Bulls N' Bears (Commercial Content)

White Cliff Minerals has dished up more promising rock-chip samples from a maiden program at its Great Bear Lake project in Canada, including hits of up to 42 per cent copper, 17.4g/t gold and 716g/t silver. Management believes the discovery of consistent high-grade copper, gold and silver occurrences across a relatively small portion of the project underscores the district's significance.

Hot on the heels of kicking off the oil well pad construction at the Rafael Shallow 1 project in Western Australia's Canning Basin earlier this week, Buru Energy has named David Maxwell as the company's new chairman. Maxwell will replace retiring chairman and founding shareholder Eric Streitberg, who is regarded as an industry stalwart after compiling a 50-year career.

Novo Resources has opened the gates to further exploration activities at its priority Bamboo and Miralga projects in Western Australia's East Pilbara region after securing a key Aboriginal heritage agreement. The agreement with traditional landowners will facilitate the company's exploration activities across some 1500 square kilometres of its East Pilbara titles and will include non-ground-disturbing surface work such as mapping and geochemistry.

This week's Bulls N' Bears Runner of the Week is … LiveHire. Its share price jumped 95.83 per cent on news of it entering a bid implementation agreement for an all-cash takeover offer priced at 4.5 cents per share – an impressive 75.8 per cent premium to its 30-day volume-weighted average price (VWAP). Other movers and shakers this week were Artemis Resources, LTR Pharma and Noxopharm.

Allup Silica has beefed up the leadership team tasked with producing a prefeasibility study on its mineral sands project in Western Australia's Eucla Basin by installing Simon Finnis as its new managing director. The company has also added experienced mineral sands operator Peter Secker as a non-executive director as it ramps up its plans to develop the McLaren valuable heavy mineral sands project.

Kalgoorlie Gold Mining is all cashed up and raring to rip into a new air-core drilling program to follow up shallow gold targets identified in its first probing of the Wessex deposit within its Pinjin project in WA. The program will entail 4500m of AC drilling in KalGold's bid to further assess results from Wessex just three months ago that included 28m at 1.27g/t gold.

Infinity Mining is stretching its wings into multiple new gold, copper and other base metal projects in NSW, Victoria and Tasmania, with ground acquisitions from two vendors covering more than 2000 square kilometres. The projects are well-situated near other mining operations and come with extensive datasets and existing workings that will assist the company to quickly gain a rapid foothold on exploration and development.

American West Metals has paved the way for a resource upgrade and extension for its Cyclone deposit in Canada, with notable new drill hits including 19.8m at 1.2 per cent copper and 3g/t silver from just 12.2m. That intercept includes 4.6m going 3 per cent copper and 7g/t silver from 21.3m and a 3m slice running 3.2 per cent copper and 8.5g/t silver from 59.4m.

Australia's Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) has given its approval for a powerful Japanese consortium consisting of Sumitomo Metal Mining and Mitsubishi Corporation to join forces with Ardea Resources for the development of the Goongarrie Hub operation within the latter's giant Kalgoorlie Nickel Project (KNP) in Western Australia's Goldfields region. A joint venture (JV) agreement was signed by the three parties in April this year.

Estrella Resources has applied for four additional exploration and evaluation licenses, identified as containing rich outcropping manganese, in Timor-Leste's Baucau municipality. The new coastal licenses, which are 8km west of the company's existing grounds, cover an area of 194.4 square kilometres. If granted, the additional prospects would bring Estrella's total landholding in the country to nearly 700 square kilometres.

Latitude 66 has found evidence of high-grade gold hits after digging through historical data from its K8 target in northern Finland and says the findings support the company's previous strong assay results and is further evidenced through recent geophysical work at the site. The data was previously compiled from drilling campaigns run by the Geological Survey of Finland (GTK) and former project owner Belvedere Resources.

Buru Energy and Sabre Energy have kicked off oil well pad construction at their Rafael Shallow 1 joint venture in Western Australia's Canning Basin. The launch of the civil works for the project, which will be completed ahead of well spudding in late September, follows the receipt of heritage and environmental approvals and Sabre's recent $6 million commitment to drilling and testing costs.

GreenTech Metals' recent downhole electromagnetic survey at its Whundo project in WA's Pilbara region has identified a big conductor plate measuring 400m long and between 50m and 100m wide at its Shelby target. It comes after Fox Resources' geophysical work in 2006 picked up a deep conductor associated with a weak magnetic response at Shelby, about 500m north of the old Whundo open pit.

Terrain Minerals' geophysics have identified five conductors at its Lort River project near Esperance in Western Australia that show the potential for sulphide mineralisation analogous to IGO's renowned Nova-Bollinger deposits in the same mineral belt. Two of the conductors lie on the western periphery of a prominent “eye-shaped” aeromagnetic imagery feature that may also signify a mineralised mafic intrusive.

A first batch of rock chip samples revealing an eye-watering 42.6 per cent copper and an impressive 38.2 grams per tonne gold at White Cliff Minerals' newly-named Phoenix district, within its Great Bear Lake project in northern Canada, has management convinced it could be on the precipice of not one, but two major, high-grade copper discoveries in the near-term.

American West Metals' recent metallurgical testwork on copper-mineralised sample material from its Cyclone and Chinook deposits at its Storm project in Canada has successfully generated what it says is commercial-grade direct shipping ore. The testwork employed a two-circuit ore-sorting and inline pressure jig stream, which was shown to produce a range of direct shipping copper concentrate grades with good yields.

Buxton Resources has wheeled in a reverse-circulation drill rig at its Graphite Bull play in Western Australia's Gascoyne region, eager to unveil the full extent of thick graphitic mineralisation intersected from a recent diamond program. The company says it has squared away several strategic deals, with its drilling and earthworks contractors to partly fund the 5500m program.

With Galan Lithium's phase one pond inventories now sitting at 3200 tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) – up 15 per cent from last month – and its fourth and fifth ponds nearing completion, the company has continued to make strong inroads at its Hombre Muerto West lithium brine project in the Catamarca region of Argentina as it continues to push forward with finance and offtake agreements.

In this week's edition of Bulls N' Bears Big Hits, we examine some of the notable drill intersections revealed on the ASX, including Wildcat Resources' Tabba Tabba run of 67m at 1.9 per cent lithium oxide. We also look at other interesting intercepts as reported by Rumble Resources from its Western Queen project in WA and Strickland Metals at its Rogozna project in Serbia.

Meeka Metals has filled its pockets to the tune of nearly $360,000, after it was awarded a research-and-development Federal Government rebate for rare earths works undertaken at its Circle Valley project near Esperance in Western Australia. The company qualified for the rebate through its metallurgical studies, experimental set-up and leaching of clay-hosted rare earths from the Circle Valley operation.

Image Resources has confirmed it has received the final approvals it needs to kick off the long-awaited onsite construction of its Atlas heavy mineral sands project in Western Australia's Perth Basin. The company says it has now secured the vital go-ahead from the Federal Government after it satisfied proposed conditions relating to the Atlas development under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.

This week's Bulls N' Bears Runner of the Week is … Terragen, a company aiming to fatten up global livestock while simultaneously reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Its stock jumped more 115 per cent on the back of sheep feed improvements. Other companies that saw their respective share prices run hard included HighCom, East 33 and Heavy Minerals.

In tough recent times for many junior mining companies on the ASX, luring a financially-powerful “big dog” onto the share register to provide some much-needed muscle has become a common boardroom pursuit. Bulls N' Bears takes look at some of those companies which have received both a timely cash injection and a share price boost up to recent highs.

Aruma Resources has acquired three new projects featuring copper and uranium in South Australia and Queensland, adding to the company's three-project rare earths and lithium portfolio in Western Australia. The new projects include the Wilan iron oxide-copper-gold-uranium project on SA's Olympic Dam doorstep and the Queensland-based Fiery Creek copper play and Bortala copper operation that both sit within the State's Mt Isa region.

Aurum Resources has launched a scoping study to assess the development potential of its Boundiali gold project in Côte d'Ivoire after locking in metallurgical experts in a push to deliver a resource estimate by year's end. After a recent raft of high-grade hits and strong metallurgical test results, the appointments also signal the next step in pushing the project quickly towards a prefeasibility study.

ABx Group says it has uncovered the potential for resource extension at its Deep Leads rare earths prospect in Tasmania after receiving the first 316 assays from its 37-hole maiden air-core drilling sortie. The company's latest assay suite not only revealed thicker rare earths intercepts than usual, but also a high 4.3 per cent proportion of the high-value dysprosium and terbium elements.

Horizon Minerals is wasting no time getting the diggers to work at its Phillips Find gold project near Coolgardie in WA following a recent merger with Greenstone Resources. A joint venture agreement has been finalised with BML Ventures to mine 200,000 of ore, which will be toll treated at the nearby Greenfields Mill during the next 11 months to produce almost 15,000 ounces of gold.

Reach Resources says geophysics, geochemistry and rock microscopy have confirmed a 4.5-square-kilometre oval body as an alkaline intrusive and the likely source of big rare earths-niobium hits at its Wabli Creek project in Western Australia's Gascoyne region. Wabli Creek is one of two exploration licences held by Reach in the highly-prospective Yinnetharra area that is well-known for its often unusual, but critical mineral assemblages.

St George Mining has swooped on the niobium-rich Araxá rare earths project in the Brazilian State of Minas Gerais, picking it up for US$21 million (AU$33 million) from Toronto-listed fertiliser specialist, Itafos. Sitting 5km south of the town of Araxá and 1000km north-west of Rio de Janeiro, the project boundary adjoins the high-grade CBMM mine that produces 80 per cent of the world's niobium.

Buru Energy has locked in a local drilling company to drill two oil wells in Western Australia's onshore Canning Basin that form the centrepiece of the company's farm-in joint venture with Sabre Energy. The campaign is set to test the promising Rafael Shallow and Mars exploration wells and binding drill rig hire agreements are to be executed shortly to enable drilling to kick off in September-October.

Radiopharm Theranostics has banked US$2 million from American medical giant Lantheus for the sale of two preclinical antibody assets that target and help to diagnose aggressive cancers. Lantheus is also set to tip in a further US$5 million via a placement at 5c a share – a 42 per cent premium to today's price – with an option for another US$5 million investment within six months.

Sabre Energy has agreed to stump up $6 million in drilling and testing costs at Buru Energy's Rafael Shallow oil well in Western Australia's onshore Canning Basin to earn 50 per cent of any commercial discovery and production. If the drilling leads to a commercial discovery, Sabre will also compensate Buru for its prior Rafael exploration expenses with a further payment of $1.5 million.