Bulls N' Bears (Commercial Content)

Buru Energy continues to maintain a stable production base of between 960 and 1000 barrels of oil per day from its Ungani oilfield in the Canning basin in WA’s Kimberley region. Work to upgrade the fluid handling capacity of the production facility is also on track and the company has signed a new oil sales contract on more favourable commercial terms with Petro-Diamond Singapore.

TNG Limited has signed a binding heads of agreement with Genesee & Wyoming Australia for the provision of rail haulage services for its Mount Peake vanadium-titanium-iron project in the Northern Territory. The two companies will work together to develop an optimised rail haulage strategy for Mount Peake and finalise an agreement for the transport of magnetite concentrate from the mine to the processing plant in Darwin.

King River Resources has kicked off a 31-hole drilling program that seeks to define additional vanadium resources for its giant Speewah specialty metals project in WA’s Kimberley region. The company has also tasked Perth-based engineering firm Como Engineers with seeking indicative pricing on alternative sulphuric acid plants suitable for the Speewah project and has started to develop a strategy to deal with project waste.

Hawkstone Mining has received more high-grade lithium assays showing wide intersections up to 52m @ 1,953 ppm lithium, from its Big Sandy clay project in the US. The company recently accelerated its exploration and development activities at the project, which will assist in the estimation of a maiden JORC mineral resource and the completion of definitive metallurgical test work programs.

TNG Limited has put in place funding arrangements for engineering and design work on its flagship Mount Peake vanadium-titanium-iron project in the Northern Territory. The company is looking to raise $4.98 million through a rights issue of one share priced at 9.3 cents for every 20 shares held by eligible shareholders, which is fully underwritten by German investment company Deutsche Balaton Aktiengesellschaft.

Geopacific Resources has acquired 100% direct ownership of the Woodlark gold project in PNG after buying out Kula Gold’s remaining share for a cash and scrip transaction worth about $3.29m. The deal represents exquisite timing for the company, with the gold price nearly 25% higher than that assumed in November’s DFS for Woodlark, which already outlined robust economic metrics and strong margins to develop the project.

88 Energy has all but sewn up the farm-out of the conventional rights at its project known as “Project Icewine” in the famed North Slope oil province in Alaska after its as yet unnamed partner completed all internal approvals. The farm-out is now subject to the execution of closing documents and the transfer of working interests while well planning and permitting is ramping up for drilling in 2020.

Spectrum Metals’ Phase II drilling campaign at the Penny West project near Youanmi, WA, has returned further high-grade gold intersections, with mineralisation now defined over 650 metres of strike to a vertical depth of 230m. Preliminary metallurgical test work from the Penny North ores have been encouraging, with gold recoveries up to 99.2% and free-milling gold potentially amenable to a conventional processing circuit.

Lithium Australia plans to commence drilling to evaluate the potential and geometry of lithium pegmatites at the prospective Youanmi project near Sandstone in the Murchison region of WA, before the end of this month. The company will also carry out work on the higher-grade sections of a defined vanadium resource, which it believes to be amenable to direct leaching to produce vanadium sulphate.

Venus Metals and Rox Resources may be sitting on a high-grade gold deposit at their Currans Find JV gold project near Youanmi, WA, after re-sampling of recent holes turned up a spectacular intersection of 1m @ 72.67g/t gold from 39m within a wider zone of 3m @ 27.5g/t gold. This is significantly higher than the initial assays, which returned 6m @ 9.82g/t gold from 36m.

Volt Resources has secured USD$1 million in working capital from European investor Mr Lars Bader to help finalise the USD$40 million note issue on the Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange. The notes will underpin the Stage 1 development of the company's Bunyu graphite project in Tanzania that has an ore reserve of 127 million tonnes grading 4.4% TGC, most of which is in the Super Jumbo, Jumbo and Large flake categories.

Sovereign Metals has outlined encouraging preliminary metallurgical test work results for its Wofiira rutile prospect in Malawi, East Africa, generating a potentially premium high-quality product, with low impurities, from conventional mineral sands processing. The concentrated ore product contained 96% titanium dioxide at a recovered grade of 1.1% rutile and is on par with many of the world’s leading rutile producers.

AVZ Minerals will control 65% of the Manono lithium-tin project in the south-eastern region of the DRC after paying USD$5.5m to private company Dathomir Mining Resources SARL for an additional 5% stake in the tier-1 deposit. The monies are payable to Dathomir within three years and the agreement will generate an additional NPV of USD$130m for the company based on recent scoping study results.

Neometals’ synthetic zeolite product generated from lithium hydroxide production waste, has held its own against similar industry-leading products from a reference Japanese manufacturer. The company will now proceed with a pilot plant test of its proprietary process in the September quarter of 2019, which will in turn feed into a class 3 engineering study and feasibility study.

Venus Metals has this week pocketed $2.55m and a swag of shares in fellow ASX-listed company Rox Resources after the companies established a 50/50 joint venture agreement for the prospective Youanmi gold mine leases in WA. Several other JV agreements have now also commenced, which focus more on near-mine and regional exploration activities in the underexplored Youanmi greenstone belt.

ASX-listed MGC Pharmaceuticals continues to spread its wings, signing an agreement with Germany’s Mexacare for the distribution of the company’s medical cannabis products to Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Germany’s medical cannabis market alone was worth €133 million in 2018 and is estimated to grow to €7.7 billion by 2028, making it a key emerging market for MGC.

Strike Energy continues to gradually increase gas flow at its Jaws-1 super-deep coal seam gas well in the Cooper Basin, South Australia, as more coal transitions from water to gas production. Pumps have been set to maintain a pressure of 250psi to allow the desorption front to gradually spread outwards into the rest of the reservoir as more coal transitions from water to gas production.

Lithium Australia has identified lithium and tantalum mineralised pegmatite dykes over a 5km strike in shallow historical tourmaline and tin mine workings at the Dudley prospect of its Kangaroo Island project in South Australia. Rock chip sampling returned assays of up to 0.43% lithium oxide, 770 ppm tantalum, 460 ppm niobium and 1600 ppm rubidium despite the strong weathering of outcrops.

Calidus Resources has generated encouraging infill drilling results that confirm the grade continuity of its Klondyke ore system at the Warrawoona gold project in the Pilbara region of WA ahead of next month’s PFS. The company has also completed a surface trench sampling program over the Klondyke resource to establish the grade and thickness of gold mineralisation and support future mining operations.

Neometals Ltd has signed a binding memorandum of understanding with India’s third-largest power trading and diversified renewable energy company, Manikaran Power, to develop the first lithium refinery in the country. The joint initiative comes as India moves to build up a domestic lithium-ion battery manufacturing capacity and promote the use of more electric vehicles.

Hot Chili has delineated a thick, high-grade zone of copper-gold mineralisation at its Cuerpo 3 porphyry copper deposit in central Chile, that returned 188m @ 0.9% copper and 0.4g/t gold from 516m down-hole within a wider 622m intercept. The company said the intercept was comparable to results from SolGold’s Cascabel porphyry copper-gold discovery in Ecuador, which holds 5.2 million tonnes of copper and 12.3 million ounces of gold.

Strike Energy is continuing to drill its West Erregulla-2 well in the Perth Basin, WA, towards the secondary and primary gas targets after intersecting some hydrocarbon shows in the tertiary oil target. While the shows in the Cattamarra oil target were deemed insufficient to warrant the running of wireline logging, the company said that the results supported its geological model and would help with future activities.

ASX-listed medical cannabis player, MGC Pharmaceuticals has extended its reach to Brazil after signing a three-year exclusive distribution agreement with ONIX Empreendimentos e Participações. Brazil is a key emerging market with specialist market insight provider, Prohibition Partners, estimating that the Brazilian and Latin American medical cannabis sector could be worth up to USD$8.5 billion by 2028.

Telco disruptor Vonex has opened up a new avenue to grow its brand awareness and revenue through a partnership with business to business loyalty program, Qantas Business Rewards. This partnership will provide exposure for the company’s offering to QBR’s 250,000 small and medium enterprise members, who will be able to earn Qantas Points on Vonex products and services from August this year.

Venus Metals has struck wide, continuous intercepts of gold mineralisation at its Bell Chambers project near Sandstone, WA, which confirmed historical assay results and the geological interpretation for the current 17,000-ounce resource. Better results included 27m @ 2.72g/t from 27m down-hole and 64m @ 1.7g/t gold from 10m down-hole in separate drill holes.

Altech Chemicals is well on the pathway towards producing high purity alumina in Malaysia with erection of the workshop steel frame and placement of its roof structure now nearing completion. In addition, construction of the retaining wall is now about 75% completed whilst work has started on the first of four on-site detention storm water tanks that will store all site storm water.

Classic Minerals has recommenced drilling at its emerging Kat Gap gold project near Southern Cross, WA, where a series of exploratory programs last year unearthed shallow, high-grade gold mineralisation at a prospective rock contact. The short campaign will target strike and up-dip extensions of the defined mineralisation, which produced results up to 10m @ 30.78g/t gold from 28m down-hole and 8m @ 19.05g/t gold from 32m down-hole.

Classic Minerals has completed an earn-in and JV agreement worth up to $4.55m to divest its Fraser Range nickel-copper project in WA to base metals miner Independence Group. Classic will now concentrate its exploration at the emerging Kat Gap gold project located south of Southern Cross, WA, where recent drilling returned impressive results up to 8m @ 19.1g/t gold from 32m down-hole.

Venus Metals has contracted Murdoch University Associate Professor Aleks Nikoloski to carry out a metallurgical research study into vanadium, iron and titanium recoveries from its Youanmi project near Sandstone, WA. The research is co-funded by the Australian Government and test combined pyrometallurgical and hydrometallurgical process to recover all three metals from Youanmi oxide ores.

Infinity Lithium’s San José project in Spain could benefit from the EU’s recent recognition that access to raw materials has become essential for ensuring the supply of lithium chemicals for its automotive industry. The European Commission has identified 10 potential mining projects that could allow the EU to produce 30% of the world’s lithium by 2030 and flagged that more investment in this sector is likely.

Alterra has strengthened its board as it continues to build agricultural business opportunities with the appointment of experienced corporate accountant John Palermo as a non-executive director. His background in corporate transaction execution, strategic business management and business structuring is expected to assist Alterra with its strategy of building capacity and pursuing its growth plans.

AVZ Minerals has formed a strategic relationship with Chinese cobalt manufacturer Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt to advance the DFS for its giant Manono lithium-tin project in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Besides lending AVZ its experience in the DRC and mainland China, Huayou will also prove the company with advice and assistance in other areas such as project financing and offtake financing.