Bulls N' Bears (Commercial Content)

Larvotto Resources has received US$4 million (A$6.2m) as pre-payment from Wogan Resources’ sister and financing company Xcelsior Capital under an exclusive antimony off-take agreement with Wogan. The agreement, signed on December 2, will see Wogen provide exclusive global off-take sales for Larvotto’s antimony concentrate produced at its Hillgrove project.

Latitude 66’s diamond core drilling at its key KSB gold project in Finland has extended its K8 prospect in both strike directions, with latest results including a best run of 3.1m assaying 6.1g/t gold from 41.8m. The top-shelf result, coupled with the second best hit of 3.2m going 1.3g/t gold from 25m, points to extension potential at the southwestern and northeastern extremities of the mineralised trend.

Thunderbird Resources is poised to launch a maiden on-ground exploration program at its recently acquired Rockvale-Kookaburra antimony-gold project immediately north of Larvotto Resources’ storied Hillgrove project in NSW. The preparation included detailed desktop analysis with encouraging results covering more than 100 years of exploration and mining history at the site, with boots now expected to be on the ground in January.

Aurumin is betting on striking gold at its Central Sandstone gold project in Western Australia, with results from its latest reverse-circulation (RC) drilling program to be revealed early in the ne

ABx Group and its subsidiary ALCORE are redefining the circular economy by turning waste into opportunity and have garnered the Tasmanian Government’s support along the way. Tassie will provide indicative terms and conditions for a $1 million, zero-interest loan to fund the construction of a continuous pilot plant to trial its world-first proprietary process that produces industrial chemicals from waste generated during aluminium smelting.

Ora Banda Mining has extracted first ore at its new WA Sand King underground gold mine, just four months after opening the portal. Full-scale mining is set for March, with 60,000 ounces of gold per year expected by mid-year. The Sand King mine is a key piece of the company’s ambitious Drive to 150 plan, aiming to produce up to 160,000 gold ounces annually by mid-2026.

Altech Batteries has sealed a third offtake agreement with Axsol GmbH, a defence market renewable energy solutions supplier for NATO based in Germany. The partnership is set to provide Axsol with up to 120MWh of energy storage over the first five years from Altech’s groundbreaking lithium-ion battery alternative Cerenergy solid-state salt batteries.

Meeka Metals’ infill drilling at its WA Murchison project has revealed high-grade gold at the Turnberry and St Anne’s prospects, boosting plans to expand its production schedule. The key results at Turnberry included 9m grading 16.83g/t gold, including 5m at an eye-catching 29.02g/t gold while at St Annes the best hits included 11m grading 13.01g/t gold, with a sizzling 4m section running at 30.66g/t gold

Aurum Resources has unveiled spectacular gold intercepts at its Boundiali gold project in northern Côte d'Ivoire with one 1.19m hit grading 277.54 g/t gold from 31m depth at its BM prospect. The drilling program included 76 diamond drill holes at the Boundiali BM and BD prospects, covered more than 21,700m of drilling and delivered a plethora of high-grade finds.

First-pass air core drilling by Kalgoorlie Gold Mining on a blind target at its Kirgella West prospect, 140km northeast of Kalgoorlie, has been rewarded with good hits up to 3.66g/t gold over a 1200m strike. The 63-hole, 3518m program is adjacent to KalGold’s Kirgella Gift and Providence deposits, with their combined 76,400 ounce gold inferred resource, and produced strong gold anomalism and potentially economic gold grades over a wide area.

Horizon Minerals has tabled a solid set of numbers from a prefeasibility study into its Penny's Find gold play, 50km northeast of Kalgoorlie, in WA, predicting a free cash flow of $24m at a gold price of $3600 per ounce. The study reveals a profitable underground mining scenario with a production target of 329,900 tonnes of ore at a grade of 3.2 grams per tonne gold for 33,500 ounces.

GreenTech Metals has launched a 4000m stage two diamond core drilling program at its Whundo copper-zinc-silver project in WA’s West Pilbara region. The program aims to test electromagnetic conductors generated from previous surface fixed-loop and downhole electromagnetic geophysical surveys of previous drill holes to identify and potentially expand the project resource.

Octava Minerals has wound-up drilling at its Yallalong antimony project in WA’s Gascoyne region, confirming visual signs of antimony mineralisation and unlocking the next phase drilling of 14 high-priority targets, to follow assay results expected early next year. Octava completed 41 reverse circulation drill holes for a total of 2748m across its Discovery and Central antimony targets.

Larvotto Resources continues its winning run with its final five drillholes at Clarks Gully deposit at its Hillgrove project in NSW, jagging broad high-grade gold-antimony intercepts, including 22m at 9.87g/t gold equivalent. The 59-hole program for 4469m of RC drilling was designed to infill and extend the current 266,000t Clarks Gully mineral resource, grading 3.8 per cent antimony and 2.0g/t gold for 10.6g/t gold equivalent.

Triangle Energy’s well pad for its upcoming Becos-1 exploration well in WA’s Perth Basin is in the final stages of construction. The pad’s completion is set for the end of December, ahead of a March spud of the highly anticipated onshore Becos-1 wildcat well, which is targeting a resource of between 1 million and 21m barrels of oil.

Estrella Resources has received encouraging responses from its first geophysical survey line across its recently discovered Ira Miri manganese zone at Lautém in Timor-Leste, prompting its maiden drilling campaign. The low resistivity anomaly is interpreted as a potential target for supergene manganese and aligns with previously reported outcrop mapped onsite, although more work is required to gauge the potential scale of the anomalism.

Javelin Minerals has completed 2921m of a phase one maiden drilling program at its Coogee copper-gold project near Kambalda in Western Australia, with phase two slated to kick off early in the New Year. The 18-hole reverse circulation program recovered 1698 samples sent for assay and identified a copper-gold mineralised trend extending from about 270m south of the southern open pit rim to about 450m north of the northern rim.

American West Metals has unveiled an impressive 117% increase in indicated copper resources at its flagship Storm project in Nunavut, Canada, noting multiple recent discoveries remain to be included in the substantial resource inventory. The upgrade propels the total resource to 20.6 million tonnes at 1.1% copper and 3.3 grams per tonne silver, representing some 229,000t of copper.

Novo Resources has options to buy two exceptionally high-grade, drill-ready gold projects in New South Wales, including the John Bull prospect that has walk-up drilling targets in an area with seven historical shafts including one sunk in the mid-1880s. Novo said the acquisitions align with its strategy of identifying standalone projects that could host at least one million ounces of gold.

Christmas has come early for Lindian Resources, with it wrapping up the year with a US$50 million (A$78.6 million) funding agreement with US-based commodity trader Gerald Metals Group. Funds are earmarked to kick off development of its world-class Kangankunde rare earths project in Malawi. A feasibility study on the stage one development shows a whopping annual EBITDA of US$84m (A$132m) in a 45-year mine life.

This week’s Bulls N’ Bears Runner of the Week is… Tasman Resources. The South Australian mineral explorer has a series of impressive targets to follow up with a drilling program. Bridge SaaS received some love from a substantial shareholder keen to increase its stake in the firm, while other movers and shakers this week were New Frontier Minerals and Axel REE.

Javelin Minerals has slotted the next golden arrow into its quiver with the completion of its much-heralded acquisition of the brownfields Eureka gold project, 54km northwest of Kalgoorlie. Eureka’s current mineral resource estimate remains at 2.45 million tonnes at an average grade of 1.42g/t gold for a total of 112,000 ounces of gold, as announced in June 2021.

St George Mining has signed two memoranda of understanding with Latin America’s biggest scientific and technological agency SENAI looking to develop critical minerals opportunities flowing from its Araxá project in Minas Gerais, Brazil. SENAI collaborates with businesses to develop innovative technologies capable of driving business growth and efficiencies and has a strong record of collaboration with the private sector to advance businesses through those technologies.

Aurumin has kicked off its latest 1600m drill program and will launch into its prospective Plum Pudding deposit where a mouth-watering 18m drill hit graded 25.8g/t gold at its Central Sandstone project about 520km northeast of Perth. The company also plans to target extensional and infill drilling at its Shillington deposit and aims to crash through the million-ounce milestone at the project shortly.

88 Energy has reinforced its position on Alaska’s North Slope after securing four new, highly promising petroleum leases adjoining the existing 10 blocks it already holds at the company’s Project Leonis grounds. Seismic data revealed the discovery of significant oil potential at the new prospect, which covers 43 square kilometres and contains a sizable target up to 102m thick.

Octava Minerals has found 14 key structural antimony targets along a 10km antimony corridor at its Yallalong project in WA’s Gascoyne region, identified via a recent surface gravity geophysical survey. The targets look similar to its Discovery prospect that was the only site drilled out of four prime areas identified in historic exploration, and which assayed up to 7m at 3.27 per cent antimony along a 300m strike.

Meeka Metals has posted a massively improved definitive feasibility study that places its Murchison gold project in WA firmly on the road to almost doubling its total free cash flow to $1 billion over the mine’s expected 10-year lifespan. It also outlined a 31% boost in reserves and a 40% rise in production to 544,000 ounces over the decade with peak annual sales reaching 76,000 ounces in year five.

Reach Resources has anointed global mining technical services firm Mining Plus to independently review the expansion potential of its Murchison South gold project in WA and to prioritise targets for a new-year drilling campaign. It follows Reach’s own review that identified substantial potential and highlighted immediate drilling opportunities at the project, with plans now made for a 12-hole RC drill program at the site.

GreenTech Metals has launched high-powered electromagnetic surveys at its flagship Whundo project in WA’s Pilbara region to uncover deep copper-zinc-rich targets ahead of a major 4000m drilling campaign that kicks off this month. The fixed loop electromagnetic survey will cover 1.14 square kilometres and examine the northern down-plunge extensions of key known mineralised zones, including Whundo, Austin, Shelby, and Yannery.

Novo Resources has picked up a new gold and base metals exploration play in WA’s Pilbara region by locking up a 1520-square-kilometre land package near Onslow that is littered with evidence of historical mining. The two-part move involves pegging six new tenements together with securing an option on a 70 per cent interest in the nearby Cane River project held by a private company.

88 Energy has pinpointed no less than 10 independent hydrocarbon leads after doing the initial interpretation of newly acquired 2D seismic data across its PEL93 exploration licence in the Owambo Basin, Namibia. The findings, conducted by exploration program operator Monitor Exploration has reconfirmed substantial closed-in structures right across the southern area of the lease, previously picked up in geophysical survey.

With the critical minerals boom in full swing Lycaon Resources is eagerly awaiting a suite of niobium assay results from a drill campaign at its Stansmore niobium-rare earths project in Western Australia’s West Arunta region. The company is looking to identify anomalous pathfinder and trace elements that will demonstrate potential for its targeted 500m diameter magnetic intrusive feature to host critical metals mineralisation.