Bulls N' Bears (Commercial Content)

AVZ Minerals’ metallurgical test work programs for its Manono lithium-tin project in the DRC, have delivered encouraging results in line with other global lithium-mineralised pegmatite ores and support its ongoing DFS. Testing has generated similar rock characteristics and strengths to other spodumene-bearing ore deposits and heavy liquid separation produced a high-grade concentrate at 6.2% lithium oxide, with a 66% concentrate recovery.

Australian Potash has cranked up the JORC mineral resource of its Lake Wells sulphate of potash, or “SOP”, project near Laverton, WA, by 23% to 18.1 million tonnes of drainable SOP. This resource is entirely within the measured category, which gives the company a high degree of confidence that it can support its initial planned 150,000 tonne per annum project for a long, sustained period.

King River Resources has increased its footprint in the Northern Territory’s Tennant Creek copper-gold belt with the application for two prospective new exploration licences. One of the licence applications contains the same geological formation hosting the Tennant Creek and Rover goldfields, while the other covers the historical Kurundi open pit and underground mine where rock sampling returned over 5g/t gold and up to 9.7% copper.

Novo Resources is vectoring towards a prospective region located southeast of historical workings and trenches at its Egina gold project near Port Hedland, WA, after delineating a 600m wide region of gravel that contains plentiful gold nuggets. The company identified the patch during a ground-penetrating radar survey in May, which outlined a valley floor containing the sought-after gold-bearing gravel horizons.

Nzuri Copper’s takeover by Chinese industrial player, Chengtun Mining Group, is entering its final stages with shareholders set to vote on the AUD$109.5 million all-cash takeover offer in mid-August. The company’s Kalongwe copper-cobalt project within the Central African Copperbelt in the far south of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is expected to play a key role in Chengtun’s copper-cobalt expansion plans in the country.

Rox Resources and Venus Metals have commenced a 14,000 metre reverse circulation drilling program aimed at newly developed high-grade targets and extensions to known mineralisation at their Youanmi gold project. The Commonwealth prospect, where historical drilling posted a top intersection of 18m @ 12.9g/t gold from 39m down-hole, crowns the joint venture’s hit list.

Strike Energy has confirmed that it has made a significant conventional gas discovery in the Wagina sandstone of its multi-target West Erregulla-2 well in the Perth Basin, Western Australia. Notably, the well has yet to intersect the secondary target Basal Wagina sandstone and will now be finished before drilling resumes towards its total planned depth of 5,200m to intersect the Basal Wagina and primary target Kingia-High Cliff sands.

Multi-commodity explorer Venus Metals has received a vote of confidence from Queensland multi-millionaire and veteran coal miner, Christopher Wallin, who injected $1.2 million into the company through a placement of shares priced at 20 cents each. The investment gives Mr Wallin, one of Australia’s top 50 richest people, a substantial 5.03% stake in the company.

Greenland Minerals has raised $7m through a heavily oversubscribed share placement to fund ongoing technical development of its giant Kvanefjeld rare earth project in southern Greenland. Proceeds from the placement will also be used to complete the project permitting and advance commercial development. The company recently lodged its application for a mining licence over the Kvanefjeld project.

Anglo Australian Resources has intersected encouraging, high-grade gold intersections at its Mandilla East and Mandilla South prospects, part of the Mandilla gold project located 75km south of Kalgoorlie, WA. At Mandilla East, multiple intercepts were returned beneath an existing supergene zone, including 2.7m @ 46.1g/t gold from 123.3m down-hole, which incorporated a metre intersection grading 122.3g/t gold from 124.3m.

Australian Potash has flagged that it will soon upgrade mineral resources and define a maiden ore reserve at its Lake Wells sulphate of potash project near Laverton, WA, following the milestone completion of final field programs. The programs were carried out in support of the company’s ongoing definitive feasibility study, for which final documentation is currently underway.

Vonex has marked another quarter of sales growth with revenue rising 11.4% year-on-year to $2.35m for the quarter ended 30 June 2019 due to its success in penetrating the Australian market for telco services to small and medium enterprises. The company is also in the final stages of testing its Oper8tor app, which enables users of multiple communication platforms to communicate with each other.

Northern Minerals is ramping up the development of its Browns Range heavy rare earths project near Halls Creek, WA, by purchasing an ore sorting module to upgrade mill feed, potentially doubling the ore grade and reducing operating costs. The company recently obtained commitments for a $30 million placement split into three roughly equal tranches, the first of which totalled $11.9m and was received last week.

King River Resources has started reconnaissance geological exploration field programs and rock chip sampling over several newly granted exploration licences that lie along strike from its Mt Remarkable gold project near Kununurra, WA. The field work has already unearthed new occurrences of quartz-feldspar veining, similar to the very high-grade Trudi Vein system located at Mt Remarkable.

Lithium Australia has firmed up its alliance with Chinese battery manufacturer DLG Battery with the formation of a joint marketing division that will provide a range of lithium-ion batteries, or “LIBs”, with a focus on industry-scale energy storage products. The new Soluna Australia division will also provide technical support, customer service and custom products for large-scale storage applications.

Hammer Metals is cashed up to carry out its maiden drilling program at the Bronzewing South gold project in Western Australia next month, after raising more than $1.76m through a placement priced at 2 cents per share. The company is carrying out an induced polarisation survey to refine potential drilling targets identified during the initial field reconnaissance programs.

Classic Minerals has generated high-grade gold intersections from drilling at its emerging Kat Gap project near Southern Cross, WA, which have doubled the strike length of the ore system to 400 metres. The program targeted the ore body along strike and produced exceptional, shallow drilling results including 7m @ 24.3g/t from 24m down-hole, 9m @ 15.2g/t gold from 22m and 10m @ 8.2g/t from 7m in separate holes.

Kairos Minerals has recovered 223 gold nuggets weighing a total of 21.1 ounces that were hosted directly within a conglomerate unit, from a newly identified area at its Croydon project in Western Australia’s Pilbara region. The company said the discovery is analogous to the basal gold-bearing conglomerate horizon discovered by Canadian explorer Novo Resources at the Purdy’s Reward project more than 100km to the west northwest.

Calidus Resources has intersected high-grade gold with a bonanza hit of 1m @ 107.2g/t gold from 36m down-hole in a broader intersection of 13m @ 11.1g/t gold from 30m, during infill drilling at the Klondyke-St George shear-hosted deposits within its Warrawoona project, near Marble Bar, WA. The drilling campaign is aimed at upgrading mineral resources and proving up additional ore reserves to support the company’s BFS.

Alterra has appointed Brett Heather as its chief operating and technical officer as it prepares to address opportunities in Australia’s high-value avocado sector. Mr Heather helped transform the avocado category with one of Australia’s leading retailers by driving cost efficiencies from field to fork, improving post-harvest handling and implementing technology to ensure that consumers received the best possible product.

Strike Energy is preparing to carry out wireline logging at its multi-target West Erregulla-2 well in the Perth Basin, Western Australia, that flowed gas to surface earlier this month from the Basal Wagina formation. The company will also evaluate the shallower Lesueur Sandstone and Woodada Siltstone formations before casing the well and drilling ahead to intersect the primary target Kingia-High Cliff sand sequence.

Spectrum Metals’ drilling campaign at the Penny West project near Youanmi, WA, has returned its deepest high-grade gold intersection to date, with a spectacular 9m @ 15.9g/t gold from 294m down-hole, incorporating a 6-metre section going 22.5g/t gold from 295m. The company said additional drill rigs would commence work in August and that the latest results indicate gold mineralisation remains open at depth down-plunge.

Troy Resources’ infill, extensional and exploratory drilling programs at the Ohio Creek prospect of its Karouni project in Guyana have returned high-grade hits of up to 5m @ 27.5g/t gold from 62m down-hole. The results to date indicate that a coherent mineralised ore system is present over a strike length of at least 500m, with widths of up to 20m and a vertical depth of 125m.

Aurora Labs is proceeding with the commercialisation of its proprietary MCP 3D printing technology after its RMP1 Beta Printer completed full-size test prints as part of the commissioning process. Advanced discussions are already underway for the potential sale of the RMP1 Beta Printer to one of the company’s industrial partners while interest has been received from several potential customers for its upcoming production machines.

Infinity Lithium has reached a significant milestone after successfully recycling and reusing the potassium sulphate used to leach lithium from the micas sourced from its San José project in Spain. The company expects to ultimately achieve a 90% to 100% recycling rate for the reagent, which will minimise the amount of “fresh” sulphate needing to be added during the production cycle.

Geopacific Resources has revealed a 78% uplift in the estimated pre-tax net cash flows from its Woodlark gold project in PNG, based on gold prices at AUD$2,000 per ounce, compared with the base case scenario of AUD$1,650 per ounce used in last November’s DFS. The fully permitted and proposed low strip ratio open pit operation provides life of mine margins near AUD$1,000 per ounce, with payback in 1.4 years.

Coziron Resources has received further clues directing its gold exploration efforts at the Croydon Top Camp project in WA’s Pilbara region, after receiving a detailed report from a prospector who recovered 203 gold nuggets in the area. Information from this report has been integrated with other geological and geochemical data from Croydon and will be used to identify and prioritise targets for further field programs.

Kalia has restructured its board ahead of regional exploration programs seeking porphyry copper/gold mineralisation on Bougainville Island, with the addition of two resource industry veterans as its directors. Michael Johnston, who will be the company’s Director Corporate Development and Strategy, has extensive experience in PNG and the Asia Pacific and was Placer Dome’s GM of exploration in the early 2000s.

Buru Energy has spudded the Adoxa-1 conventional oil exploration well targeting the potential for multiple stacked reservoirs within the greater Yakka Munga regional structure in the Canning Basin, Western Australia. A success at Adoxa-1 will supplement and enhance the company’s existing reserves and production cashflow from the nearby Ungani Oilfield and potentially unlock several follow-up structures in the area.

Black Rock Mining has significantly improved the project economics of its Mahenge graphite mine in Tanzania, by ramping up the proposed production rate from 250,000 tonnes per annum to 340,000 tonnes per annum at the request of its offtake customers. The company will add a fourth processing module at the operation to increase production of the highly sought-after, world-class premium graphite flake product.

Anglo Australian Resources’ drilling program has intersected gold mineralisation at two prospects within its Koongie Park project near Halls Creek in Western Australia’s Kimberley region. One of the holes at the Bull Dog prospect returned a peak result of 1m @ 11.27g/t gold from 22m down-hole while a hole at the Nicolsons East prospect returned 3m @ 1g/t gold from 23m, including 1m @ 1.49g/t gold from 24m.

ASX-listed mineral sands producer, Image Resources, has increased its EBITDA forecast from previous guidance by $15m to between $55m to $65m due to its Boonanarring project just north of Perth performing above expectations in several key areas. Projected operating costs have been lowered by about $10m to between $75m and $85m, while revenue guidance has ticked up to between $130m and $145m.