Bulls N' Bears (Commercial Content)

Classic Minerals’ customised gold plant is on its way to the company’s 404,000-ounce Forrestania gold project south of Southern Cross in WA, where final environmental approvals attached to its granted mining lease for 100 per cent-owned Kat Gap are now awaited. Classic expects to have Kat Gap’s native vegetation clearance permit and approved final mining proposal documentation in its hands within three months.

WA manganese producer, Element 25 has sold the first parcel of manganese concentrate from its new Butcherbird mining and beneficiation operation in the Pilbara to offtake partner OM Materials, a wholly-owned subsidiary of ASX-listed, Singapore-based vertically integrated manganese and ferroalloy group OM Holdings Ltd. The manganese concentrate grade of 30-35 per cent and the level of impurities meet contract specifications as agreed under their offtake agreement, Element 25 says.

Hot WA mid-west precious metals explorer Podium Minerals is on track to post an updated shallow resource next month for its promising Parks Reef project south-west of Meekatharra after drilling confirmed continuity of platinum group metal mineralisation over a 15km targeted strike length. The company, whose share price has climbed more than 500 per cent since the start of 2021, is also stepping up deeper resource drilling.

Coda Minerals has landed a $75,000 grant from the South Australia Government, which may prove timely as it ramps up exploration at its Elizabeth Creek project in the state’s Olympic Dam copper province. Coda’s new funding comes courtesy of the Accelerated Discovery Initiative and will be used for an airborne electromagnetic survey over its Emmie Bluff copper discovery.

Smart aged-care and healthcare technology developer InteliCare, in conjunction with the University of Sydney and Macquarie University, has been awarded a $100,000 grant by the NSW Smart Sensing Network to further develop the company’s machine learning product for predicting risks associated with chronic deterioration in the elderly.

Eclipse Metals has locked in a four-year extension to its exploration licence at the Ivittuut cryolite and rare earth project in Greenland, with heavily reduced minimum expenditure commitments for the first year. The extension follows amendments to the previous licence made by the newly elected Greenland Government. A program of work for 2021 has been submitted with approval expected in July.

Okapi Resources continues to zero in on gold drill targets at its Mount Day prospect in Western Australia. Infill soil sampling has confirmed the presence of a 1,500m-long, cohesive gold trend that is consistently returning anomalous precious metal values and the company is now preparing to drill test the target in the latter half of this year.

ASX-listed 88 Energy has returned evidence of oil from down hole sampling of the recently drilled Merlin-1 well at its Peregrine project in Alaska. Observations of fluorescence on side-wall cores under UV light have also identified multiple horizons showing the presence of oil. Peregrine lies along trend to recent nearby discoveries in the Nanushuk formation.

WA manganese producer, Element 25 has nailed down a multi-user access agreement with the Pilbara Port Authority that allows the company to ship manganese concentrate from its Butcherbird mining and beneficiation operation through Port Hedland’s Utah Point bulk handling and loading facility. Element 25 has been commissioning a new processing plant at Butcherbird and recently produced its first concentrate.

Surefire Resources will test a potential intrusive-related mineral system near old silver and lead workings at Kooline in the central Pilbara region with deep drilling after securing WA government co-funding and finishing a successful review of previously generated geophysical data. The ASX junior says re-processing and interpretation of VTEM survey results pointed to a large target and series of conductors just west of Kooline.

Venus Metals has jumped into drilling at its Vidure South prospect in Western Australia as it targets a pair of electromagnetic anomalies south-west of the Youanmi gold mine. The Vidure nickel-PGE targets were identified on the back of historical drill results and a recent high-powered, ground electromagnetic survey, which lit up the potential sulphide bodies.

CZR Resources has launched a 5,000m reverse circulation drilling campaign at the Buddadoo gold project in the Mid West region of WA. Seven priority gold targets are set to be tested along the Gullewa Greenstone Belt that hosts the Deflector mine with more than one million ounces in gold resources in an adjacent permit.

Infinity Lithium has cited high-level European Commission and Spanish national government support for ambitious EU electric vehicle and battery supply chain expansion targets that support development of significant domestic raw material sources such as its San Jose lithium project in Spain. Last week’s European Battery Alliance Day spotlight on San Jose followed the recent cancellation of Infinity’s investigation permit by a regional Spanish government.

Godolphin Resources has continued to eke out tantalising polymetallic intersections from an initial round of resource definition drilling at its Lewis Ponds project in the fertile Lachlan Fold Belt province in NSW. The pick of the new assays from Lewis Ponds was 5.2m going 0.36 g/t gold, 38 g/t silver, 2.05 per cent zinc and lead combined or 2.22 g/t gold-equivalent from 466.2m depth.

Australian mining technology company K2fly has wrapped up its second major contract with a leading global iron ore producer this month, closing a A$2.44 million deal that extends its long-term partnership with the expanding Roy Hill operation in WA’s Pilbara region. The new five-year Roy Hill contract follows hard on the heels of last week’s international pact with Fortescue Metals Group.

AVZ Minerals has extended the massive mineral resource for the cornerstone Roche Dure deposit at its proposed Manono hard-rock lithium and tin project in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The deposit now has an estimated overall resource of 401 million tonnes at average grades of 1.65 per cent lithium oxide, 752ppm tin and 34ppm tantalum for 6.64 million tonnes of contained lithium oxide.

ASX-listed King River Resources has advanced a chain of core pre-feasibility study activities for its Kwinana project in WA as it seeks to carve a niche in the increasingly lucrative global high purity alumina and downstream markets. The company is working to bring to life its immense Speewah Dome vanadium-in-magnetite project in the state’s Kimberley region as a HPA feed source.

Estrella Resources looks to be on target as it continues drilling across its T5 nickel sulphide target in WA. Latest drill results from the discovery include an impressive 12.9m sulphide intercept, which hosts several zones of semi-to-massive nickel-rich mineralisation. The new zone of sulphides forms part of the Upper T5 conductor and is located 40m south of previous drilling, extending the envelope of this exciting nickel discovery.

ASX-listed Okapi Resources has kicked off exploration work at its Holly kaolin project in southern WA as part of technical due diligence relating to the recently announced planned acquisition of the project’s owner. The Perth-based company collected about 15 kaolin samples from Holly this week for assaying at a laboratory in Perth.

Wiluna Mining Corporation is poised to build the production platform that will position it to become one of Australia’s next significant gold mining companies after closing a A$93 million equity and debt funding deal to initially catapult its annual production rate from 60,000 ounces of gold to 120,000 ounces over the next 12 months. The company continues to see strong institutional support for its big-picture Wiluna growth blueprint.

ASX-listed Anglo Australian Resources has delivered further stellar gold hits at the Mandilla gold project in WA, with a maiden resource estimate due for release shortly. The new drill intercepts at Mandilla East have extended the known mineralisation by 130m to the south and include 66m going 1.77 grams per tonne gold. Results from nearly 10,000m of drilling remain pending.

Coda Minerals has shifted exploration at the Elizabeth Creek copper project in South Australia into higher gear. A major drilling campaign is underway to convert an existing exploration target at the Emmie Bluff prospect, estimated at 46-77 million tonnes going at 0.5-2.3 per cent copper-equivalent, into a maiden resource. Priority regional targets are also to be tested.

ASX-listed Kairos Minerals is waiting for assays from a reverse circulation drilling program completed at its Roe Hills gold and nickel project about 120km east of Kalgoorlie in WA, however visual indications of sulphides in rock chips have management eager to move forward. The Perth-based company punched out 20 holes for a total of 2,992 metres at the Caliburn, Talc Lake and Black Cat prospects.

Buru Energy looks to be on schedule to move into drilling of its inaugural 2021 well at Currajong 1 in WA’s Canning Basin. The company says site works for the well east of Broome are nearing completion with the first loads of rig gear expected to leave the Northern Territory next week. Drilling is expected to kick off in mid-June 2021.

Classic Minerals has achieved another significant milestone on the way to production start-up in the form of a native title agreement over the mining area at its developing Kat Gap gold project about 170km south of Southern Cross in WA. The company says it has now executed a Noongar Alternative Heritage Agreement with the South West Aboriginal Land and Sea Council, representing the Ballardong Agreement Group.

Northern Minerals continues to optimise its cutting-edge rare earth processing circuit in WA, with the addition of an ore sorter that management says has the potential to double the feed grade to the milling circuit. The new equipment might also deliver considerable cost savings for future production by increasing throughput and reducing both capital and operational expenditure.

TSX-listed WA gold producer, Novo Resources has moved to speed up the process for receiving its gold assay results. The company has now secured a deal with Intertek Testing Services (Australia) Pty Ltd that will see the latter provide on-site laboratory and sample preparation services and PhotonAssay services. Intertek will manage an on-site laboratory at Novo’s Golden Eagle gold processing plant near Nullagine in the East Pilbara.

Comet Resources has pulled off something of a coup, entering into an agreement to acquire the mineralised extensions to its Santa Teresa gold mine in northern Mexico. The company is looking to secure the La Sorpresa III lease to the north-west of its mine, said to host a number of old shafts and workings, where historical records show production grading at an incredible 280 grams per tonne gold.

ASX-listed Indonesia gold explorer, Sihayo Gold has generated encouraging early gold assays from a diamond drilling program at one of the brownfield prospects at its namesake project in North Sumatra. Notable intersections from nine drill holes completed at the Sihayo-2 prospect were 24.8m at 1.09 g/t gold from 52m including 6m going 2.46 g/t, and 8m at 1.32 g/t from 96m including 1m at 4.4 g/t.

The hits keep coming for Estrella Resources, with drilling at its Carr Boyd nickel project continuing to intersect sulphide mineralisation. Two drill holes above the feeder zone of the T5 discovery have intersected more than 47 metres of disseminated to matrix-textured sulphides, with mineralisation including visible nickel-rich pentlandite and copper-rich chalcopyrite. Assays are not far away.

ASX-listed mining technology company K2fly has signed a A$1.455 million contract extension with Australian iron ore major Fortescue Metals Group, which will widen the use of the supplier’s innovative land management software into Europe and South America.

Northern Minerals is set to leap back into rare earth exploration at Browns Range in WA’s Kimberley region, tabling a plan to drill up to 10,000m. The upcoming reverse circulation drilling will follow up on the last field season that generated numerous stellar rare earth oxide hits including 12m going 0.43 per cent TREO from just 34m.