Announcements

Podium Minerals has boosted its exploration target at its Parks Reef project in WA with recent drilling underscoring a larger target over 12km that encompasses the 2.8 million ounce combined platinum, palladium and gold resource. The revised target of 70Mt to 75Mt at 1.2 g/t to 1.6 g/t gold for 2.7Moz to 3.8Moz platinum-palladium-gold has been estimated by projecting the mineralised zone currently within the inferred mineral resource model.

Drilling at Strickland Metals’ Iroquois discovery has returned high-grade zinc-lead results of 8m at 5.2 per cent zinc and 5m grading 10.1 per cent zinc-lead. The highest grade was contained in a broad zone giving 18m at 4.2 per cent combined zinc-lead. The company notes the discovery lies along strike from Rumble Resources’ Earaheedy project.

ASX-listed Askari Metals has completed the second phase of on-ground exploration at the Barrow Creek lithium project in the Northern Territory’s highly prospective Arunta pegmatite province. The work was designed to systematically explore outcropping lithium-caesium-tantalum type pegmatites where initial reconnaissance sampling had confirmed the presence of lithium mineralisation identifying up to 817 parts per million lithium oxide.

Middle Island has locked onto copper mineralisation at its Barkly copper-gold project in the Northern Territory. In a purposeful pursuit of iron-oxide copper gold style mineralisation, the company will shed its gold assets and launch into further exploration of the prospective Tennant Creek region. The impending sale of the $14m market capped company’s Sandstone gold project for $12m in cash and shares presents an eye-catching valuation on Middle Island's remaining Tennant Creek operations.

Neometals now has direct access to European capital markets and The City of London after its shares commenced trading on the UK AIM market completing dual listing for the battery metal recycling company. In the immediate aftermath of the listing, that raised no additional capital, Neometals’ shares on the ASX traded from $1.20 prior to the listing to $1.48 at the close of trade Wednesday.

Petrology studies have confirmed primary nickel sulphides at Emu’s Sunfire nickel-copper-PGE project near Bridgetown in the southwest of WA. Historical reports accompanying two diamond drill holes from 1970 identified the presence of the nickel-bearing minerals “pentlandite” and “millerite” from relatively shallow depths of 65 metres to 140m with the revelation to drive an aggressive exploration programme later this year.

Junior gold explorer Kalgoorlie Gold Mining, or KalGold has locked in a diamond rig and RC rig to continue its exploration work following in the wake of a 3,519m program at the company’s flagship Bulong Taurus gold project near Kalgoorlie in WA. Whilst drill assays are pending, a series of shallow auger results have returned confirming extensive gold anomalism south and southeast from the La Mascotte prospect for up to 1.5km.

Gold and base metals explorer Godolphin Resources have added another string to its bow after entering into a two-tranche farm-in and joint venture agreement with private exploration outfit EX9 to earn up to a 75 per cent stake in the Narraburra Rare Earth Element, or “REE” Project located some 15 kilometres north of Temora in central west NSW.

Aruma Resources has burst onto the lithium scene with a flurry of shallow, thick pegmatite drill intersections showing visible spodumene across a strike length of over 500m at its Mt Deans lithium project approximately 170 kilometres south of Kalgoorlie in WA. Pegmatites were intercepted in all eight holes drilled to date with one near-surface hit displaying a 25m thick vertical body of the prospective host rock.

180 pages of bidder’s and target’s statements are on the way out to Torrens Mining and Coda Minerals shareholders as the two companies try to bring the exciting Elizabeth Creek copper cobalt project in South Australia under one roof in a $23 million merger proposal. The Emmie Bluff discovery is amongst the largest known sediment-hosted copper deposits in Australia.

Newfield Resources has boasted higher than expected recoveries as it surges ever closer towards production at its Tongo diamond mine development in Sierra Leone. The ongoing works will enable access to the ore body and the establishment of the first mining stopes, signalling the transition from explorer and developer to producer. Initial production is slated to commence in June 2022.

Buru Energy has achieved a maiden natural gas flow from a conventional reservoir in WA’s Canning Basin. The Rafael 1 discovery produced a substantial gas flow with highly encouraging condensate co-production. Initial stabilised flows of 4 to 5 million cubic feet per day through a half inch choke included an estimated 20 to 30 barrels of condensate per million cubic feet of produced gas.

Gold explorer BMG Resources has wrapped up a diamond and aircore drilling blitz at its high-grade Abercromby gold project in the north-eastern Goldfields of WA. Drilling was designed to chase up a suite of wide gold hits from a previous reverse circulation campaign at the Capital prospect along with testing multiple grass roots targets generated from a recently completed ground geophysical program.

Alaska-focused oil explorer 88 Energy Limited is poised to spud the Merlin-2 well at its wholly owned Peregrine oil project in Alaska with mobilisation of the drilling rig to site complete. Merlin-2 is targeting a prospective resource of 652 million barrels of oil. Managing Director and CEO, Ashley Gilbert said success at Merlin-2 has the clear potential to be “transformational.”

Multi-element junior explorer Askari Metals has completed an expansive airborne reconnaissance site visit across its Yarrie lithium project in an escalation of its hunt for the highly sought-after white gold that sits at the heart of the EV minerals revolution. Located in Western Australia’s Eastern Pilbara, the project spans more than 1,700 square kilometres and is surrounded by some of the most significant hard rock lithium deposits in the world.

Mineral explorer Valor Resources has lit up an interesting geophysical anomaly at its Picha project in Peru. The 2km by 2km induced polarisation anomaly is believed to reflect potential copper-bearing sulphide mineralisation at depth related to a large porphyry body. The company has kicked up a clutch of compelling copper-silver targets from its combined geophysical and geochemical surveys that are begging to feel the drill bit.

Panther Metals has amassed high-grade nickel and cobalt zones in all drill holes assayed to date in a maiden program at the company’s flagship Coglia project just 70 kilometres east of Glencore’s Murrin Murrin mine about 880 kilometres east of Perth. Noteworthy results include 14 metres grading 1.17 per cent nickel from 49m downhole with an internal metre going 3.44 per cent nickel and 1,460 ppm cobalt.

Drilling by Javelin Minerals at its Coogee project 55 kilometres southeast of Kalgoorlie has delivered lower grade copper-gold hits over 40 metres wide and some shorter but very high-grade copper hits including two metres at 8.34 per cent copper. Another 19m intersection came in at 1.28 g/t gold and 0.15 per cent copper from 202m and included 9m at 1.75 g/t gold and 0.20 per cent copper from 202m.

Coda Minerals looks to be riding a winner at its Emmie Bluff Deeps IOCG-style copper discovery in South Australia after eyeing around 60 metres of chalcopyrite mineralisation in a recently completed step-out hole. The company says the cracking intercept has extended the strike length of the known mineralisation by nearly 60 per cent to 550m.

Calidus Resources has cleared its final construction hurdle on time and on budget, with commissioning now underway of its 100 per cent owned Warrawoona gold project in the Pilbara region of WA. The company says it expects crushing and milling operations to start within the next eight weeks with first gold set to be poured approximately two weeks later.

Development of ASX-listed Adriatic Metals’ Vares high-grade silver project in Bosnia is accelerating with construction starting on time as the company firmly eyes production by the second quarter of 2023. Adriatic is in the throes of appointing mining contractors, engineering consultants and key personnel as it finalises test work and orders mechanical equipment.

Tambourah Metals is eyeing extensions to the known mineralisation at its Pilbara namesake project after recent soil sampling returned up to 3.05 grams per tonne gold. The project, located 85 kilometres southwest of Marble Bar, yielded plenty of other positive samples too with 177 of the 259 samples collected providing potential evidence of an extension to the existing mineralised zones.

Blackstone Minerals has tabled a stunning pre-feasibility study for its vertically integrated nickel mine and refinery project in Vietnam that shows a post-tax net present value as high as $3.57 billion at today’s nickel prices. Almost inexplicably the company says the US$854 million CAPEX required to build the project could be paid down in just 1.8 years from first production. It will churn out over half a billion US dollars a year in operating cashflows.

Aldoro Resources has uncovered a string of high-grade rubidium from a pegmatite rock chip sampling program at its Wyemandoo project approximately 80 kilometres southeast of Mount Magnet in WA. According to the company, the assay results pointed to “exceptional” grades of up to 1.24 per cent in individual samples and says lithium and tantalum were also present.

Soil assays from Strickland Metals’ Iroquois discovery show copper highs that map an interpreted feeder zone structure for zinc-lead mineralisation. The recent zinc-lead discovery is located on the western edge of the greater than 1.5km long feeder zone, creating excitement for the next round of drilling targeting the structure. Iroquois is in the Earaheedy Basin, WA’s newest base metals hotspot.

Meeka Gold has unveiled some strong rare earths numbers grading up to 2,563 parts per million total rare earth oxides after analysing historical drilling that had been testing for three of the 15 rare earth elements at its Cascade rare earth project in WA. 4,426 metres of reconnaissance drilling completed between 2012-2015 has been reviewed with the final metre of each drill hole previously assayed for only 3 of 15 rare earths.

ABx Group has signed a joint venture agreement with Alumin to develop its Sunrise bauxite mine and port project. The mine is expected to have a 20-year life and provide 50 direct local jobs. Situated 115km from Bundaberg Port in Queensland it is anticipated the mine will initially export 500,000 tonnes per year of metallurgical grade bauxite, scaling up to 2 million tonnes per year.

After months of Covid-impacted labour shortages, Buru Energy has begun the process of well testing at its Rafael 1 oil and gas well in WA’s Canning Basin. The company has started the clean up process in anticipation of turning the taps on, opening up the valves and finally ascertaining definitive flow rates from November’s ‘wet gas’ discovery. A robust result could lead to Buru’s second major development in the area.

Canadian listed gold producer Novo Resources Corporation has struck high grade gold up to a serious 91 grams per tonne, or nearly 3 ounces to the tonne, through rock chip sampling at the historic Pilgrims Rest gold mine within the company’s Station peak prospect in Western Australia. Other notable high grade rock chips were 30 g/t gold, 13 g/t gold and 12 g/t gold.

Tambourah has captured 17 priority targets in its battery metals search after a detailed data analysis of the Wongan Hills South project in the Wheatbelt region of Western Australia. The targets were generated using available geophysics and the project’s database. The Wongan Hills South project is part of Tambourah’s larger Julimar North project in what is fast emerging as Australia’s most exciting PGE-nickel-copper-cobalt mineral field.

Cyclone Metals has acquired six exploration projects in New Zealand covering gold, copper, nickel and platinum group elements. Highlights include the Muirs project containing 222,000 ounces of gold near the 45 million ounce Hauraki goldfield. At the Mareburn project drill hits include 10m at 2.4 g/t gold and it is only 8km from the 10-million-ounce Macraes gold mine.

CZR Resources has received assays from the first 55 holes of a larger drill campaign that indicate the potential for a massive upgrade to direct shipping iron ore resources at Robe Mesa in the Pilbara. Resource increases are anticipated from extensive mineralized hits outside current resource blocks and from the lower ore horizon below existing pit designs.