Bulls N' Bears (Commercial Content)

ASX-listed aspiring WA gold developer, Middle Island Resources, is on the verge of receiving government approvals for multiple exploration licences that collectively make up its big greenfields Barkly copper-gold play in the Northern Territory’s newly identified East Tennant mineral province. The NT Government has given the nod to the company’s applications for licences spanning a whopping 3,253sqkm and they can now be granted at Middle Island’s option.

Ardiden has cleared the way for drilling to commence at its 110,000-ounce Kasagiminnis gold deposit in Canada. The company has now received a permit to undertake exploration, completed its consultation with the first nation groups and engaged a drilling contractor to kick off its exploration program over the under-explored gold deposit during the current summer season.

If there are any major gold deposits left lurking within cooee of Kalgoorlie, Horizon Minerals will most likely find them after it announced this week it is about to launch a massive, 70,000m drill campaign on an axis around Kalgoorlie that will leave no stone unturned. It will cost $7 million and feed into Horizon’s much anticipated definitive feasibility study.

ASX-listed Lithium Australia’s proprietary processing technologies continue to demonstrate that metal dust from old lithium batteries, discarded low-grade spodumene and mine waste can be converted into lithium ferro phosphates for the manufacture of high-performance lithium-ion battery cathodes.

Terrain Minerals is off and running at its promising Smokebush gold project in WA. Drilling is now underway over the Monza and T13 prospects following up on a historical drill hits and high-grade sampling, including 2 metres at 11.3 g/t gold. Terrain farmed into the project in December 2019 and can earn an 80 per cent interest in the tenure by spending $250,000 over a two-year period.

Eclipse Metals is ready to launch into the second phase of diamond drilling at its high-grade Amamoor manganese project in Queensland. Initial exploration over the historic mining area has established that the ore system consists of multiple, steeply dipping high-grade lenses that remain untested by drilling and with demand for the battery metal looking set to sky-rocket the timing is good for Eclipse.

Wiluna Mining looks set to bank more than $110 million over the next 12 months after it secured a $21 million drawdown facility repayable in gold and hedged a further $90.9 million of gold at near record prices. The nine-figure windfall comes at an opportune time for the company as it begins the expansion of the Wiluna processing plant and gears up for an innovative transition into sulphide concentrate production.

ASX-listed base metals explorer Legend Mining has encountered more significant nickel-copper sulphide mineralisation at its exciting Mawson prospect at its Rockford project in WA’s Fraser Range district that looks to be shaping up as a possible extension to the original discovery.

TNT Mines has expanded its strategic uraniferous ground holdings in Utah, pegging the southern strike extensions of its historic high-grade ‘None Such’ and ‘Bonanza’ mines at East Canyon. The tactical move comes on the back of recent sampling in the old underground workings that has returned a plethora of high-grade results and highlighted the untapped potential of the Uravan mineral field.

ASX-listed aspiring gold developer, Middle Island Resources, continues to steadily build its global gold resource based on a host of satellite deposits at its historic Sandstone gold project in WA. The latest update comes courtesy of an increase of about 7,000 ounces, or 13 per cent, for the Two Mile Hill open-pittable resource that is now estimated at 1.25 million tonnes going 1.36 grams per tonne for 55,000oz of contained gold.

ASX-listed base metals developer, Blackstone Minerals, has further strengthened its drilling and geophysics armoury on the ground in Vietnam as it ramps up exploration at its 90 per cent-owned historic Ta Khoa nickel-copper-PGM project 160km west of Hanoi. The company has added a second geophysics crew and three drill rigs to its fleet, effectively doubling its exploration capacity.

St George Mining’s deep drilling program at Mt Alexander in WA has continued to meet with success. Initial results from the Investigators and Cathedrals targets confirm the nickel-bearing Cathedrals structure extends to more than 500 metres depth, according to the company. Diamond drilling is continuing across the project area with a flow of results expected over the coming weeks.

Ardea Resources has received plenty of encouragement from the first RC drilling the company has undertaken at its Aphrodite North gold project, 80km north of Kalgoorlie, with significant gold hits encountered in newly delineated mineralised lodes. Notable intersections from a seven-hole program were 6m going 3.60 grams per tonne gold from 44m including 2m at 9.99 g/t and 8m at 4.94 g/t from 172m including 4m at 9.42 g/t.

Barton Gold’s re-appraisal of the Tarcoola goldfield in SA is pulling back the veil surrounding the historical mining centre with recent magnetic and 2D seismic studies revealing that the Perseverance deposit may just be the tip of the iceberg. According to the company, the re-interpretation of old geophysical data points to the possibility of multiple repetitions of the lucrative Perseverance pit along a 14km mineralised gold trend.

ASX-listed explorer Great Southern Mining has received more high-grade gold sniffs from a new round of drilling at its second-string Mon Ami gold project near Laverton in WA. The new results follow on from its encouraging high-grade drill hits at the project a couple of years ago. Notable intersections from the latest drilling were 11m grading 7.9 g/t gold from 26m including 4m at 15.9 g/t, and 4m at 12.4 g/t from 80m.

ASX-listed 3D metal printing technology player, Aurora Labs, has now confirmed the appointment of Peter Snowsill as the company’s new Chief Executive Officer after he served five months as the Acting CEO. Snowsill, who has more than 25 years of tech-based executive, engineering and project management experience, took the reins during a period of restructuring and cost cutting largely brought on by the economic fallout of COVID-19 restrictions.

TNT Mines’ Bonanza prospect in the United States is turning out to be just that – a bonanza. It has delivered a smorgasbord of high-grade uranium and vanadium results from underground sampling including 1.25 metres at 2,600 ppm uranium oxide and 1.68 per cent vanadium pentoxide with a series of ‘too hot to handle’ samples yet to be reported by the new lab after being rejected by the first one.

As Hot Chili gets closer to delivering a maiden resource estimate for its Cortadera copper-gold project in Chile, new diamond drilling has continued to expand the exciting porphyry discovery. Wide assays from the first two drill holes in phase three of the drilling campaign confirm the high-grade core within the largest porphyry at Cortadera, known as Cuerpo 3, where the mineralisation continues 800m down-hole.

Blackstone Minerals has continued its seemingly unstoppable run of success in Vietnam with all four drill holes from the company’s maiden drilling program at Ban Chang intersecting high-grade massive nickel sulphides over more than 1,200 metres of strike. Infill drilling at the prospect is now being planned to delineate addition resources for the company’s developing resource inventory and Blackstone’s move into production.

Anglo Australian Resources has encountered deep extensions to the known mineralisation at its Mandilla gold project 20km south-east of Kambalda, with visible gold showing up in its latest diamond drill core. The company says this is indicative of a significant “nugget effect” within the gold mineralisation at the Mandilla East discovery.

ASX-listed gold hopeful, Kingwest Resources, has offloaded a couple of non-core assets that are not part of its flagship Menzies gold project, pocketing just over $2 million which it intends to sink into exploration and development drilling work at Menzies. Kingwest’s Menzies project involves a plethora of old gold projects littered across about 10km of strike.

Ora Banda Mining has banked more impressive RC drill hits from its Riverina South prospect as it eyes a maiden resource estimate for the deposit next month. The company is also looking to get into production at its nearby Davyhurst gold processing plant, 120km north-west of Kalgoorlie – based on initially mining several satellite deposits – in early 2021.

Classic Minerals is barrelling down the road to production at Kat Gap near Southern Cross in Western Australia, with its latest test-work showing exceptional recoveries of gold from simple processing techniques. Test work shows that gravity processing and conventional cyanide leaching recovers up to 96 per cent of the contained gold in the Kat Gap ores, paving the pathway to low cost production.

Impact Minerals looks to be tugging on the tail of a tiger with recent geochemical sampling at Apsley in NSW outlining a sizeable anomaly that flaunts all the hallmarks of a classic ‘text-book’ porphyry copper-gold deposit according to the company. Sampling at the company’s Apsley project has highlighted three priority targets for immediate testing with geophysical surveying expected to commence later this month.

Lindian Resources has further bolstered its senior management ranks with another bauxite expert after experienced Guinea Mining Engineer, Danny Keating, was appointed to the role of Chief Executive Officer. The appointment follows hot on the heels of the company also securing the services of 45-year bauxite and alumina veteran, Yves Occello, as a Non-Executive Director.

King River Resources is targeting high-grade gold in the Northern Territory as drilling kicks off at the Lone Star prospect at Tennant Creek. The company is targeting a series of coincident magnetic-gravity anomalies that it is interpreting as potentially the geophysical signature for the high-grade copper-gold rich ironstone ore bodies found in the Tennant Creek mineral field.

ASX-listed Troy Resources has produced a volley of high-grade gold hits from its latest diamond drill program at Karouni in Guyana, South America returning six separate intercepts with grades running as high as an ounce to the tonne. The results extend a stellar run for the Perth-based explorer with 3 of the 5 holes assayed to date returning multiple gold intersections.

Having made the successful transition from explorer to producer, Horizon Minerals has taken advantage of soaring gold prices to rack up a quickfire $2.93 million in revenue from the first 1,050 ounces of gold produced from its Boorara mining operations 10km east of Kalgoorlie.

Lithium Australia’s patent application to take waste rock from a lithium mining operation and turn it directly into a lithium phosphate product suitable for making battery cathodes received a shot in the arm this week. An international examiner has determined the process is “novel, involves an inventive step and is applicable to industry”.

ASX-listed gold hopeful, Middle Island Resources, looks to have struck paydirt at one of its new satellite deposits at its historic Sandstone gold project in WA, returning bonanza RC drill hits from the Ridge prospect that appears to be shaping up as an open pit ore source in its own right.

TNT Mines has delivered a set of smoking hot uranium samples to its assay lab in the USA where they were rejected due to their uber-high levels of radioactivity – a nice problem to have for a uranium explorer. The samples will now be assayed at an alternative lab in Canada that is better equipped to handle them.

ASX-listed gold developer Calidus Resources has taken multiple steps towards gold production at its flagship Warrawoona project in WA’s East Pilbara region with environmental approvals clearing the way for early construction items to be built at the planned $116 million development. The company plans to commence early capital works – including an access road and a 240-person accommodation village – as soon as next month.