Bulls N' Bears (Commercial Content)

Ironbark Zinc has appointed Michael Jardine to drive its zinc-lead project in Greenland from the Managing Director’s chair. Mr Jardine has a technical background in a range of industries including corporate development in mining and investment banking and looks well placed to take the helm at Ironbark. Former M.D and Ironbark prime mover Jonathon Downes will stay on as a Non-exec director.

Sovereign Metals has successfully extracted a high-quality graphite concentrate during its pilot plant test program in Africa. The processed graphite originated from the company’s Malingunde deposit in Malawi. Sovereign discovered Malingunde in 2015 where it has since delineated a total graphite resource of 65.1Mt @ 7.1% TGC. The company says Malingunde is the world’s largest saprolite-hosted graphite deposit.

Anglo Australian looks like it is well and truly onto something now at its Mandilla East project near Kambalda in Western Australia. Latest eye-catching drill intersections include a staggering 112m-wide zone going 1.5 g/t gold from just 41m down-hole and a 93m-wide hit going 3.11 g/t gold from 49m. Anglo is now working double time to unearth the full extent of this remarkable mineralised zone.

Altech Chemicals has been invited by the Saxony State Government in east Germany, to consider building a second HPA plant to lever off the burgeoning lithium-ion battery and EV manufacturing hub in that region. Saxony is one of the leading vehicle construction areas in Germany, with Volkswagen, BMW, Porsche and Daimler all operating plants in the State.

Lithium Australia has created an innovative new process that could potentially revolutionise the lithium battery recycling space. The company recently recovered lithium, nickel and cobalt from spent batteries during a trial. The process is able to salvage valuable metals normally sent to landfill and potentially “close the loop” for the lithium battery manufacturing industry.

Big River has cashed in its Meteoric shares for a cool $2.75m, issued as part of the sale consideration for its Juruena and Novo Astro projects in central Brazil in May. The company will now utilise the funds to progress exploration and resource development drilling at its Borborema gold project, where a DFS is underway.

Perth-based Horizon Minerals has completed its agreement with Kingswest Resources to fully divest its interest in the Menzies and Goongarrie gold projects, located north of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia. Horizon will receive a total consideration of some AUD$8 million for Kingswest’s acquisition of 38 mining, prospecting and exploration licenses.

Adriatic Metals has brought in Paul Cronin, one of its founders, to run the company and progress its outstanding multi-metals project in Bosnia. As a founding shareholder, Cronin has intimate knowledge of the project and the jurisdiction and therefore well placed to take it to the next level. Cronin, Eric De-Mori and Miloš Bošnjakovic originally floated Adriatic.

MGC Pharmaceuticals has expanded the number of patients now prescribing for or being processed to receive prescriptions of its medical cannabis-based pharmaceutical products in Australia and the UK to beyond 200. The company said that the key milestone readily demonstrates its strengthening position in those markets to meet the demand for its proprietary standardised, affordable medicines on a global scale.

Spectrum Metals continues its run of solid drilling success at its Penny North gold prospect located 25km south of the Youanmi mining centre in Western Australia. New drilling showed that the mineralised zones at Penny North are harbouring ounce plus dirt with drill hits including 2m at 32.5 g/t gold from 322m within a wider 6 meter intercept grading 11.1 g/t.

ClearVue Technologies has doubled the area of its insulated glass units, significantly growing sales opportunities for the ClearVue PV product range, which should allow architects and façade engineers much greater flexibility in design work for aesthetic purposes. New batches of the panel are being readied for production, with the company aiming to generate over 60 Watts from a single panel in upcoming prototypes.

Blackstone Minerals has unearthed a slew of platinum group metal credits amongst its nickel drill results that could redefine its Ta Khoa project. The company recently reported a 45.5m drill intersection grading 1.2% nickel with a surprising 0.35 grams per tonne platinum, palladium plus gold that could potentially redefine the economics of the company’s nickel project in Vietnam.

Infinity Lithium has completed a $1.5m placement, with two directors cutting their own cheques to help fund a DFS for its San José lithium project, located in western Spain. Back in August, the company delivered an outstanding pre-feasibility study for the integrated lithium project, revealing that the operation will throw up a pre-tax, net present value of USD$860m at an internal rate of return of 42%.

Troy Resources has discovered more near-surface gold at its Ohio and Hicks prospects in South America. Resource evaluation has commenced, with the company now optimistic that the new prospects could develop into future ore sources. Impressive gold hits such as 12m @ 14.99 g/t gold from 35m at Hicks and a growing mineralised footprint over 950m at Ohio are creating a sense of excitement around these new prospects.

Novo Resources has completed successful gold processing trials using innovative ore sorting technology at its emerging Egina gold project near Port Hedland in the Pilbara region of WA. The company used a combination of physical and mechanical dry ore sorting and processing techniques to separate coarse gold nuggets from waste materials in test work completed in Germany.

Coziron Resources has commenced a comprehensive exploration program at its emerging Croydon Top Camp gold project located in WA’s west Pilbara region, with geological mapping and sampling ongoing and preparations underway for a 2,000-metre RC drilling program. The company’s strategic tenement holding in the area is situated close to structurally-hosted gold occurrences including DeGrey Mining’s 1.7 million ounce Pilbara gold project.

Aspire Mining has received a show of support from its major shareholder Tserenpuntsag Tserendamba, who has committed to arrange a corporate guarantee of up to $100m to support future debt or project financing for its Mongolian Ovoot Early Development coal project, or “OEDP”. Mr Tserenpuntsag is also in the process of increasing his stake in the company from 27.5% to 51% through a $33.5 million share placement.

AVZ Minerals has completed its Phase 1 metallurgical test work program for the Manono lithium-tin project in Africa, which continued to deliver strongly encouraging results in line with other global lithium-mineralised pegmatite ores and supports its ongoing DFS. Testing has generated a spodumene concentrate that exceeds 6% lithium oxide and the company will now scale-up the work to a pilot-scale size.

ClearVue Technologies has reached a memorandum of understanding to appoint specialist contractor and building façades manufacturer Seiko Wall as the exclusive manufacturer and distributor of its solar glass technology in Singapore and Malaysia. ClearVue will receive a licence fee and royalties based on the square metres of solar glass panels manufactured and sold using its technologies throughout the five-year licence.

Hot Chili has extended the prospective, high-grade zone of the Cuerpo 3 porphyry copper-gold ore system within its Cortadera project in central Chile by about 100m to the east after intersecting a 184m zone grading 0.7% copper and 0.3g/t gold from 720m down-hole. This zone is contained within a wider zone of 848m @ 0.4% copper and 0.2g/t gold from 112m.

Horizon Minerals and Northern Star Resources have reached an agreement to swap tenements prospective for gold mineralisation in WA’s Goldfields region. Horizon will secure three projects near Coolgardie to support its current acquisition proposal for Focus Minerals’ adjacent Coolgardie gold project holdings and four projects near Kalgoorlie, including Golden Ridge which has produced over 253,000 ounces of gold.

St George Mining has extended mineralisation at the Stricklands prospect within its flagship Mt Alexander project near Leonora, WA, after intersecting 14 metres of nickel-copper sulphides from a down-hole depth of 78m. The company is also completing a diamond hole to a depth of 450m towards the south and underneath the known shallow mineralisation at Stricklands.

Big River Gold has eliminated its outstanding debt and is now in a strong position to finalise the definitive feasibility study for its flagship Borborema gold project in Brazil later this year. The company is targeting a significant reduction in capital and operating costs with a higher-grade, low strip ratio, starter Stage 1 open-pit envisaged and gold prices now 15% higher than those used in last year’s optimisation study.

The recent success of Strike Energy’s West Erregulla-2 well has buoyed Norwest Energy’s hopes that its upcoming drill program, just north of Strike’s spectacular gas discovery will be able to make waves in its own right. The company is also awaiting 3D seismic data over its Xanadu oil discovery, which will form the basis for contingent resource estimation and set the stage for the Xanadu joint venture to consider an appraisal well.

Legend Mining has commenced a detailed, ground-based EM geophysical survey over the Area D prospect of its Rockford project in the Fraser Range region of southern WA. The survey is being undertaken over the high-priority D5 conductor, where the company has already defined anomalous nickel-copper sulphide mineralisation and is designed to better constrain the target ahead of an upcoming diamond drilling program.

Ironbark Zinc’s proposed, scaled-back 1Mtpa Stage I development of its Citronen base metals project in northern Greenland will benefit from head grades of up to 10.4% zinc/lead during the first year of operation. The company plans to lower the upfront capital costs for the project by targeting the shallow high-grade Beach Zone mineralisation, while still allowing for an expansion to the original feasibility study output of 3.3Mtpa in Stage II.

Vonex has gone from strength to strength since listing on the Australian Stock Exchange in June last year with the company now on track for a 30% increase in new customer sales year-on-year in the current quarter. The company expects sales growth to accelerate throughout the 2020 financial year while increased engagement with its social media indicates that Vonex’s brand awareness is growing rapidly.

Azumah Resources has estimated that its Wa gold project in Ghana could deliver a pre-tax cash flow of USD$448m using an assumed gold price of USD$1,500 per ounce, up 66% from its scoping study estimate that used a price USD$1,300 per ounce. The higher gold price could also lift pre-tax NPV by almost 75% to USD$309m and increase the internal rate of return from 35% to about 54%.

TNG Limited has selected an optimised single-stage, 2 million tonne per annum operation for its Mount Peake vanadium-titanium-iron mine in the Northern Territory that will trim capital expenditure by $29m to $824m. The project is now estimated to deliver a life-of-mine net cash flow of $12.2 billion, pre-tax net present value of $2.8 billion and pre-tax IRR of 33% while capital payback is estimated at 2.8 years.

Calidus Resources has generated shallow, high-grade gold intercepts outside the existing resources in drilling completed at its emerging Warrawoona project, near Marble Bar, WA. The results are adjacent to the flagship Klondyke deposit and included 12 metres grading 2.68 grams per tonne gold from only 32m down-hole and 4m @ 4.3g/t gold from 44m, in areas that were previously anticipated to be barren of mineralisation.

Strike Energy has increased the net pay zone within the Kingia sandstone conventional gas discovery by 17 metres to 58 metres after completing wireline logging at its West Erregulla-2 well in the Perth Basin, WA. Down-hole tools have indicated the Kingia reservoir as having pressures between 6,814 psia and 6,828 psia with good permeability of 102mD, which supports the potential for a significant recoverable gas resource.

Heavy rare earths producer, Northern Minerals, has started exploration drilling at its Browns Range project in the Kimberley region of WA to follow up recent successes at the emerging Dazzler prospect. The company will carry out 3,000m of reverse circulation drilling at the Dazzler and Iceman prospects and a further 1,500m at the Banshee South, Cyclops, Longshot and Rogue prospects.