Announcements

Octava Minerals will become the sole owner of the prospective 202-square-kilometre Talga lithium project in the Pilbara after signing a deal to buy the remaining 30 per cent interest from its partner First Au. Octava will purchase First Au’s entire project holdings – including a 20 per cent free-carried interest – for $200,000, 1.2 million fully-paid ordinary shares and a net smelter royalty of 0.75 per cent.

St George Mining has jumped into a new critical minerals exploration program for lithium, rare earths and copper at its district-scale Woolgangie project within the fertile Coolgardie Mineral Field in Western Australia. The site sits adjacent to operating lithium mines and where historical drilling previously identified rare earths and copper anomalism. It will be the company’s first drilling program at Woolgangie.

Flush with cash from an oversubscribed IPO and a $35 million deal with neighbouring mining giant De Grey Mining for its Becher project, Novo Resources Corporation has officially launched on the ASX. The successful IPO netted the company, which is also listed in Canada, $7.5 million before costs through the issue of 37.5 million common shares to Australian residents only.

Auric Mining has started milling the second ore parcel from its 100 per cent-owned Jeffreys Find mine near Norseman and expects the first cash to land in the till next month – at a serendipitous time of strong gold prices. The company says the 145,000 tonnes of ore will take about seven weeks to process, with 52,000 tonnes already delivered to the Greenfields Mill in Coolgardie.

ABx Group has locked in a deal that could be worth up to about $9 million for the supply of cement-grade bauxite to South Australian construction materials company Adelaide Brighton Cement’s Birkenhead manufacturing operation. The contract will see ABx supply between 90,000 and 120,000 tonnes of bauxite during a five-year term from its DL130 project in northern Tasmania.

Kalgoorlie Gold Mining has got straight down to work in a new drilling campaign at its Pinjin gold project in Western Australia’s Eastern Goldfields, plunging two holes on the first day in a bid to mirror glittering historic results. The new program is aimed at extending thick, shear-hosted gold mineralisation at Kirgella Gift and confirming historic assays at Providence, between 300m and 500m further south.

ANSTO confirmation that mineral concentrates from Lindian Resources’ Kangankunde rare earths project in Malawi are non-radioactive has delivered simpler logistics and transport options and enhanced offtake opportunities. The company has also produced concentrate grades of up to 66 per cent total rare earth oxides (TREO) from ore at the Malawi operation, by beneficiation using gravity and magnetic separation techniques.

Infinity Lithium subsidiary Infinity Greentech has confirmed improvements in recoveries and the successful production of battery-grade lithium hydroxide through the application of its “Li-Stream RPK” process. The company says the use of mica from its San Jose project in Spain as part of the process has the potential to herald a new European production era for lithium mica applications.

Toro Energy’s 100 per cent-owned Dusty nickel project in Western Australia’s Goldfields continues to grow, with the company’s latest assays showing an up-dip extension to the continuous lens of nickel-rich mineralisation, about 160m thick. Assays from Dimma’s fifth diamond hole showed 2.1m of massive nickel-sulphide grading 1.83 per cent nickel, 0.29 per cent copper and 0.55 grams per tonne platinum and palladium from 147.1m.

A Brightstar Resources scoping study has revealed the company will punch out an EBITDA of $153 million over an eight-year mine life at its dual Menzies and Laverton gold projects in Western Australia. The study outlines an initial target of 5.28 million tonnes at 2g/t gold for 322,617 ounces and an extraordinary pre-tax internal rate of return of 79 per cent.

ASX-listed Si6 Metals has launched a new drill program at its flagship Dibete copper-silver project in Botswana, with a 15-hole campaign set to explore untested anomalies within the site’s known oxidised zones. The company says Dibete is the first of three projects to be tested in the next four months, with its Airstrip and Malbele North sites set to be next on its exploration calendar.

ABx Group’s ALCORE pilot plant in NSW is now fully funded to completion after the company raised an extra $1.5 million to complement a $7.5 million grant received from the Australian Government through its Modern Manufacturing Initiative. Construction at the NSW Central Coast site has started and the company has taken delivery of the bath mini-reactor, with formal commissioning of the plant just days away.

ChemX Materials has advanced its high-purity alumina (HPA) micro-plant flowsheet as it prepares to scale up to pilot-plant production. The company has now also identified intermediate HPA product pathways and says investment in high-precision analytical equipment and dedicated human resources has resulted in increased operational performance for its HPA micro-plant. A maiden high-purity manganese mineral resource estimate is also imminent.

Javelin Minerals looks set to put significant new impetus behind its lithium exploration and production goals in Uganda after signing a strategic takeover bid implementation agreement with Gecko Minerals. The company says Gecko directors have “unanimously” recommended shareholders back the move, which will net it two new projects in the African nation that are considered prospective for lithium.

Empire Energy Group has lit up with increased gas flow rates from its fracture-stimulated Velkerri shale gas horizontal well, known as “Carpentaria-3H”, in the Northern Territory’s Beetaloo Basin. The company says it has reaffirmed its optimised extended production test strategy. The results replicate post-soaking improvements seen in its other horizontal well, Carpentaria-2H, auguring well for the planned gas pilot project to service existing gas pipelines.

A deep dive into an historical dataset coupled with boots on ground has lit up a 10km lithium trend at GreenTech Metals’ West Pilbara projects that sit tantalisingly close to Azure Minerals’ Andover lithium discovery. Field mapping and analysis of historical soil sampling has etched out two distinct lithium-caesium-tantalum (LCT) pegmatite trends where recent rock-chip sampling returned assays peaking at 3.6 per cent lithium oxide.

Maiden drilling on two prospects at St George’s Ajana project in Western Australia has turned up trumps, with significant widespread and shallow zinc-lead-silver mineralisation seen in an untested play concept for the area. The company is now planning more drilling through a vast crop of highly-prospective targets with a similar fingerprint of gravity and/or magnetic anomalies.

88 Energy will flow test four reservoir zones in its Hickory-1 oil well in Alaska’s north during the coming winter operational season. Hickory-1 – part of the company’s project Phoenix, which was previously known as Icewine East – is cased and suspended awaiting the arrival of Rig-111, which is expected to start re-entry of the well from next month.

Reach Resources’ maiden reverse-circulation and deep diamond drilling at its Bonzer prospect at Yinnetharra has intersected multiple thick pegmatites in all holes, including some at depth that do not outcrop at surface. The program was run to follow-up extensive soil and rock-chip sampling results that returned significant lithium, caesium and tantalum values. The discovery highlights the potential for significant lithium mineralisation.

Lindian Resources has moved to commercialise its Gaoual bauxite project in Guinea by inking a memorandum of understanding for a possible sales contract with prominent miner Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinée. Lindian will complete a feasibility study for its 102-million-tonne deposit within two years, while the companies negotiate a possible sales contract for the high-aluminium oxide product.

Buru Energy will feed appraisal drilling plans by collecting 200 square kilometres of 3D seismic data from its 100 per cent-owned Rafael gas-condensate project in the Kimberley region of Western Australia’s Canning Basin. The company says interpretation of a fast-tracked volume, also using information from some 2D lines, will be complete in the last quarter of this year.

American West Metals has unveiled bonanza copper grades at its Storm project in Canada with a 0.3m intercept at a whopping 42.8 per cent copper from 67m, in addition to identifying a new zone of mineralisation. The impressive hit was contained within 46m going 2.2 per cent from 64m, including 15.6m grading 4.2 per cent from 65m.

Lycaon Resources says it has intersected more than 13m of visual nickel-copper sulphides from 364m after plunging a maiden diamond drillhole into its Bow River project near Argyle in Western Australia. The company says it signals the potential for a deep and prolific economic accumulation. A second hole is planned to test the keel position of the ultramafic intrusive, where massive sulphide accumulations could exist.

Lithium Universe is on the ground at its Apollo project in Canada’s James Bay, armed with a helicopter and a swag of targets generated by artificial intelligence – less than a month after re-listing on the ASX. The company has used a combination of satellite imagery, geophysics and fieldwork ahead of testing a regional faulted greenstone belt running through Apollo to Winsome Resources’ Adina project.

GreenTech Metals has confirmed spodumene as the dominant lithium mineral in a single rock-chip sample from its Osborne joint venture ground following x-ray diffraction (XRD) mineral characterisation analysis. Previous chemical analysis had revealed the sample contained a healthy 3.6 per cent lithium oxide, prompting management to confirm its host mineral. Spodumene is the most common host mineral in hard-rock lithium deposits.

Perth-based explorer Emu NL has kicked off its maiden drilling campaign at its 100 per cent-owned Condingup clay-hosted rare earths project, near Esperance on Western Australia’s scenic south coast. The 3000m air-core program will test rare earths enrichment within clay traps imaged by passive seismic, adjacent to and overlying the fertile Booanya granite, which the company says may have leached its pay into the clays.

An induced-polarisation survey at Strickland Metals’ Great Western project has thrown up a bonzer drill target for the company, with a high-chargeability anomaly centred over coincident gravity, magnetic and geochemical anomalies. Management believes its survey confirms Great Western as a compelling drill target that potentially represents a large-scale high-grade orogenic gold mineralised system at the site that sits 85km north-east of Wiluna.

A significant increase in recycling division sales has doubled Lithium Australia’s annual revenue in the past financial year to $5.5 million, up from $2.5 million during the previous reporting period. Associated sales costs were also cut by $600,000 down to $4 million, resulting in a gross profit of $1.5 million for the year compared to a gross loss last year of $1.7 million.

Si6 Metals has unveiled plans to kick off a 10,000m drilling program next month at three prospects within its flagship Maibele nickel sulphide deposit in Botswana, with a mineral resource upgrade looming. Management says mineralisation may extend along strike and at depth, allowing its inferred resource estimate of 2.38 million tonnes at 0.72 per cent nickel and 0.21 per cent copper to grow.

Askari Metals has highlighted three significant mineralised corridors of anomalous lithium across a strike length of 4.6km following a successful sampling program at its Hillside project in Western Australia’s Pilbara region. The company says a total of 216 rock samples were collected during two separate phases of work, with peak results of 350 parts per million lithium and 170ppm lithium.

ASX-listed Horizon Minerals has its eyes on a maiden resource for its Pinner prospect near Kalgoorlie after revealing positive results from an infill drilling program at its Greater Boorara-Cannon gold project. The company completed 26 holes of both air-core (AC) and reverse-circulation (RC) drilling through 1259m across its Pinder and Monument prospects to support its assessment of small-scale open-cut mining.

Software provider K2fly has revealed a steady stepladder towards profit-making after its latest financial year report showed healthy revenue of $12.8 million – a jump of 28 per cent on the previous period. The company’s positive result was bolstered by a 25 per cent increase in annual recurring revenue up to $7.5 million, putting its three-year compound annual growth rate at 48 per cent.