Bulls N' Bears (Commercial Content)

ASX-listed Galan Lithium is steaming ahead with a suite of exploration works to feed into an upcoming DFS at its flagship Hombre Muerto West lithium brine project in Argentina where a 40 year mine life has been envisaged. Construction of evaporation ponds for a pilot plant aiming to generate high-grade lithium concentrate have now commenced, whilst a drilling campaign seeking to grow the existing resource base has intensified.

ASX-listed Great Southern Mining has the rods turning again with two 160m diamond holes at its Southern Star prospect designed to build on some previous stunning intercepts and increase its understanding of the deposit. Meanwhile, an oversubscribed capital raise of $1.6m before costs will help Great Southern fund further drilling in WA and Queensland.

Brightstar Resources has locked in an air-core drill rig to test a grab bag of high-quality targets at its Brightstar South gold project located approximately 40 kilometres southeast of Laverton in WA. Although the target areas have shown significant anomalism, giving up over 5,000 ounces of gold historically, the prospects have inexplicably, never been run to ground with modern exploratory drilling.

Buru shareholders will be looking for some post-Christmas cheer from the Canning Basin with follow up testing of a newly interpreted zone at its recently upgraded Rafael discovery about to happen. The company also has another development well about to kick off aimed at lifting production and cash flows from its cash generating Ungani oilfield.

ASX-listed copper developer, Hot Chili has secured funding to the tune of C$30 million from major institutional investors and existing shareholders. The funds will underwrite 18-months of drilling and development works at its multi-deposit Costa Fuego copper-gold porphyry project in Chile. The company is also preparing to list on the Toronto Stock Exchange, which will then see its shares traded in both Australia and Canada.

Panther Metals commenced trading on the ASX today after raising $5 million through its initial public offering. Drilling at its flagship Coglia nickel laterite deposit is set to commence imminently with a 5,000m RC program aimed at following up some historical drill hits going 2.5 per cent nickel. The maiden drilling also aims to shore up the estimated 30-50 million tonne deposit grading at approximately 0.7 per cent nickel.

King River Resources has upped the ante in its quest to produce high purity aluminium precursor compounds to feed the flourishing lithium-ion battery industry. Using the company’s proprietary “ARC” processing technology, a second and third run of a newly commissioned laboratory scale pilot plant has now delivered a “Type 1” precursor aluminium salt going more than 99.999 per cent purity.

AVZ Minerals has locked in $75 million from tier 1 global institutions in a heavily oversubscribed capital raise. The company issued 150,000,000 shares at $0.50 per share to fund the commencement of site works. A definitive feasibility study for the monster Manono lithium and tin project turned out a robust set numbers with a final investment decision expected to follow the approval of a mining license.

Gold explorer, BMG Resources is set to start the new year with a bang after securing a rig for a 12,000m drilling blitz at its high-grade Abercromby gold project near Wiluna in WA. The aircore drilling will test a series of newly identified structural targets similar to the company’s high-grade Capitol prospect where recent RC drilling returned a sensational 26m hit going 6.07 g/t gold.

Coda Minerals has snared its widest yet copper-sulphide intercept at its Emmie Bluff Deeps prospect that returned a whopping 83m of chalcopyrite dominated mineralisation. The width of the intercept along with the identification of the first material molybedenum mineralisation logged at Emmie Bluff Deeps suggests the company is on the brink of discovering the core of the deposit and its mineralising structure.

ASX-listed Valor Resources is about to wheel in the rotary truth diviner at its Hook Lake uranium prospect deep in northern Saskatchewan, Canada. Major Drilling has been contracted to run the 2500m drill program which will comprise of ten to fifteen 200-250m deep holes. The drill targets are within the “S Zone” target, where previous surface sampling returned assays of up to 59.2 per cent uranium oxide.

Interpretation of a seismic survey by nickel explorer, St George Mining has uncovered another high priority nickel, copper and platinum target near the mineral rich Cathedrals Belt at its Mt Alexander project in the north-eastern Goldfields of WA. The new target, named ‘S2’, stretches for more than 400 metres down dip and adds to another key target recently identified beneath the Cathedrals Belt, named ‘S1’.

Blackstone Minerals has recommenced mining at the company’s per cent owned Ta Khoa nickel project in northern Vietnam and has plans to complete around 1,000m of development through the Ban Phuc disseminated orebody. The company is also gearing up to recommission the Ban Phuc nickel concentrator to produce two batches of nickel concentrate for use in the Ta Khoa refinery piloting programs.

Memphasys is rapidly hurtling towards commercialising with its “Felix” bio-separation IVF technology with clinical trials set to commence to assess embryo fertilisation efficacy in patients at four Monash IVF Australian clinics. 104 couples are anticipated to commence IVF trials in March 2022 with results expected to support regulatory filings and international commercial sales.

Aldoro Resources has unveiled a suite of high-grade rubidium and some anomalous lithium results from a pegmatite rock chip sampling program at its Wyemandoo project approximately 80 kilometres southeast of Mount Magnet in WA. The company says the results that included peak grades of 1.82 per cent rubidium and 6600 parts per million lithium, have “exceeded” expectations.

An updated lithium price assessment of Galan Lithium’s flagship Hombre Muerto West lithium brine project in Argentina has delivered a pre-tax net present value of nearly US$2.2b, a whopping 120 per cent increase on the US$1b projected in a previous evaluation. Galan is now predicting an increase in annual EBITDA of over US$100m a year for the 40 year life of mine to an impressive US$287m a year.

ABx Group’s 87 per cent-owned chemical refining subsidiary, Alcore, has commenced construction of a pilot plant that will look to produce precursor chemicals used to recover fluorine from aluminium smelter waste known as “excess bath”. The Sydney-based company believes Alcore’s proprietary technology for recycling excess bath into high-value products such as aluminium fluoride, could deliver economic and environmental benefits to Australian aluminium smelters reliant on international imports.

Calidus Resources continues to tick off the check list of the required development works for its planned Warrawoona gold mine in the Pilbara region of WA. It says construction of the processing plant is now 85 per cent complete, with overall progress importantly running on time and on budget. Warrawoona is projected to churn out up to 105,000 ounces of gold annually with production forecast to commence in the first half of 2022.

Great Southern Mining has identified multiple bedrock anomalies considered prospective for nickel mineralisation in its recent electromagnetic survey at its East Laverton Nickel project in WA. One identified anomaly spanned a massive 2km by 1km and lined up with the edge of a regional gravity anomaly that Great Southern says provides further evidence of a potential blind nickel sulphide discovery.

Kalgoorlie Gold Mining, or KalGold has spotted a near surface open pit mining opportunity at its La Mascotte gold system near Kalgoorlie after reviewing a grab bag of historical bonanza near surface gold hits. Notable results identified include 7 metres grading 14.87 grams per tonne gold from surface and 2m grading a bonanza 141.15g/t gold or over 4 ounces to the tonne from 8m downhole.

White Cliff Minerals has launched a first-pass lithium and rare earths exploration venture at its Yinnetharra project that sits some 100 kilometres northeast of the Gascoyne Junction in Western Australia. The helicopter-supported field trip is part of the company’s plan to aggressively advance its recently swelled battery metal portfolio that could grow to include almost a dozen projects.

Godolphin Resources has fired up the RC drill rig at its Gundagai gold project in NSW, after a patch of unseasonal rough weather delayed the interrogation of its high-grade ground. The reignited campaign will see the gold explorer plunge 12 holes totalling 1,975 metres. To date, the company has completed five holes and intends to launch another half a dozen or so.

Radiopharm Theranostics’ research into the early-stage detection of a variety of cancers has been recognised after its paper was published in the prestigious medical journal Cancers. The pharmaceutical company has developed a world-class suite of medical products seemingly able to track and trace the movement of cancer molecules. The technology has also demonstrated an “outstanding” ability to break down a range of different cancer molecules.

Aldoro Resources is days away from firing up the rig to drill over 60 holes across its Niobe East, Niobe Southeast and Breakaway pegmatites in WA after completing a heritage site avoidance survey at its planned drill sites. The program follows a recently completed exploration campaign that saw Aldoro bag up close to 50 rock chip samples with elevated lithium pathfinder minerals.

Horizon Minerals has received a slew of high-grade gold assays from 31 holes of a 42 drill hole RC program to the north of the historic Golden Ridge mine and 4 kilometres south of its Boorara project in near Kalgoorlie. Significant drill intersections include a 4 metre section grading at a stellar 46.7 grams per tonne gold from 80m downhole.

Newfield Resources continues to hit paydirt at its Tongo diamond concessions in eastern Sierra Leone. The Perth-based budding diamond producer has unearthed more “gem-quality” diamonds in the Peyima kimberlite located only 5km southeast of the current mine development on the Kundu and Lando kimberlites where production is slated to commence in the early months of 2022.

Adriatic Metals has unearthed more high-grade silver and zinc from three step-out holes near its cornerstone Rupice multi-commodity deposit in Bosnia and Herzegovina. One diamond hole returned a broad 24.7 metre hit going 514 grams per tonne silver equivalent about 145m north-west of the company’s 12 million tonne resource grading 149 g/t silver, 1.4 g/t gold and 4.1 per cent zinc.

Twenty Seven Co has scoped out a grab bag of new follow up targets at its Rover gold project in WA from a spate of highly elevated gold in soil anomalies. Some samples graded up to 420 parts per billion. The company has noted a good correlation between the soil anomalies and interpreted regional structural features with RC drill testing of the identified targets set to commence this week.

Things are starting to get interesting for Coda Minerals at its recent Emmie Bluff Deeps IOCG style copper discovery in South Australia where a maiden drill hole into a targeted gravity anomaly hit 28m at 1.21 per cent copper. Four newly drilled holes have now intercepted thick intervals of copper-bearing sulphides that will likely extend the mineralised envelope in three directions.

Askari Metals has confirmed lithium mineralisation through laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy of rock chip samples at its Red Peak pegmatite project approximately 130 kilometres northwest of Meekatharra. Assay results from the recent rock chip sampling program across eleven significant pegmatites are expected back from the lab within the next week with a follow up gridded rock chip sampling program also planned to commence within the next week.

Infinity Lithium has entered a memorandum of understanding with global engineering titan, thyssenkrupp BU Mining to gauge the potential for green hydrogen to power a lithium chemical conversion process at its proposed San José lithium project in Spain. A recent scoping study evaluating underground mining and downstream lithium hydroxide production at San José envisaged 19,500 tonnes of annual battery grade lithium hydroxide production over 26 years.

Venture Minerals’ South West Nickel-Copper-PGE project that Chalice Mining has referred to as a Julimar “look-a-like” is starting to take shape. JV partner Chalice has unearthed multiple targets at the project and in doing so it has now completed stage one of its joint venture expenditure commitment with Venture. The agreement between the parties requires Chalice to spend a minimum of $300,000 on exploration activities at the South West project by the 30th of November 2021.