Announcements

ABx Group has bumped up its Tasmanian ionic-adsorption clay-hosted rare earths mineral resource estimate by 30 per cent to 27 million tonnes averaging 803ppm TREO. The updated figure comes courtesy of an additional 36 drill holes that have stretched the company’s prospective target area across a 16km strike from the Deep Leads-Rubble Mound deposit through to its recent Windbreak discovery.

Soil sampling by WA-based explorer Alma Metals at its Briggs project in Queensland has expanded its soil copper anomaly out to 2300m long and 1000m wide, with readings of more than 500 parts per million copper. Management says the work has allowed it to revise its target of 480 million tonnes to 880 million tonnes at between 0.20 per cent and 0.30 per cent copper.

Aurumin has acquired two new exploration licence applications next to the company’s 881,000-ounce Sandstone gold project. The new ground encloses similar prospective geology and mineralisation controls to those within Aurumin’s main project area. With only limited exploration to date at the company’s new ground, it offers considerable additional potential to discover previously unknown areas of gold mineralisation.

Middle Island Resources has officially increased its tenure in the Northern Territory and expanded its Barkly site after completing the acquisition of the East Tennant project from Strategic Energy Resources. The purchase covers six exploration licenses, taking its total landholding in the East Tenant region to an impressive 6753 square kilometres, with exploration programs set to be planned to identify new priority targets.

Ardea Resources and Brightstar Resources have agreed to a tenement swap as the former looks to expand its Kalgoorlie nickel project Goongarrie Hub, while the latter builds its Menzies gold-lithium operation. Brightstar will acquire all mineral rights to 10 prospecting licenses immediately adjacent to or along strike at its existing holdings, in addition to gold and lithium rights to another exploration license.

Lindian Resources expects to reveal a maiden rare earths mineral resource for its emerging Kangankunde project in Malawi in just a fortnight, on the back of what it says are some world-leading numbers. The company’s latest drilling results include a standout 58m hit going 4.5 per cent total rare earth oxides (TREO) from just 2m, including 29.2m at 6.6 per cent TREO from 6m.

Having recently pivoted into an emerging lithium hotspot in Brazil, Gold Mountain is promptly exploring its significant package of tenements as it eyes its first drilling program by the year’s end. The company’s exploration to date has identified 250 pegmatites, with multiple soil and rock-chip sample results pending. Gold Mountain is just starting its lithium climb.

K2fly has inked a five-year deal, projected to have a total contract value of $2 million, with the world-class Roy Hill iron ore operation in Western Australia’s Pilbara region. The agreement marks the second of two contracts signed with major Pilbara operators for its “ground disturbance” solution in less than a month, having secured a three-year contract extension with BHP in June.

Godolphin Resources has received almost $600,000 in exploration tax credits for this financial year, following a successful application to the Australian Federal Government’s Junior Minerals Exploration Incentive (JMEI) program. The credits will support exploration across the company’s enviable landholding in the Lachlan Fold Belt in NSW, where it this month increased its rare earths resource grade by 126 per cent at its Narraburra project.

Everest Metals’ early exploration mapping, rock-chip sampling and a small, but remarkably successful first phase of RC drilling has identified potentially world-class lithium-caesium-tantalum (LCT) mineralisation in pegmatite swarms at its Mt Edon project near Paynes Find in Western Australia’s Mid West region. All but one drillhole intersected pegmatites, which are known in the area to be highly-prospective for critical metals.

Reproductive biotechnology company Memphasys been granted two new patents by the Australian Patent Office for its flagship Felix system, ensuring that the integrity of the device is protected in all markets. Felix is a medical device that gently separates high-quality sperm from semen for use in IVF programs that combines membranes and a process involving an electrical charge called electrophoresis.

Perth-based Neometals says its indirectly-owned subsidiary Novana Oy and Glencore International have penned an offtake agreement to lock in the exclusive sale of battery metal vanadium for five years. Glencore will buy all of the vanadium product, sourced from Finnish steel slag, from Novana starting in January, 2026. It will also continue to provide technical guidance throughout the vanadium recovery project.

Lindian Resources has successfully filled its coffers with $35 million in fundraising, enabling it to make the third and final payment of $14.95 million as part of its full acquisition of the Kangankunde rare earths project in Malawi. Cash has come from new and existing institutional and sophisticated investors, who subscribed for more than 106 million fully-paid ordinary shares at 33 cents each.

Everest Metals’ stock jumped 50 per cent after it revealed that three deep diamond holes drilled to follow up newly-imaged targets at its Revere gold project suggested 8.5km of continuous mineralisation up to 5.7 per cent copper and 4.2 per cent zinc. The company says initial XRF results and logging indicate a mineralised system similar to Sandfire Resources’ world-class DeGrussa copper–gold mine.

Aruma Resources has kicked a goal at the start of its hunt for rare earths at its Saltwater project in Western Australia, with the discovery of significant rare earths mineralisation and cobalt-copper-enriched rocks. Results have reaffirmed the potential for the area to host unconformity heavy rare earths and highlighted the prospectivity for base metals deposits along an interpreted 80km strike length of prospective host rocks.

Meeka Metals has tabled a solid set of numbers from a prefeasibility study into its Murchison gold project, forecasting the return of a post-tax free cash flow of $261 million from a mine life of more than nine years and with a payback period of just 22 months at a gold price of $2750 per ounce. Environmental studies are being fast-tracked.

Horizon Minerals has launched a new drill campaign in a bid to expand the footprint of its Cannon gold project near Kalgoorlie from a single planned underground operation to a mining hub with potential open-pit mines. The Cannon deposit hosts a mineable ore reserve of 135,000 tonnes at 4.1g/t gold for 17,680 ounces and forms part of the company’s 1.15-million-ounce Kalgoorlie-Boulder gold resource.

Perth-based explorer Si6 Metals has moved to acquire about 178 square kilometres of tier-one Brazilian rare earths and lithium ground in that country’s renowned “Lithium Valley”. The company has completed its due diligence on the deal and will proceed with the acquisition of a portfolio of 10 tenements in partnership with the ground’s owner, Foxfire Metals, subject to shareholder approval and independent expert review.

European-focused Altech Batteries is seeking a green nod of approval for its Cerenergy sodium-chloride battery from renowned environmental research centre CICERO after a study found it emitted 50 per cent fewer greenhouse gases than lithium-ion batteries – and without needing critical metals, lithium and cobalt. Altech’s planned Cerenergy battery plant in Saxony will utilise renewable energy sources to minimise its carbon footprint.

Everest Metals’ Rover project is set to be hit with the drillbit this week when Rio Tinto Exploration kicks off a seven-hole, 1400m reverse-circulation (RC) program. The new campaign will target potential pegmatite-hosted lithium mineralisation beneath weathered outcrop at the project’s northernmost tenement in the Central Yilgarn region of Western Australia – an area undergoing a resurgence in exploration.

Classic Minerals has successfully completed the commissioning of its Kat Gap processing plant in Western Australia’s Goldfields region and has declared it will have its first bar of gold doré smelted this month. The company is set to start processing its 6504 tonnes of bulk sample ore at an average head grade of 6.06g/t, using a combined modular-designed “Gekko” and conventional processing plant.

Auric Mining is a step closer to a maiden gold pour from its Jeffreys Find project near Norseman, with the first 30,000 tonnes of gold ore set for processing once it is transported to Greenfields Mill in Coolgardie. The company says mining at the site has been ongoing for six weeks and it has secured triple road trains to haul its first ore to Coolgardie.

GreenTech Metals has extended its Kobe lithium prospect in the West Pilbara after receiving rock chip assays showing up to 1.8 per cent lithium oxide, confirming it is onto a consistent mineralised pegmatite zone more than 7.5 km long. The latest batch of assays backs–up the company’s reconnaissance sampling earlier in the year, which returned up to 1.65 per cent lithium oxide rock chips.

Infinity Lithium says its battery training and development programs offered through its subsidiary Extremadura New Energies have been declared a “strategic” qualification by the local regional government. The Extremadura Public Employment Service (SEXPE), part of the Regional Government of Extremadura, will now provide grants through public funding in coming months to advance the company’s training initiatives.

Kalgoorlie Gold Mining has gone 8 for 8, with all 8 rock chip samples recently submitted to the lab from a newly discovered outcropping gold vein at its Perrinvale project near Leonora showing some colour. The company tabled assays from its Pine Well North prospect within Perrinvale going as high as 4.08 g/t gold. Other higher grade results included 2.39 g/t and 1.88 g/t gold.

Venus Metals says it has identified a strong lithium anomaly at its Youanmi lithium project in Western Australia’s Murchison region that may indicate pegmatite-hosted lithium-caesium-tantalum (LCT) mineralisation. The discovery was made from a reconnaissance soil sampling program in an area not previously explored for LCT mineralisation where several pegmatite outcrops are located.

Alma Metals was up 70 per cent after tabling a resource upgrade at its Briggs copper project in Queensland that smashed through the million-tonne contained copper mark and added molybdenum for the first time to the tune of 28.6m pounds. Alma says Briggs has now clawed its way into the top 10 largest undeveloped copper plays in Australia in terms of contained metal.

Lindian Resources’ big punt that its rare earths deposit in Malawi could extend well below the existing 300m might just pay off after a second 1000m hole showed signs of potential mineralisation all the way down. The monster intersection will now be assessed by a wave of assays and the company will soon deliver its highly-anticipated maiden mineral resource estimate to the market.

Toro Energy says high-confidence laboratory results confirming massive nickel sulphides at its Dimma discovery in Western Australia’s Goldfields region are double the thickness previously modelled on x-ray fluorescence scoping data. Previously thought to be 2.4m thick, Toro says it now has 4.31m of massive and semi-massive nickel-sulphide grading 1.37 per cent nickel, 0.13 per cent copper and 0.539g/t tonne platinum and palladium from 332m.

Thick pegmatites, including one stretching more than 120m, have boosted St George Mining’s lithium search at its Mt Alexander project in WA, as it attempts to define a bigger lithium system. Management says its project confidence is growing after assay results from its recent drilling program at its Jailbreak prospect also confirmed multiple lithium-bearing pegmatites, with a peak value of 1.28 per cent lithium.

Terrain Minerals has kicked off a second round of reverse-circulation (RC) drilling for gold and lithium at its 100 per cent-owned Smokebush project in Western Australia. Management says its project features many promising exploration targets that it is testing in a rapid, methodical and systemic manner in its mission to make a company-defining discovery.

Shallow exploration drilling at Xanadu Mines’ Kharmagtai copper-gold project in Mongolia has uncovered the potential for new discoveries outside its existing mineral resource area. Management says its new work has validated its belief that Kharmagtai hosts undiscovered porphyry deposits as the company progresses its prefeasibility study and updates its resource, with a view towards production.