5km.

Blackstone Minerals has upped the ante at its Ban Chang prospect in Vietnam with drilling intersecting 15.4 m of nickel sulphide mineralisation. The intercept extends the strike length of the target to over 1,200 metres and hints at the potential of the nickel system at depth. Exploration will continue throughout the region with results expected to flow from the ongoing drilling campaign soon.

ASX-listed Horizon Minerals is ahead of schedule at its Boorara gold mine just 10km east of Kalgoorlie’s super pit with 22 per cent more dirt already moved than originally contemplated at this point in time. An inaugural parcel of ore is currently being hauled to the nearby Lakewood mill with first processing to occur on July 13th.

Just a fortnight on from its $20 million capital raise, ASX-listed Legend Mining is back in the field with a 3-kilometre RC drill program. Recent aircore assays include drill hits such as 25m at 0.35% nickel, 0.17 per cent copper and 0.04 per cent cobalt from 64m along the eastern flank of a large gravity anomaly at its Mawson nickel-copper prospect.

ASX-listed Agribusiness developer, Alterra Ltd has turned the earth at its operation near Pemberton as it ramps up activity towards September this year when it intends to plant out the first five hectares of avocado orchard at its 300-hectare Carpenters project in WA’s premier south-west growing region. Alterra said water management would be key to delivering success at its institutional investment-grade agricultural asset.

Terrain Minerals has stepped up its hunt for gold in Western Australia with exploration at its Smokebush and Wild-Viper projects identifying new targets for drill testing including recognised gold-bearing structures and extensive old mine workings. Drilling is scheduled to kick off in the third quarter of 2020; to be funded in part by the recent $3m sale of the company’s Great Western tenure.

Element 25 has secured a critical access agreement with the local pastoral lease holder, paving the way for the grant of the mining lease at its lucrative Butcherbird manganese project in Western Australia. The grant of the lease will allow the company to swing into the next phase of mining approvals and see the project head into the mine planning phase for production.

Unlisted Barton Gold has achieved its native title clearances for an imminent 10 to 12-kilometre drilling program on ground around its mothballed Tarcoola high-grade open pit gold mine on South Australia’s Gawler Craton. Barton is targeting mineral resource additions below Tarcoola’s existing pit floor and adjacent mineralised structures where previous drilling threw up numbers like 22m at 6.75 g/t gold from 15m.

Anglo Australian Resources Mandilla gold project near Kambalda is rapidly taking on a new complexion with seriously long, high grade intersections now rolling off the drill bit at will. Latest numbers include 26m at 8.29 g/t gold from 76 metres down-hole. Exploration, including DroneMag, has identified a range of new targets and extended the discovery zone to nearly 3 km of strike.

ASX-listed automotive panel and repair shop conglomerate, AMA Group, has locked in improved pricing with key insurers, effective from July after concluding service agreement negotiations with all key players. The renegotiated prices are expected to result in meaningful growth across the company’s Australasian network of panel repair workshops that already look set to benefit from a lack of public transport use during COVID-19.

Novo Resources has taken yet another step towards commercial gold production, revealing that it is in advanced discussions with process equipment supplier Steinert Australia to acquire a mechanical ore sorting unit to field test its conglomerate-gold ores in the Pilbara. The unit will be manufactured in Germany and is expected to be deployed into the Pilbara in the latter half of the 2020 field season.

Hot Chili is back in the field at its giant Cortadera copper-gold project in Chile with the Perth company poised to extend an extraordinarily long drill intersection that has already unearthed over 300m of mineralised porphyry. The drill rig fired back up recently following a COVID-19 shutdown and Hot Chili looks to be primed and ready to again test its drilling prowess.

ASX-listed PharmAust Limited has shown that the initial successful testing of its cancer fighting drug, Monepantel, against the COVID-19 virus may not have been a fluke, with new testing showing a “remarkable” 95% suppression rate in the infectivity of the SARS-CoV- 2 virus (COVID-19) in laboratory tests by both Monepantel and Monepantel sulfone. Testing was undertaken at Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne.

Venus Metals Corporation has received a further boost to its war chest with battery metal focussed eMetals Ltd this week forking out $160,000 to complete the purchase of Venus’ Poona Lithium project in WA. The sale allows Venus to shift its focus to a range of new project areas in the fertile terranes surrounding the Youanmi mining region.

Kairos Minerals has more than doubled its Pilbara land tenure in the vicinity of DeGrey Mining’s extraordinary gold find at its Hemi project. Exploration will begin in earnest in the coming weeks with geophysics to be run over the northern tenure and drilling scheduled at the Fuego and Mt Yorke prospects in July. The new acquisition takes Kairos’ tenure from 384 to 774 square kilometres.

Perth’s Infinity Lithium has secured staged funding of up to €0.8 million from the European Union-based EIT InnoEnergy to fund phase one of a pilot plant at its San Jose Lithium project in Spain. EIT InnoEnergy is mandated to support the European Battery Alliance of which Infinity is a member, who is seeking to build a competitive and fully integrated battery supply chain in Europe.