Bulls N' Bears (Commercial Content)

TSX-listed Novo Resources has secured the support of giant neighbour De Grey Mining as a cornerstone investor and potential joint venture (JV) partner in a deal worth up to $35 million at the Becher gold project in WA’s Pilbara region. De Grey could earn a 50 per cent interest in the project and adjacent tenements as part of the deal.

Estrella Resources’ share price doubled this morning on the back of the company revealing an impending world-first helicopter-borne electromagnetic survey (TargetEM) at its Carr Boyd nickel-copper-PGE project in Western Australia. Given the significant technology and sensitivity upgrades of its new system, Estrella is intensifying its hunt for drill targets that previously evaded detection while using the older technology.

ABx Group has hit some “major milestones” through its 83 per cent-owned subsidiary Alcore by finalising the preliminary engineering design phase for its pilot facility and ordering a laboratory reactor. The alumina technologist and rare earths explorer is developing a pilot plant in NSW to recover fluorine from an aluminium smelter waste product to produce hydrogen fluoride.

Terrain Minerals has added a Queensland operation to its raft of WA projects after lodging tenement applications for about 2500 square kilometres of highly-prospective ground near the Cracow gold mine. It says its extensive “Biloela” package includes at least two known historic copper mines, in addition to copper and gold targets first identified by mining giants Rio Tinto, Gold Fields and Newcrest Mining.

Askari Metals has expanded its lithium foothold in Western Australia’s Pilbara region by finalising its purchase of Greenstone Lithium’s 60-square-kilometre Hillside lithium project after fully acquiring the now former owner. Management says the acquisition takes the company’s total landholding in the promising region to 2300sq km. The Hillside project covers two granted tenements considered prospective for lithium, tin and tantalum mineralisation.

ASX-listed Aurumin has kicked off a diamond drill program at its Mt Palmer project in Western Australia’s Goldfields region, where it will target lithium-bearing pegmatites with a focus on its Vickers Find South prospect. The target hosts confirmed pegmatites within a mafic-ultramafic sequence in a geological setting similar to that at the Mt Holland lithium deposit, which is about 65km to the south.

Brightstar Resources is primed to join the ranks of Western Australian gold producers, with mining set to begin in August at its Selkirk open-pit gold mine that holds 30,000 tonnes of ore going more than 6 grams per tonne gold. Brightstar picked up the operation that forms part of the Menzies gold project after completing its successful merger with Kingwest Resources last month.

ESG software provider K2fly will continue to supply mining behemoth BHP with its “ground disturbance” solution for another three years after the “Big Australian” agreed to a contract extension. Management says the new deal will generate annual recurring revenue of $664,000 and has a total contract value of $1.99 million. The deal will cover the global miner’s iron ore operations in Western Australia’s Pilbara region.

DiscovEx Resources can tick heritage surveys off its to-do list ahead of planned drilling at the Contact prospect within its Sylvania project in Western Australia’s Pilbara region. Drilling at the 2.5km-long target area is due to begin in August, in addition to geophysics targeting copper-gold and lead-zinc mineralisation at the project’s Prairie Downs fault zone.

Once primarily used in steel-making to boost strength and add corrosion and heat resistance, niobium is now turning heads with its ability to cut charging times and fire risks for lithium-ion batteries. Accordingly, companies finding the metal are watching their stock take flight ahead of the next boom as sales for electric vehicles step up another notch.

Terrain Minerals has successfully wrapped up the first phase of drilling at its Smokebush project in Western Australia’s Mid West region, with 10 of the 11 holes drilled intersecting multiple zones of pegmatites. The reverse-circulation program prioritised seven of the 11 pegmatites identified, ranging from about 10m to 15m in width and 200m in length, before shifting undercover in about a 4km area.

Infinity Mining has highlighted rare earths at its Victor Bore project, with two samples from a recent reverse-circulation campaign returning results of more than 1000 parts per million TREO. Of 24 samples from a drill campaign in WA’s Central Goldfields, one returned a 1m hit at 1018ppm TREO from 20m, while a second recorded another 1m intercept at a solid 1582ppm TREO from 53m.

Toro Energy has confirmed massive nickel sulphide hits at the Dimma discovery that forms part of its greater Dusty nickel project after the return of assays previously identified by X-ray fluorescence analysis. One diamond drillhole intersected 4.31m of massive nickel sulphides at 1.16 per cent nickel and 0.29 per cent copper, in addition to 0.386 grams per tonne platinum and palladium from 243.33m.

BMG Resources has expanded its portfolio of Western Australian gold and lithium projects, acquiring the Bullabulling project in the Eastern Goldfields' emerging Coolgardie lithium and gold region. The company exercised its option on the project after initial reverse-circulation drilling confirmed strong prospectivity for lithium and gold. Plans for follow-up drilling is underway and more assays are due in the coming weeks.

After a merger deal with Kingwest Resources last month, Brightstar Resources has wasted no time in getting drill rigs to its Menzies gold project in Western Australia to shore up its understanding of the deposit’s proven high-grade gold intercepts. The successful merger has fast-tracked Brightstar’s move towards becoming WA’s next gold producer as it builds its resource growth.

Mining software provider K2fly will supply Eramet SA with its resource disclosure solution after the French-owned miner signed a three-year deal worth $564,000 to cover its five operations and four commodities. Management says the partnership will provide an annual recurring revenue of $152,000 and it is hopeful the key relationship will lead to future opportunities in a growing prospective region.

Alma Metals has unveiled wide zones of copper-molybdenum sulphides mineralisation after its latest round of drilling targeted areas outside the current resource at its Briggs copper project in Central Queensland. Management says a significant resource upgrade is now on the cards as the latest results extended its known mineralisation area by 190m to the north-west and 100m to the north-east.

Meeka Metals has tabled an independent maiden resource of 98 million tonnes grading 890 parts per million total rare earths oxide for 21,560 tonnes of neodymium-praseodymium metal at its Circle Valley project in Esperance. The new resource, based on 12,401m of large-diameter air-core drilling, is contained within an optimised pit shell and above a 430ppm TREO minus cerium oxide cutoff.

Kairos Minerals continues to generate highly-promising lithium targets at its 100 per cent-owned Roe Hills project in Western Australia’s Eastern Goldfields region. The company’s optimism has been boosted ahead of a planned initial 5000m of reverse-circulation drilling across its growing pipeline of targets in the rapidly-emerging lithium province that hosts Global Lithium Resources’ renowned 32.7-million-tonne Manna lithium project.

Globe Metals & Mining’s plans for its Kanyika niobium project have received a vital boost with the Malawian Government backing its anticipated roll-out for substantial mine development and production. Management says representatives from the Malawian Government also recently visited the mine site and believes their support greatly enhances Globe’s efforts to increase the security of tenure for its mining licences.

Horizon Minerals has secured a second tranche of funding of US$3 million (AU$4.36 million) to continue the development of its Cannon underground gold project in Western Australia’s Goldfields region. Management says it has also received the government approvals needed to kick off underground development, including an approved mining proposal and mine closure plan from the Department of Mining, Industry Regulation and Safety.

Emu NL has added a fourth rare earths discovery to its growing portfolio after rock-chip samples at its Merredin project complemented historic assay results of up to 1405 parts per million total rare earths oxide. The results backed up a review of the Geological Survey of Western Australia’s public hard-rock geochemical data that showed several assays with elevated rare earths values.

European-focused Altech Batteries has unveiled its preliminary specifications for two products aimed at the burgeoning grid power storage battery market, in a move it predicts will kickstart discussions with potential buyers. The storage batteries, which the Subiaco-based company says outperforms lithium-ion batteries on many levels, will be built in Germany in a joint venture with its partner, Fraunhofer IKTS.

Minerals explorer Si6 Metals will dive into some due diligence after entering into a joint venture and agreeing to acquire a 50 per cent interest in a portfolio of Brazilian lithium and rare earths projects. Management says the deal with Foxfire Metals is subject to a 30-day due diligence period and covers five tenements and five applications across four different project areas in Brazil.

Lindian Resources says it has made significant progress on the optimum design for its processing plant at the company’s Kangankunde rare earths project in Malawi, while the mine design and planning are being scoped. The stage-one plant is based on processing an initial throughput of 220,000 tonnes of material per annum to produce a monazite concentrate before expanding to 440,000 tonnes a year.

The Youanmi gold project near Mt Magnet in Western Australia’s Murchison region has coughed up more high-grade results to bolster the confidence of Venus Metals and its joint venture (JV) partner Rox Resources in upgrading the project’s mineral resource estimate. New highlights include 6.38m going 4.45 grams per tonne gold from 381.84m, including 2.56m at 8.26g/t gold from 381.84m.

ASX-listed Aurumin has kicked off the first of two phases of development works for its Mt Dimer gold project, where it is planning shallow open pits at its high-grade Lightning and Golden Slipper deposits. Mt Dimer sits about 120km north-east of Southern Cross, at a site where historical high-grade production delivered more than 125,000 gold ounces, including production of 600,000 tonnes at 6.4g/t gold.

PolarX has pumped up the mineral resource estimate at its Caribou Dome project in Alaska by 160 per cent to 7.2 million tonnes going 3.1 per cent copper and 6.5 grams per tonne silver after a successful drilling campaign. Management says the contained metal at the project now sits at 224,375 tonnes of copper and 1.5 million ounces of silver.

Reverse-circulation (RC) drilling at Everest Metals’ Mt Edon lithium-caesium-tantalum (LCT) project in Western Australia’s Mid-West region has intersected multiple pegmatites from surface to 111 metres deep within a 1.2km corridor. While the RC assays are imminent, surface rock-chip sampling has confirmed high-grade rubidium of up to 3.1 per cent and lithium up to 4.6 per cent.

American West Metals believes it is closing in on a massive underground copper deposit within the tenement boundaries of its Canadian-based Storm copper project. Detected with a ground gravity survey, management says its new evidence adds to already-known exposed copper at surface on-site at Storm and complements recent drill intercepts that found thick copper intersections at depth.

Auric Mining is a step closer to a maiden gold pour from its Jeffreys Find project near Norseman, with the first 30,000 tonnes of gold ore set for processing once transported to Greenfields Mill in Coolgardie. The company says mining at the site has been ongoing for four weeks and it has triple road trains secured to haul the first ore to Coolgardie.

Novo Resources continues to intercept significant gold mineralisation as it seeks to unearth the Pilbara’s next major gold deposit. Having identified multiple new targets at its Becher project, including a big priority area of mineralisation, Novo is extending its immediate drilling program. It says the project’s geological characteristics stack up against the mineralisation at De Grey Mining’s adjacent 10.6-million-ounce Mallina gold project.