Bulls N' Bears (Commercial Content)

Ardiden’s three hard-rock lithium projects in north-west Ontario, Canada may be in play as the company weighs up options to advance its lithium asset portfolio. One of the projects already hosts a resource of 4.8 million tonnes of ore grading 1.25 per cent lithium oxide. Management says it is evaluating strategic alternatives for the projects including retention, potential sales, spin-offs, joint ventures or business collaborations.

TNT Mines is preparing to drill test its key, high-grade uranium targets at the East Canyon project in Utah. The company is paying the requisite bonds to the US government and entering the final phase of the permitting process, with initial drilling to focus on the historical mine workings in the north of TNT’s tenure, including the targets at None Such and Bonanza.

ASX-listed junior explorer, Kingwest Resources has finalised the acquisition of its advanced, multi-deposit Menzies gold project about 130 kilometres north of Kalgoorlie and the greenfields Goongarrie gold project 90km north of Kalgoorlie. Horizon Minerals has now banked the last instalment of $1.625 million cash and 10.83 million Kingwest shares to complete the $8 million sale to Kingwest announced in 2019.

Neometals has highlighted the strong environmental credentials of its proprietary, patent-pending, vanadium recovery process flowsheet after an independently assessed, ISO-compliant, life cycle assessment showed potential to produce zero-carbon vanadium from the company's proposed Scandinavian vanadium recycling project. Neometals remains on track to deliver a ‘peer-reviewed’ PFS to recover vanadium from a vanadium-bearing steel making by-product, known as “slag”, by the end of June.

Aruma Resources has unveiled plans to undertake a maiden round of RC drilling at its Mount Deans lithium project approximately 10 kilometres south of Norseman in WA. The Perth-based company says the project should benefit from its location close to road and rail infrastructure that provides easy access to the Port of Esperance. Mount Deans contains a “swarm” of 71 recognised pegmatites covering 4.5km by 1.5km.

Zuleika Gold’s namesake project in WA’s Eastern Goldfields continues to deliver some tantalising results, with aircore drilling across the company’s Paradigm East discovery outlining gold mineralisation along more than 1.8 kilometres of strike. Results from the recent drilling program include 12 metres at 3.3 grams per gold, which included 4m at 6.0 g/t gold from 72 down-hole, pointing to the deeper potential of the extensive ore system.

Element 25 has wasted no time in laying the foundations for a “stage two” development at its new Butcherbird manganese mining and beneficiation operation in WA. The Perth-based company has just squared away a capital raise worth $35.5 million that it says will largely go towards a planned expansion of Butcherbird’s annual manganese concentrate output from about 365,000 tonnes to more than one million tonnes a year.

Wiluna Mining is edging closer to executing its expansion plans at its Wiluna mine. Firm commitments to raise $7.5m have been received as major shareholders and Wiluna’s Executive Chairman, Milan Jerkovic, line up to plough in another $14m. The money will be used to lift the mine’s production to 120,000 ounces of gold a year and study the potential for it to move to 250,000 ounces per annum.

ASX-listed Altech Chemicals’ 75 per cent-owned subsidiary, Altech Industries Germany has kicked off a pre-feasibility study for a 10,000 tonne per annum high purity alumina battery materials coating plant in Saxony, Germany. The PFS will integrate Altech’s “nano-layer” HPA coating technology with HPA produced at the company’s plant in Malaysia which will be fed from Altech’s kaolin deposit near Meckering in Western Australia.

Podium Minerals has tabled an array of high-grade intercepts from drilling at its Parks Reef PGM discovery in WA. Exploration across the central and eastern sectors of the emerging deposit has delivered some exciting results including 46 metres at 2.01 grams per tonne 3PGM from only 12m and 7m at 5.75 g/t 3PGM, which includes an impressive 1m at 25.74 g/t 3PGM from 89m down-hole.

Kingwest Resources has released a “strong economic case” for mining to kick off at its multi-deposit Menzies gold project in WA. The company’s scoping study on Menzies points to a proposed open-cut mining and toll treatment operation spitting out estimated net revenue of $330 million and free cash flows of between $64 million and $95 million across an initial project life of just over two-and-a-half years.

The rods are set to spin again for Oar Resources at the Gibraltar halloysite-kaolin project on South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula. A recently completed maiden air-core campaign netted kaolinite and high-grade halloysite up to 20 per cent in grade, with halloysite reported in 24 of the 59 holes drilled. An aggressive 2,500m air-core drilling campaign has commenced to follow-up on the intriguing discovery.

ASX-listed explorer, Venus Metals says latest drill hits have extended the known area of high-grade gold mineralisation at the exciting Grace gold discovery at its joint-ventured Youanmi gold project in WA by 100 metres to the south. Stand-out RC drill intersections received for three of 18 recently completed holes were 8m at 19.9 g/t gold from 68m including 4m at 38.3 g/t.

Novo Resources is set to pocket another $5 million in cash as the sale of its Blue Spec mine draws to a close. The company has offloaded the high-grade mine in the Pilbara to aspiring gold miner Calidus Resources, who has recently commenced construction of its Warrawoona mine and will use the ores from the mothballed operation to boost its own developing production profile.

Legendary former New Zealand national rugby team captain, Sean Fitzpatrick is about to become a regular at ASX-listed junior explorer, White Cliff Minerals. Fitzpatrick has been appointed as Strategic Advisor to the company in a deal that will see White Cliff pick up a slew of lucrative-looking gold projects in the land of the long white cloud.

ASX-listed budding gold producer, Calidus Resources says its Blue Spec high-grade satellite gold deposit is set to significantly boost annual production at its under-construction Warrawoona gold mine in WA’s East Pilbara region, following a Blue Spec “integration” study. According to the study, the company is now looking at forecast gold production averaging 110,000 ounces per annum across the first seven years of production at Warrawoona.

Indiana Resources is kicking its exploration efforts into high gear with an upcoming drilling blitz at the Minos discovery in South Australia’s Gawler Craton. The ASX-listed company was well blooded for the hunt after it recently unearthed an extraordinary 38m drill intersection going 6.54 g/t gold from just 29m. Other targets along strike will also be tested.

ASX-listed PharmAust subsidiary, Epichem, has entered into a multi-year license agreement to harness “Oxidative Hydrothermal Dissolution” technology from IP owner, Illinois-based Thermaquatica. Epichem will research, develop and promote Thermaquatica’s disruptive waste to fuels technology that uses waste and biomass as a feedstock. The company will also target government grant funding to accelerate its research and development initiative.

ASX-listed junior explorer, Kalamazoo Resources has consummated a deal with C$740 million market-capped Pilbara gold producer, Novo Resources. TSX-listed Novo will issue A$2 million worth of its stock to Kalamazoo to take on 50 per cent of Kalamazoo’s Queens gold project in Victoria and Novo then has the right to move to 70 per cent by ploughing a further $5 million into the project.

Strike Resources is looking to get a foothold in the burgeoning battery metals space with plans to spin out its lithium and graphite assets into a new IPO to be known as Lithium Energy. Strike will retain a 43 per cent stake in the new company that is slated to raise around $9 million ahead of its listing on the ASX.

Perth-based explorer PolarX Limited is expanding its footprint in America by proceeding with the acquisition of the high-grade gold and silver Humboldt Range project in Nevada. Off the charts samples grading as high as 3,384.14 g/t gold and 2,083.3 g/t silver highlight the potential of the project in the multi-million-ounce American mining region.

Victory Mines has wrapped up a second round of reverse circulation drilling at its Coogee gold project 55km southeast of Kalgoorlie on the north-eastern shore of Lake Lefroy. One of the best intercepts from Victory’s latest bundle of samples returned a broad width of 28m at 1.2 g/t gold from 128m downhole, including 16m at 1.68 g/t gold.

Perth-based explorer Kingwest Resources continues to make waves in the Goldfields of WA with an initial aircore drilling campaign at the Goongarrie gold project returning significant results from three areas where the company appears to have defined a gold anomaly over 1,000m in strike length at Area 9. Further drilling on newly identified targets at the project is planned for quarter two.

Buru Energy and its new farm-in partner, the giant Origin Energy, are gearing up to roll out a fresh oil exploration drilling campaign in WA’s revered Canning Basin during this year’s Top End dry season. Buru is chasing as much as 97 million barrels of oil across two prospects, including the highly anticipated Rafael-1 test well that sits east and along strike from the company’s producing Ungani oil field.

88 Energy has cracked 1,512 feet, or 460 metres, as it drills its way towards its highly anticipated 600-million-barrel prospective oil target at an interpreted depth of 6,000 feet, or 1,829 metres, below the frozen arctic ground in Alaska. Its moment of truth will arrive in just three to five days when it will get to test the reservoir sands of the oil-rich Nanushuk formation target.

Coda Minerals continues to receive solid results from its copper discovery at Emmie Bluff in SA including 7.58 metres at 1.51, however it is now casting its eye further afield as it looks to build a pipeline of copper projects in Australia, with the company picking up the interesting looking Cameron River copper project near Mt Isa in Queensland.

Horizon Minerals has completed its agreement to buy a 50 per cent interest in the high-grade Penny’s Find underground satellite gold deposit in WA’s Eastern Goldfields for $1.5 million cash. As part of the acquisition, Horizon has also committed to sink a further $1 million in pre-development expenditure into the ground to firm up a mineral resource estimate for the historic gold mine about 50km north-east of Kalgoorlie.

ASX-listed InteliCare has launched its latest product offering known as “InteliLiving Health Metrics”, which harnesses artificial intelligence to provide real-time reporting and insights of personal health metrics to assist in caring for the elderly disabled. InteliCare’s latest analytics offering integrates with wearable smart health devices to monitor personal biometrics in real time, enhancing its remote home and aged care facility-based smart monitoring solutions.

Northern Minerals has passed another significant milestone after producing more than 210,000 kilograms of heavy rare earth carbonate concentrate for sale to end-users. A 40,406kg shipment of concentrate from Northern’s Browns Range rare earths pilot plant is due to be dispatched to its European offtake partner within days. The shipment will contain dysprosium, terbium and yttrium.

Adriatic Metals continues to deliver the goods at the Raska project in Serbia with more wide shallow zinc hits including 36m at 3.7 per cent zinc, 1.4 per cent lead, 21 g/t silver and 0.2 g/t gold from surface. A third rig is due on site next month as the company targets a maiden JORC resource this year.

ASX-listed WA agribusiness avocado orchard developer, Alterra Ltd says it expects to bank nearly $700,000 courtesy of the Federal Government’s research and development tax incentive scheme. According to the company, the government scheme, administered by the ATO, recognises the innovative avocado growing methodology it has implemented across the initial five-hectare planting out of its flagship Carpenters avocado project development in WA’s South West.

Things are starting to get interesting for White Cliff Minerals in the Goldfields of WA with results from two gold drilling campaigns at the Reedy South project soon to be tabled as the company looks to grow its current resource base. New targets for follow-up testing in the second quarter and throughout the year are also being generated.