Announcements

Venus Metals has entered into a binding term sheet with ASX-listed eMetals for the sale of its Nardoo Hill lithium exploration tenement in WA’s Gascoyne region. Under the terms of the deal, Venus will receive $15,000 in cash, 25 million shares in eMetals priced at $0.014 cents per share and it will retain some upside to the project courtesy of a $0.50 cent per tonne royalty for any ore extracted from the tenement.

The total contract value of all current clients on the books at ASX-listed K2fly, utilising its “Infoscope” and “RCubed” mining software products is up 41 per cent quarter on quarter to over A$4.7 million. In a positive sign this week, mining giant and foundation K2fly client, AngloGold Ashanti, re-signed with K2fly for another three years with a total contract value in excess of A$240,000.

Buru Energy has received $1.9m cash for its share of the latest sale of crude oil from its Ungani oil field in Western Australia’s Canning basin. The sale rounds out a solid quarter of oil sales for Buru who previously predicted it would achieve $5.4m in oil sales for the March quarter – a prediction that is looking good despite the recent drop in oil prices.

After an aggressive exploration campaign across its Menzies and Goongarrie projects in WA, Kingwest Resources has now surpassed the 250,000-ounce milestone for near surface gold resources across the two project areas. 233,336 of those ounces are housed at the company’s jewel in the crown, the Menzies gold project with the previous combined shallow resource estimate across both projects jumping from 171,000 ounces.

Horizon Minerals has picked up a respectable $6M in a combined debt and equity that looks like it will be enough to see the ASX junior pour it first gold bar from the Boorara gold project near Kalgoorlie. As part of the package, Horizon made a $2M placement before costs at A$0.08c per share representing a 10% discount to its 15-day VWAP of $0.089c, an astounding effort in a terrible market.

Australian Potash has secured its first “take-or-pay” term sheet for the supply of 20,000 tonnes of “K-Brite” premium Sulphate of Potash fertiliser per annum from its Lake Wells project to massive Sydney-based chemicals and ingredients distributor, Redox who boasts sales of over A$700 million per annum. The binding term sheet runs for ten years and gives Redox exclusive distribution rights through Australia and New Zealand.

Perth-listed lithium developer, AVZ Minerals, has achieved an impressive average of 69% fine lithia recoveries from stage two metallurgical flotation test work at its giant Manono lithium and tin project in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Elsewhere at the nearby Carriere de l’Este deposit, AVZ conducted initial test work and found randomly sampled high grade sections from diamond core that produced a 2.37% lithium oxide sample.

Venus Metals, along with its JV partner Rox Resources, has just finished flying an Xcite airborne electromagnetic survey, or “HEM” at its Penny West Deep South Project near Youanmi in WA that has identified what looks to be some compelling geophysical zones of interest along the prospective Youanmi shear zone. These zones have a higher electrical conductivity than the surrounding rocks, which may indicate that sulphide minerals are present at depth.

Spectrum Metals has followed up the highest grade drill results seen to date outside of its Penny North deposit in WA and made some further encouraging hits including 3 metres grading 9.62 grams per tonne and 2m grading 13.0g/t gold from its Magenta prospect. It looks as if the company may also be onto a new discovery with a “stratigraphic” hole at the Golden Hinde prospect returning 1m grading 54.9g/t gold from 77m downhole.

Fast-moving telco innovator Vonex, has been granted a US patent for its “Oper8tor” smart phone voice and messaging App, just as it completes third-party testing. Vonex said the patent validates the unique, cross-platform communication capability of the App and the upstart telco will now move to a closed user group for a review of the App’s stability and scalability ahead of the commercial roll-out of the product.

Alterra has tapped into the database, knowledge banks and networks of well-known Harvey avocado and citrus grower, Richard Eckersley. The parties have inked “Local Partner and Data Access” agreements that provide Alterra with access to the expert grower’s cropping data for 15 years and Eckersley will also act as something of a forward scout in the South West for Alterra who is on the hunt for investment grade crops.

K2fly has added another global miner to its stellar list of customers for its extraordinarily successful “RCubed” resource governance mining software. Mining giant Newmont has signed a three-year software provision deal with K2fly with a total contract value in excess of A$900,000. K2fly said customer interest was strong in Toronto recently at the world’s premier mineral exploration and mining convention, PDAC 2020 where the ASX-listed technology player showcased its software.

Novo Resources has acquired the joint venture interests of Artemis Resources to take control of 100 per cent of the Purdy’s Reward and 47K gold leases south of Karratha in WA’s East Pilbara. The two leases are located near the eastern end of Novo’s extensive North Pilbara conglomerate gold fairway and adjacent to Novo’s Comet well JV where it owns 80 per cent of the mineral rights.

Middle Island Resources has set upon an aggressive exploration and development program at its Sandstone gold project, with ongoing drilling identifying the first new significant gold anomaly within a stone’s throw of the existing processing plant. First pass air core drilling has found two separate, near-linear, gold zones that extend over some 600 metres and 300 metres, respectively.

St George Mining is gearing up to drill out a number of compelling new nickel targets at its Mt Alexander project in the Goldfields, some for the first time. A number of undrilled but compelling EM anomalies at the West End and Fish Hook prospects have been screaming to be drilled and have the potential to deliver greenfields discoveries according to St George.

AVZ Minerals is moving to lock in a binding offtake agreement with Yibin Tianyi after the Chinese lithium chemical player tipped an initial $1m into AVZ whilst the Foreign Investment Review Board runs the ruler over Yibin Tianyi’s intention to plough over $14m into AVZ. Tibin Tianyi is a star-studded Chinese partnership that involves some of the biggest industrial names in China.

Blackstone Minerals has racked up more long nickel sulphide intercepts at its King Cobra discovery in Vietnam with two near surface results returning 39m at 1.1per cent nickel and 28m grading 1.2 per cent nickel from its Ta Khoa Nickel-PGE project. One drill hole at King Cobra also intersected a 0.55m thick massive sulphide vein within a broader 58m intersection of disseminated nickel sulphide mineralisation.

After dusting off old maps and records from the Mines Department, Kingwest Resources has put together a lucrative looking exploration target at its Menzies gold project in WA that will be backed up with around 8,300 metres worth of drilling. Kingwest’s exploration targets have been developed at the Princess May, Lady Shenton and First Hit deposits and extrapolate out to a range of between 930K and 1.03M ounces of gold.

In what looks like a herculean effort, Anglo Australian has locked in $5.5m from investors in the worst market conditions for years. Investors shook off Monday’s “flash crash” this week to back Anglo’s vision of developing its Mandilla gold project near Kalgoorlie, underscoring the project’s potential prospectivity. Putting his money where his mouth is, new Anglo MD, Marc Ducler, led the way with a $250k personal commitment to the raise.

Heavy rare earths developer, Northern Minerals has hit more solid heavy rare earths intersections at its Dazzler deposit in WA, with one hole returning 15m grading 2.72 per cent TREO from 20m at its Browns Range Project in the East Kimberley region. The ASX listed company continues to build the case for a full-scale plant with its ongoing success with the drill bit.

Norwest Energy has stripped down and is fit to fight without the burden of debt as it looks to drill out its Lockyer Deep-1 exploration well that is only 15kms north of Strike Resources’ huge West Erregulla gas discovery. Norwest said it has discharged a $1m convertible note facility by repaying $750,000 and issuing 100m shares to noteholder Sundowner International after receiving shareholder approval.

Calidus Resources said it remains on track to deliver a definitive feasibility study for its 1.25Moz Warrawoona gold project near Marble Bar in the Pilbara during the December quarter of this year. The company said it is targeting the commencement of development in the first half of 2021 after its pre-feasibility study demonstrated a robust project based on 100,000oz per annum of gold production.

Buru Energy said it remains on track for its March oil delivery despite having to shut in its Ungani oil field for several days due to seasonal flooding in the region. Buru said production has now resumed at a rate of 1,500 barrels of oil per day after the passing of a deep tropical low and the next delivery from the port of Wyndham was due shortly.

ASX-listed MGC Pharmaceuticals has teamed up with the University of Notre Dame in Perth to undertake a new clinical trial for its “CogniCann” phytocannabinoid-derived medicine, after the first bulk shipment of the medicine arrived in Australia. Management said CogniCann was developed with the specific aim to treat symptoms associated with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease and it is already available under prescription in Australia.

Altech Chemicals is close to enlisting financial heavyweight, Macquarie, to provide USD$90m worth of mezzanine debt for its Malaysian HPA plant, potentially avoiding issuing a large slab of stock to get its project into production. In a London meeting held recently, Macquarie re-affirmed its interest in potentially providing the mezzanine debt for Altech’s project that could spit out over AUD$100m a year in free cash, according to the company.

Ardiden Limited has pegged a large number of new land claims along a 100km stretch of the gold-rich greenstone belt that hosts its Pickle Lake gold project and other historical mines in Ontario, Canada. The freshly staked claims take Ardiden’s total land holdings in the region to more than 500 square kilometres and add exploration targets to its existing inferred resource of 110,000 ounces of gold at Pickle Lake.

ASX-listed oiler 88 Energy has successfully commenced drilling at its Charlie-1 appraisal well on Alaska’s prospective Central North Slope. The company is aiming to intersect several prospective targets that it says could hold up to a staggering 1.6 billion barrels of gross mean prospective resources. The Perth-based company is partnering with UK oil outfit, Premier Oil on the promising looking project, who is funding the cost of the well up to US $23 million.

ASX-listed smart home technology provider, Quantify Technology, has taken its “smart” light switches, power points and related hardware to market after securing international patents, global certification, a world-class manufacturer and distribution by one of Australia’s largest commercial appliance suppliers. Quantify’s patented products can be integrated with Amazon and Google’s voice control technology allowing householders to control everything from the blinds to the TV to the lights using their voice.

Venus Metals has commissioned a detailed heliborne EM survey over its Bellchambers gold project east of Sandstone in WA. The project already boasts a resource of 340,000 tonnes @ 1.5 grams per tonne gold with the company now seeking repetitions along the ‘Western Ridge Gold Trend’. Venus has also commenced negotiations with nearby producer, Adaman Resources, in relation to the potential development and processing of the Bellchambers deposit.

Lindian Resources’ exploration program in northern Guinea continues to meet with outstanding success. Field work has identified two additional high-grade conglomerate bauxite targets adjacent to and along strike from the main prospect area at Bouba. Sampling at Bouba South has returned samples consistent with the main target area including 62.6% alumina with the strike length now blowing out by a further 3.5km.

Perth-based Kairos Minerals appears to be marching towards a 1Moz global gold resource at its Pilbara Gold Project after booking a resource upgrade to 873,500 ounces of gold from 643,000 ounces previously. The resource includes its Mt York, Iron Stirrup and Old Faithful deposits and now sits at 20.9Mt grading 1.3g/t gold, with the bulk of it in the Mt York deposit.

Perth-based gold explorer, Great Southern Mining is back in the field at its Cox’s find project for a tenement-wide air-core geochemical drilling campaign to target further Cox’s Find-style mineralised systems. The company will grid-drill the entire area with a 100m x 50m spacing to deliver around 500 shallow holes down to just 1-6m below surface. Geochem samples will be recovered from the base of each hole for assaying.