Bulls N' Bears (Commercial Content)

Neometals Ltd has launched a maiden drilling campaign at its Barrambie project in WA’s Barrambie Greenstone Belt, where records indicate more than 27,000 ounces of gold were produced at an average grade of 27.8 grams per tonne. From reviews of multiple historic mine records, Neometals estimates an initial project exploration target of between 8 million tonnes at 1.3g/t and 10.5mt at 2.3g/t for 335,000 and 775,000 ounces of gold respectively.

Strickland Metals has scored another home run after delivering a stellar set of high-grade intercepts at its Gradina prospect, which is part of the Rogozna gold and base metals project in Serbia. Among the standout results is an impressive 14.3m hit grading 8g/t gold from 517m, including a 2m section peaking as high as 17.6g/t.

Aurumin Ltd has sunk its teeth into the company’s Plum Pudding gold deposit, revealing a 33 per cent rise in its resource after a recent drilling program at its Central Sandstone gold project, 520km northeast of Perth. The additional 4600 ounces of gold resources boosted its overall tally to 951,000 ounces, edging closer to a magical million ounces.

St George Mining has engaged one of the world’s leading authorities in niobium ore processing, Ricardo Maximo Nardi, to its high-grade niobium-rare earths Araxá project in Brazil’s Minas Gerais region. Nardi comes to the project with more than 30 years of experience in processing high-purity niobium oxide and its typical by-products, including barite, magnetite, phosphate and rare earth elements.

Bulls N’ Bears Big Hits this week examines some notable drill intercepts revealed on the ASX, including Antipa Mineral’s single WA hole that jagged up to 0.55m at 90.7g/t gold. Battery Age Minerals had some interesting high-grade hits at its Falcon Lake lithium project in Canada, and Centaurus Metals intercepted high-grade copper at its Nelore prospect in northern Brazil.

Meeka Metals is making rapid progress at its Murchison gold project, 60km north of Mt Magnet, in Western Australia, with open-pit mining set to begin shortly. Key infrastructure is nearly complete and the mining fleet is mobilising. Earthworks and utilities for the Turnberry administration buildings are finished, clearing the way for trucks, loaders and earthmovers to arrive in early February ahead of first mining in March.

This week’s ASX Bulls N’ Bears Runner of the Week is… Bio-Gene Technology. The company’s shares leapt after revealing it scored a slice of two United States defence grants. Alterity Therapeutics unveiled successful phase two clinical trial results, Aston Minerals’ plans for a merger with a fellow goldie won market support and Canterbury Resources discovered a new copper zone.

88 Energy could be sitting on an estimated 283 million barrels of oil recoverable from its Canning prospect at the company’s Project Leonis in Alaska, according to its just released maiden, total net mean, unrisked prospective resource estimate. The unrisked net entitlement to the estimated prospective oil resource comprises 3U (High) 469MMbbls, 2U (Best) 259MMbbls and 1U (Low) 136MMbbls.

Aurum Resources’ drilling of two targets at its Boundiali BM tenement has returned multiple high-grade gold intercepts, including a top hit of 1m at 150.5g/t gold in a 3m intercept going 50.56g/t gold from 124m. Drilling of 17 diamond holes for 4550m at its Boundiali project in Côte d'Ivoire also produced 2m at 63.55g/t gold from 111m, including 1m assaying 110.95g/t gold and 23m at 2.04g/t gold from 118m.

Six months after picking up the once-dormant high-grade Santa Barbara gold project in Colombia through a takeover of Andean Mining, Aguia Resources has triggered a gold rush with a maiden pour of the yellow metal. The initial pour kicked off much needed cashflow at a critical time for Aguia as it pushes forward with expansion plans to shortly increase its processing capacity to 50tpd.

Lycaon Resources recently completed scout drillhole at its Stansmore target in WA to test a magnetic anomaly has intercepted 1m at 425ppm combined niobium, neodymium and praseodymium and 217ppm yttrium and ytterbium from 302m. The zone is associated with up to 12 per cent sulphides and weakly elevated multi-element geochemistry within a mafic intrusive with trace sulphides in fresh rock below 80m depth.

McLaren Minerals is gearing up for a six-week infill drilling program to gather metallurgical samples, explore for extensions and strengthen its resource at the company’s existing McLaren titanium sands project in Western Australia’s Eucla Basin. Designed by ERM Australia Consultants and kicking off in two weeks, the campaign is expected to cover 6000 metres of air core drilling.

Galan Lithium has extended a 2019 resource estimate for its Candelas resource in Argentina from 685kt lithium carbonate equivalent to 1634kt LCE, an impressive rise of more than 138 per cent. Upgraded estimates put the Candelas LCE resource at an indicated 1284kt and an inferred 350kt, for a total 1634kt, boosting Galan’s total combined resource for its Candelas and Hombre Muerto West projects to a world-class 9501kt LCE.

Metals used for steel alloys, once considered the poor cousins to iron ore, are starting to come into vogue, with both big and small players moving heaven and earth to uncover the next big discovery of metals vital to the massive global steel industry. The coveted group includes manganese, vanadium, molybdenum and others and Australia has rich resources of all of them.

Joint venture partners Firetail Resources and Thunderbird Resources are ramping up work at their Peruvian Picha copper-silver project, following its recent selection in the prestigious BHP Xplor 2025 program. Mapping, gravity surveys and a drilling program targeting large-scale intrusion relation deposits are in full swing and a new target adjacent to the existing prospect has been staked.

Great Southern Mining has kicked off an RC drilling campaign at its Duketon gold project, which spans 178 square kilometres within 13 virtually contiguous leases in Western Australia’s Eastern Goldfields. The program has been designed to unlock the full potential of its promising Golden Boulder prospect which previously produced some impressive results before the rig is moved onto several other high-priority targets.

Terrain Minerals has launched into stage two drilling at its Wildflower gold project in WA’s Mid West region, following its recently completed, high-impact sulphide conductor drilling in the Albany-Fraser Belt. The company has turned its focus to the surging commodities of gold and gallium at its broader Smokebush project, ramping up a 1368m RC program targeting gold discoveries and gallium metallurgy research that is currently underway.

In this edition of Bulls N’ Bears Big Hits, we examine some notable drill hits revealed on the ASX, including Cygnus Metals’ 9.1 per cent copper hit at its Canadian Chibougamau Copper-Gold project. Brazilian Critical Minerals has another interesting drilling program underway at its Ema rare earths project in Brazil, as does Astral Resources at its Mandilla gold project near Kalgoorlie in Western Australia.

Buru Energy is putting an updated game plan into play to focus on its flagship Rafael gas project in Western Australia’s Canning Basin. It has wasted no time selling off non-core assets by inking a deal to offload its 50 per cent stake in the Barbwire Terrace base metal project to joint venture partner Sipa Resources in exchange for a royalty over future production.

Altech Batteries has been awarded “Dark Green” certification, the highest rating offered by global ratings agency S&P, for its salt battery project, opening the door to funding from the massive green bond market. The company believes the accolade has underscored the project’s potential to redefine battery technology and shines a light on what it says is possibly the greenest battery technology available today.

This week’s Bulls N’ Bears Runner of the Week is… AusQuest Ltd. The company’s shares leapt after reporting a stunning copper-gold porphyry discovery in Peru. Hydrix revealed a $2.8 million contract extension with a European medical firm, Pentanet showed improved financials in its 5G and gaming business and Pointerra updated the market with news of improved customer receipts for its digital twin business.

The WA Government has stumped up $175,000 for research into the extraction of rare earths, predominantly within the State’s Yilgarn region, with Perth-based geological firm RSC Consulting to lead the study. RSC will work closely with respected WA junior mining firms Terrain Minerals, Dreadnought Resources, Narryer Metals, Pluto Resources and Curtin University’s Resources Technology and Critical Minerals Trailblazer program.

Buru Energy has rolled out a bold plan to focus attention and capital on its flagship Rafael gas and liquids project in WA's Canning Basin, set to begin production in 2027. To ensure Rafael’s success as a future cash cow, the company has kicked off a $3 million cost-cutting program and the sell-down of non-core assets, directing capital where it matters most.

Suvo Strategic Minerals has extended for a further three years a major hydrous kaolin supply contract with Tasmanian paper mill operator Norske Skog, which may boost sales by up to 50pc. Suvo also anticipates sales volume growth this year from other existing clients and is awaiting larger batch field trial results for its kaolin products.

It’s raining gold! Meeka Metals has produced a veritable shower of significant gold hits from drilling ahead of mining at its St Anne’s North zone, with a best intercept of 33m going 3.07g/t gold from 42m. The intercept includes 8m assaying 4.51g/t gold, another 6m running 4.58g/t gold and an additional 1m at 28.50g/t gold.

Xanadu Mines has handed over the reins of its flagship Kharmagtai copper-gold project in Mongolia, following the successful transition of operatorship to its joint venture partner, Chinese mining giant Zijin Mining. Zijin will now progress the world-class Kharmagtai project towards final development, following a promising prefeasibility study delivered by Xanadu late last year.

Strickland Metals has launched into 2025 with a bang, revealing strong vertical extensions at its Shanac gold-copper skarn deposit in Serbia. The new results, which came from a single hole targeting the underexplored southern extent of the prospect, included an 80.2m intercept at 1.9g/t gold equivalent from 501.9m, featuring 11.7m at 4.3g/t gold equivalent and a 30.1m section grading 1.6g/t gold equivalent from 438.9m.

Latitude 66 says an ongoing scoping study, due in March, has identified the K2 deposit as an ideal source of high-grade ore to kick off a standalone mine and generate early cashflows at its flagship Kuusamo Schist Belt Project gold-cobalt project in northern Finland. Consultants have also finalised pit optimisation, mine designs, process flow sheets and scheduling for a new development.

In this edition of Bulls N’ Bears Big Hits, we examine some notable drill intercepts revealed on the ASX, including Ordell Minerals’ 22.70m at 4.09g/t gold intercept from 71.3m from its Barimaia project in WA. We also take a close look at other interesting drill hits from last week as reported by Sierra Nevada Gold in the USA and Asian Battery Metals in Mongolia.

Ardea Resources has hit the ground running at its massive Goongarrie Hub nickel laterite project in WA’s Goldfields with four drill rigs active and several work contracts already awarded. Supported by mega joint venture partners Sumitomo and Mitsubishi, the $98.5 million DFS is looking to prove up the economics of turning the project into a low-cost, multi-decade laterite nickel-cobalt producer.

This week’s Bulls N’ Bears Runner of the Week is … Wellard Limited. The company is quitting the livestock transport business and spiked on news it has sold a ship for US$50 million. Condor Energy increased its gas resource by 147 per cent, Western Gold Resources revealed a preferred contractor for its Gold Duke operation and Terrain Minerals kicked-off drilling at its Lort River nickel-copper project.

Meeka Metals’ drilling at its Turnberry resource in WA’s Murchison continues its alluring run of gold hits in combinations of thick intercepts and high grades that would make any seasoned miner salivate. The best intercept from one of its reverse circulation drill holes was 10m at 15.71g/t gold from 114m, including 1m going 34.70g/t gold and another 1m interval at an astonishing 113g/t gold.