Announcements

Dogs have readily taken PharmAust’s Monepantel tablets using the new formulation for the anti-cancer drug either directly from administrators’ hands or from the floor. This bodes well for future trials of the drug in humans as the canine taste testers have an apparently higher taste sensitivity than humans. The Phase I clinical trial for Monepantel in dogs is poised to start later this month.

Phylogica continues to prove the effectiveness of its lead first generation cell penetrating peptides, or “CPP’s”, after winning its first ever competitive test with a competitor CPP in an animal model. Mice treated with the company’s CPP vaccine before being injected with a highly aggressive melanoma, had a longer survival time compared to those treated with the competing CPP.

Coziron Resources has completed preliminary metallurgical testwork that successfully upgraded the vanadium content for all metallurgical samples obtained from its flagship Buddadoo project near Yalgoo in WA. The next phase of work will include further sampling of RC drill holes. The company also plans to carry out a diamond drilling campaign to acquire additional samples for grindsize liberation and comminution studies.

PharmAust has executed an agreement with a major US contract research organisation to start Phase I clinical trials for its flagship anti-cancer drug Monepantel in dogs on 19 February 2019 using its final tablet format. This will provide information on the number of tablets, administration frequency, blood levels and verification of safety for the Phase II trials in pet owners’ dogs with naturally occurring cancers.

Adriatic Metals is set to increase its land holdings at the exciting Vares project in Bosnia, after receiving a key permit for major expansions to its existing concession agreement over the Rupice and Veovaca prospect areas at its 100% owned base metals play. At Rupice North, the expansion takes in the region northwards and down plunge of a 66m thick, high grade intersection reported in October 2018.

Great Southern Mining has identified an exciting large-scale porphyry system containing highly anomalous assays at its Leichardt Creek prospect, located near Townsville in northern Queensland. Rock chip samples up to 0.56% copper, 0.12g/t gold and 0.46% molybdenum were returned from a broad zone of gossanous, stock worked quartz veining and disseminated multi-mineralised outcrops also elevated in silver, zinc and lead, over an area of nearly 6 square kilometres.

Ironbark Zinc has identified a strong, broad bedrock anomaly at the proven, large-scale Jerangle base metals prospect at its multi-element Captains Flat project in NSW from preliminary interpretation of its recent helicopter-borne electromagnetic survey. Interpretation of the data is ongoing with a final report with drill targets expected shortly.

Calidus Resources has boosted the global mineral resource estimate at its Warrawoona gold project in the Pilbara by 75% to 21.2 million tonnes grading 1.83g/t gold for 1.25 million ounces. The new mineral resources will underpin the company’s ongoing PFS for the project, which is well underway and set for completion in the September quarter of this year.

Delecta Limited has exercised its option to acquire the Highline cobalt-copper project in Nevada, USA, after completing due diligence that confirmed the high-grade nature of its mineralisation. The company plans to carry out detailed geological mapping and sampling over the western claim and the Highline Mine area to identify drill targets.

Venus Metals Corporation has uncovered two promising boxwork gossans at its DeGrussa North copper project, located just 3km north of Sandfire Resources’ high-grade DeGrussa copper mine in WA’s Meekatharra mining district. Assays results for the rock and soil samples collected from the gossans are expected to be received in about two weeks.

Lithium Australia has concluded an exploration program of geological mapping, rock chip sampling and geochemical soil sampling over high grade lithium mineralisation identified last year at its Medcalf prospect, located southwest of Norseman in WA. The company previously unearthed the swarm of spodumene rich pegmatites with rock chip samples up to 7.15% lithium oxide in outcrops covering an area of 250m wide by 500m long.

Bellevue Gold has upgraded the inferred resources at its namesake project northwest of Leinster, WA, by 47% to 4Mt @ 11.8g/t gold for 1.53 million ounces of contained gold, just months after hitting the million ounce mark. Drilling is continuing at the very high-grade Viago Lode and Western Corridor and the company expects to release another mineral resource upgrade in the second quarter of this year.

European interest in lithium chemicals could benefit Infinity Lithium and its planned San Jose project, which aims to mine and refine lithium hydroxide for the European market. This includes the active support from the European Investment Bank for European lithium raw materials and refining projects to strengthen the strategic position of the European Union’s lithium-ion battery and electric vehicle sectors.

Hot Chili has executed a binding MoU for an option to acquire a 100% interest in Chilean mining group SCM Carola’s Vallenar landholdings, that are adjacent to the company’s Productora and El Fuego copper assets in Chile. The new “Cortadera” tenements hold a significant copper-gold porphyry discovery which contains extraordinarily wide, high grade, drill intersections of copper/gold mineralisation never publicly released before.

TNG Ltd has appointed mining veteran John Elkington as its Non-Executive Chairman as it proceeds with the financing and developing of its Mount Peake vanadium-titanium-iron project in the Northern Territory. Rex Turkington has stepped down as the company’s interim Chairman and remains on the board as a non-executive director.

Sovereign Metals has raised $4.3m through a share placement priced at 6.5c per share to accelerate the definitive feasibility study for its Malingunde flake graphite project in Malawi and additional metallurgical and exploration activities for the recently identified rutile potential. The company will also raise up to an additional $1m through a share purchase plan for existing shareholders.

Caravel Minerals has confirmed a new geological and structural model for the Bindi deposit, located near Perth in WA, by drilling multiple new zones of copper sulphide mineralisation up to 200m wide at its namesake project. The company is updating the mineral resource model and an updated mineral resource estimate for the project is expected later this quarter, incorporating all the new geology and assay data.

Pilbara conglomerate gold theorist, Novo Resources, has generated encouraging gold recoveries of up to nearly 90% from ore sorting trials at its Comet Well project located near Karratha in WA. The trials produced ore grades up to 792.4g/t in sorted gold concentrates and additional work will now be undertaken at smaller crush sizes and on oxidised ore samples to optimise gold recoveries even further.

MGC Pharmaceuticals’ botanic division has achieved a significant milestone with its Czech Republic greenhouse delivering 700kg of cannabis biomass in 2018, up 30% from the previous year. The company has also developed a new proprietary genetic strain of cannabis that contains over 35% THC and less than 1% CBD, allowing MGC to obtain more THC per kg of raw material to create cost effective medical cannabis products.

St George Mining has delineated two new nickel/copper targets at its Mt Alexander project, near Leonora in the northern Goldfields of WA. The Fairbridge prospect lies between the key Stricklands and Cathedrals prospects and is replete with surface gossans that returned impressive rock chip assays up to 1.23% nickel and 1.09% copper. The new West End prospect may contain buried sulphide mineralisation west of the existing Investigators prospect.

Calima Energy is set to rake in revenue of up to CAD$400,000 per year after bringing the Paradise oil well in northeast British Columbia back into production at a rate of between 16 and 20 barrels of oil per day. Revenue from the well will help pay for the company’s Canadian overheads, allowing it to focus on the high impact drilling program in the revered Montney oil and gas play.

Tyranna Resources is poised to divest its remaining 18.59% interest in the non-core Wilcherry JV gold project in South Australia to partner Alliance Resources for a tidy $1.5m in cash. The sale will allow the company to focus on its Eureka gold project near Kalgoorlie, WA, the Jumbuck gold project in South Australia and the Goodsprings cobalt and base metals project in Nevada, USA.

Anglo Australian will soon start its maiden exploratory RC drilling campaign at the Koongie Park gold project near Halls Creek in WA after receiving all site clearances to commence the field program. The company will target the Nicolsons East and Bulldog prospects, which lie in same prospective shear zone as Pantoro Limited’s Nicolsons underground gold mine, that reported a mineral resource of 393,000 ounces in May last year.

BlackEarth Minerals has unveiled an attractive set of numbers including post tax NPV at a 10% discount of USD$78.4m and IRR of 35.4% as part of the scoping study for its Maniry graphite project in southern Madagascar just 12 months after listing on the ASX. Capital costs for the first phase development has been estimated at USD$41m with payback expected in just 2.7 years.

Azumah Resources has generated an updated ore reserve estimate of 18 million tonnes grading 1.77g/t gold for just over 1 million ounces at its Wa project in Ghana. This represents a 65% increase in the ore reserves last reported in 2014 and underpins a feasibility study that presently shows an 11 year project life, producing about 100,000 ounces per annum in the first 6 years.

Tyranna Resources’ partner Alliance Resources has discovered a zone of gold anomalism from aircore drilling at the Weednanna East prospect of their Wilcherry JV project in South Australia. The magnitude and distribution of gold may be indicative of primary gold mineralisation and Alliance plans to carry out further drilling to better define the gold in regolith anomalies before carrying out bedrock drill testing.

Greenland Minerals has completed an optimised design for its proposed port facility to service the massive Kvanefjeld rare earths project in southern Greenland, allowing capital costs to be updated. The work by PND Engineers and China Communications Construction Co follows a revised design for the project’s plant and infrastructure delivered in late 2018 by Tetra Tech, which dramatically reduced civil earth working costs.

PharmAust has signed an agreement with US pharmaceutical heavyweight Elanco that allows the biotech company to reference certain safety and blood chemistry data that were generated for the regulatory approval of Monepantel in Australia, New Zealand and the EU, as an anti-parasitic drug in livestock animals. This could potentially expedite the early proof of principle phase two trials of the anti-cancer drug in dogs.

Kairos Minerals has uncovered additional gold anomalies over more than 10km strike at its emerging Croydon gold project, located near Port Hedland in the Pilbara region WA. Encouraging new assays up to 1.2g/t gold were returned from geochemical stream sediment sampling. The company is also reviewing a development pathway for its 643,000 ounce gold resource at the Mt York project, located 100km west of Croydon.

MGC Pharmaceuticals has completed the sale of its cannabis-based cosmetics business, MGC Derma, to CannaGlobal for a 10% stake in the private Canadian cannabis investment company. The company will now focus on its cannabis-based pharmaceutical products and deliver on its seed-to-pharma business model.

Southern Gold has confirmed narrow, high grade gold/silver mineralisation from an underground infill and extensional channel sampling program at its emerging Weolyu South epithermal precious metal project in South Korea. Results included 0.45m @ 30g/t gold and 1,280g/t silver and 0.55m @ 28.9g/t gold and 1,350g/t silver. A re-assay of 2017 samples also provided a significant 30% uplift in gold grades from the original analyses.

Calima Energy has spudded the second of two horizontal wells at its Canadian Montney oil and gas play that will be placed on extended production testing to assess the commerciality of its acreage. Successful testing of the Calima-2 and Calima-3 horizontal wells will allow the company to convert at least some of its resources from prospective to the higher confidence contingent level.