Bulls N' Bears (Commercial Content)

Venus Metals has discovered highly anomalous nickel, copper, chromium, platinum and palladium in soils in its Barrabarra North project next door to Chalices’ acclaimed and similarly named Barrabarra project. Venus has also applied for two new exploration licences to increase its tenure in the area to over a massive 1000 square kilometres with planned systematic soil sampling and geophysical surveys on these tenements once granted.

Torian Resources has picked up the trail of what looks to be a series of pointers to a potential gold discovery at its Tyrannus prospect within its Mt Stirling project near Leonora in WA. Shallow auger vacuum samples have thrown up some compelling grades that require further teasing out including 1m at 4.64 g/t from 3m and 1m at 8.09 g/t gold from 1m.

King River Resources has taken a big step in its ambitions to build a processing plant for high purity aluminium with the go-ahead for a definitive feasibility study on a facility at Kwinana to produce precursor aluminium compounds to feed the lithium-ion battery market. The project is a reduced version of the original plan for a full-scale HPA plant.

Blackstone Minerals has set in place an agreement for its 90 per cent owned subsidiary, Ban Phuc Nickel Mines to collaborate with the Vietnamese Government to identify new nickel opportunities outside of the company’s current Ta Khoa district tenement. First project for the new partnership will be to advance the highly prospective Chim Van nickel target located just 10km from the company’s Ban Phuc open pit deposit.

The Victorian Environmental Protection Agency has issued Lithium Australia with a 99-year operating licence that provides the environmental and legal framework for its subsidiary company, Envirostream Australia to continue lithium and other battery recycling activities at its premises in Campbellfield, Victoria. The licence permits Envirostream to process more than 500 tonnes of specified electronic waste annually.

Great Southern Mining experienced a Eureka moment after taking a chance and stepping out 200m from the existing gold deposit at its Duketon project in WA. The company hit a 17m intersection going 7 g/t gold from 11m in its latest campaign at Duketon. An even more impressive 1m at 109 g/t gold was contained within the 17m hit.

Trigg Mining has delivered a robust scoping study evaluating the proposed development of its Lake Throssell “sulphate of potash” fertiliser project in WA. The company says the project could generate $97m a year in EBITDA over a 21-year initial mine life. The project is about 170km north-east of Laverton in WA and Trigg will now launch into a pre-feasibility study to firm up its numbers.

ASX-listed proprietary software provider K2fly has strengthened its partnership with resources giant Rio Tinto, signing a contract to apply its ground disturbance data management system across all of the miner’s Pilbara sites in Western Australia. Perth-based K2fly now provides services to Rio Tinto across five of its nine product areas.

ASX-listed Altech Chemicals could be on its way to becoming a key player in the thriving lithium-ion battery industry with its high purity alumina coating technology that the company says may be able to resolve fundamental issues with energy densities and the cost of lithium-ion batteries. The company is undertaking a pre-feasibility study for a proposed 10,000 tonne per annum battery materials coating plant in Saxony, Germany.

ASX-listed junior explorer, Latitude Consolidated has launched a second exploration campaign at its Murchison gold project in Western Australia. Drilling will initially target the high-grade Turnberry gold mineralisation, following up on previously reported thick high-grade intersections before heading on to target the St Annes prospect. Previously reported thick high-grade intersections at Turnberry included 9m at an impressive 10.4 grams per tonne gold from 162m.

ASX newcomer, West Cobar Metals made a solid debut on the market last week after pocketing $5.5m in a strongly backed initial public offering ahead of the listing. The Perth-based explorer’s $0.20-a-share IPO hit the boards at the ASX in style on Friday with the stock reaching $0.25 in intraday trading. The company now plans to unleash the rig on its compelling copper and gold targets in NSW.

Hot Chili continues to unravel the geological secrets at its 100 per cent owned Cortadera copper-gold deposit in Chile after it tabled a bumper 610m intercept at 0.5 per cent copper-equivalent which includes a high-grade 138m core going 0.8 per cent copper-equivalent. The latest results extend the northern flank of the Cortadera mineralised system by a massive 170m.

Mineral exploration company, Kairos Minerals has put its foot on 479 square kilometres of tenure in the celebrated Pilbara region of WA to swell its landholding in the district to a whopping 2,026 square kilometres. The company says the new exploration licence applications are prospective for lithium pegmatite discoveries and intrusion-related gold mineralisation similar to De Grey’s world-class Hemi discovery in the region.

ASX-listed biotechnology company Cynata Therapeutics has sealed a partnership agreement with Fujifilm as it makes a big step towards a commercial manufacturing deal for its proprietary Cymerus stem cell therapy products and eyes an accelerated push into the all-important United States drug market. The company is planning a stage two trial of the therapy to treat bone marrow recipients.

ASX listed Kula Gold has its foot on another couple of exploration licences that are contiguous with the central part of its broader WA Brunswick tenement and the company has already collected several high-grade rock chips from the newly acquired ground that contains the historic Donnybrook gold mine. Interestingly, the high grades correlate well with historic drill assays in the area which graded up to 9.92 grams per tonnes gold.

Aurora Labs has wrapped up a trial project that tested the company’s 3D metal printing technology’s ability to “print” stainless steel components for the construction of Australian Navy frigates. Aurora says the trial, under a collaboration with Australian defence contractor, BAE Systems Maritime Australia, has returned positive outcomes in terms of part quality, dimensional accuracy and build rate.

West Cobar Metals is set to pocket $5.5 million when it hits the boards at the ASX today and the rods are already primed to start turning at its exciting Bulla Park and Mt Jack copper-gold projects in and around the prolific Cobar basin of NSW. Initially the company is looking to drill test two enticing looking targets that were unexpectedly abandoned in historical drilling.

Galan Lithium has added further lithium brine potential to its Hombre Muerto West project in South America’s prolific ‘Lithium Triangle’ with a newly drilled bore hole revealing previously unrecognised brine bearing aquifers. The company says the discovery could provide a boost to future resource estimates for the project that already boasts 2.3 million tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent.

ASX-listed junior gold explorer Superior Resources has intersected some superb gold horizons at its wholly owned Steam Engine prospect in Northern Queensland with grades up to a dazzling 38.8 grams per tonne gold. The company says the results confirm a down-dip thickening and extension to the lode as well as the presence of additional shallow, high grade zones.

Barton Gold is eyeing the possibility of significant new discoveries, having identified a collection of shallow targets with its government co-funded ground penetrating radar survey over the Tarcoola Gold Project on the Gawler Craton in South Australia. The work is part of a systematic geophysical and drilling program with more refined target selection and follow-up drilling expected in coming months.

ASX-listed Hot Chili’s pre-feasibility study into its 100 per cent owned Costa Fuego copper-gold development in Chile is gaining momentum. A materials-handling scoping study has revealed significant time and cost savings when implementing a “rope conveyor” to transport ore downhill from Cortadera to Productora. A similar haulage system has been successfully employed at Teck and Newmont Goldcorp’s NuevaUnión project, 100km east-northeast of Costa Fuego.

ASX-listed junior explorer Great Southern Mining has defined several large kilometre scale gold anomalies within its Duketon tenements in WA from regional soil sampling and will be drill testing at the Amy Clarke prospect by the end of the year. A geophysical magnetic low channel associated with the gold anomalies can be traced 3km north to Regis Resources’ 322,000-ounce Erlistoun deposit grading 1.9 grams per tonne gold.

Mineral explorer Aldoro Resources has turned up some promising results from rock chip samples containing lithium, nickel, copper and gold at its Narndee and Wyemandoo prospects near Mt Magnet in WA. The company is now planning a round of detailed mapping and drilling to run the samples to ground. Results include high-grade rubidium and highly anomalous lithium, with the best results 0.8 per cent rubidium and 0.81 lithium.

ASX listed Emu NL has hit several stunning gold mineralised quartz vein intercepts from a reverse circulation drill program at its lode-gold style Gnows Nest project near Yalgoo in WA. Significant intersections include 2m at an impressive12.62 grams per tonne gold from 121m that hosted a 1m section grading an even more impressive18.57 grams per tonne gold.

Metal Hawk is onto a new high grade massive sulphide nickel strike in WA after a one metre hit went 5.89 per cent nickel from its maiden drilling campaign at the company’s Berehaven nickel project just east of Kalgoorlie. The high-grade intercept at the Commodore prospect has confirmed a new greenfields nickel discovery and the company is now set to unleash the drill rig to test its extents.

Torian Resources has extended its Mount Stirling gold system a further 280m southeast beyond the previous resource boundary with mineralisation now intersected over 1,040m along strike. The company has now increased the known gold mineralisation at various prospects across multiple gold domains. The drilling campaign is in full swing and the company says it has negotiated faster turnaround times for new assays.

Novo Resources’ aggressive exploration approach to its extensive 14,000 square kilometre land holding in WA’s Pilbara goldfields is turning up a slew of impressive shallow, high-grade intercepts. The latest round of drilling at the Talga Talga project has coughed up a striking 3m intersection going 25.5 g/t gold from 28m and 3m at 23.3 g/t gold from 11m.

ASX-listed Horizon Minerals has released a new mineral resource estimate for its Kalpini project about 65 kilometres northeast of Kalgoorlie-Boulder in WA. The revised resource weighs in at 1.87 million tonnes grading 2.33 grams per tonne for 139,000 ounces of the precious yellow metal. Kalpini is one of six key satellite gold deposits that underpins Horizon’s proposed flagship Boorara gold production hub about 15km east of Kalgoorlie.

ASX-listed Venture Minerals’ Tasmanian tin search continues to pay dividends with drilling at its Mount Lindsay project intersecting 11m of sulphide-rich skarn. The latest discovery follows the company’s recent success targeting extensions of the Renison mine sequence that coughed up a 16m interval of sulphide-rich magnetite skarn located some 12 kilometres along strike from the world-class Renison Bell tin mine.

AVZ Minerals has locked down US$400 million in funding, a new off-take partner and Chinese backers with very deep pockets and an intimate understanding of lithium battery manufacturing. It looks like it’s game on now for AVZ’s extraordinary Manono lithium project in the DRC after Suzhou CATH Energy Technologies agreed to pick up 24 per cent of the project for US$240 million and also stump up its share of the project’s CAPEX.

Empire Energy has massively boosted its Beetaloo Sub-basin oil and gas resources in the Northern Territory following a strategic takeover of Pangaea Ltd and EMG Northern Territory’s acreage in the basin. Empire trebled its gas resource and increased its liquids resource by 3,000 per cent when it pounced on Pangaea and EMG’s ground. The Beetaloo is believed to hold the largest undeveloped gas resource in Australia.

Kairos Minerals has followed up recent stellar gold hits in drilling at its Mt York project in the Pilbara, including a cracking 32m at 3.79 g/t gold. A suite of high priority greenfield targets have also been identified from a geochemistry sampling program. Assays up to 5.38 g/t were returned in soil samples, with drill testing due to commence next month.