Bulls N' Bears (Commercial Content)

ABx Group is edging towards a commercial-grade rare earths project after unveiling a new record intercept of 11m going an impressive 1700 parts per million total rare earths oxide (TREO) from just 2m at its Deep Leads-Rubble Mound project in Tasmania. Management says the intersection also contains 1m going 4444ppm from 7m and 1m grading 3629ppm from 8m.

An impending and material cut to the Northern Territory gas supply is exacerbating the looming East Coast gas crisis. Production at Eni’s Blacktip gas field, offshore in northern Australia, has fallen faster than expected and has raised fears about energy security both within the NT and further afield. But the Beetaloo Basin could emerge as a major source of new supply.

Surefire Resources is positioning closer to having an impact in the world’s burgeoning battery market after stamping a maiden aluminium oxide resource at its Victory Bore project in Western Australia’s Mid West region. The resource – estimated to contain up to 38 million tonnes of aluminium-hosted ore at a grade of 23.3 per cent – will underpin a prefeasibility study for the company’s critical minerals project.

KalGold has forged a successful maiden drill run at the company’s Kirgella Gift prospect – part of its bigger Pinjin project, 140km north-east of Kalgoorlie – intersecting thick zones of gold mineralisation. With no shortage of other gold miners nearby in the prolific Laverton tectonic zone, KalGold’s Pinjin is poised to turn heads in the market as an emerging exploration play.

Xanadu Mines expects to deliver an updated JORC resource for its Kharmagtai copper-gold project in Mongolia before the end of the year, following the discovery of new high-grade zones during infill drilling. The company has completed about half of its massive 30,000m diamond drill campaign as it targets resource extensions at its Stockwork Hill and White Hill deposits.

Classic Minerals’ Kat Gap gold mine is set for first production this month after the successful installation of its 2MW power plant at the site in Western Australia’s Goldfields region. The company can now rev up its “Gekko” processing plant and is perfectly poised to become WA’s next gold producer, with more than 700,000 ounces of gold sitting in its resource estimates.

Infinity Mining has expanded its foothold in WA’s East Pilbara by nearly 100 square kilometres after acquiring three new tenements to bring its total holding in the region to more than 780sq km. The sites were bought from TasEx Geological Services and include ground considered prospective for volcanic-hosted massive sulphides and shear-hosted gold deposits right next door to Infinity’s Tambourah South lithium project.

A change in strategy appears to be close to paying dividends for Alma Metals after it read the global energy tea leaves and shifted from African coal to instead zero in on a big Queensland copper find. The $13.25 million market-capped company is bearing down on a shallow porphyry deposit at its Briggs copper project, 50km west of Gladstone in Central Queensland.

Surefire Resources is eyeing a November delivery of the prefeasibility study for its Victory Bore vanadium play, clearing the way for the next step in commercialising the project’s massive deposit in Western Australia’s Mid West region. Surefire is also making preliminary plans for further drilling to enable its measured resources to be converted into a JORC-compliant reserve.

Terrain Minerals has unleashed the drill rigs at its Smokebush project in WA’s Mid West region as it tests for lithium in pegmatites at the operation with an 11-hole reverse-circulation campaign over 900m. The company has prioritised seven of the 11 pegmatites identified, which range from about 10m to 15m in width and 200m in length, before shifting undercover in about a 4km area.

Everest Metals is on a mission to add copper to its Revere gold project near Meekatharra, with a diamond drill campaign kicking off just 50km south-east of Sandfire Resources’ DeGrussa copper-gold project. The 1000m program has been designed to test for volcanic-hosted massive sulphides that have been modelled to occur at depth and will include three deep diamond holes sunk to about 350m.

The hits keep coming for American West Metals, with the latest results from drilling at its Storm copper project in Canada showing assays including a 1.5m section at a whopping 7.1 per cent copper from 82.3m. The impressive hit was contained within a 9.1m intercept grading 2.5 per cent copper from 79.3m that was pulled from a wider 67.1m section reading 1.1 per cent copper from just 54.9m.

Reproductive biotechnology company Memphasys has received a boost for its flagship Felix system, with the first global study of its kind rating the novel technology as “best available” for recovering high-quality sperm for IVF following the sperm’s cryopreservation. The study found that from the three sperm-semen separation systems examined, only Felix exhibited significantly lower levels of DNA damage.

Legend Mining is midway through a diamond drilling program targeting two significant nickel-copper sulphide targets at its Octagonal prospect in Western Australia’s Fraser Range – home to IGO’s mammoth Nova-Bollinger nickel-copper-cobalt mine. Legend is bouncing off a slight delay in drilling operations at its first hole, running a downhole electromagnetic survey to pinpoint additional targets, while the rig lines up on the second hole.

Infinity Lithium remains on track to submit the required applications for development of its San José lithium project in Spain – a proposed integrated lithium mining and lithium chemicals processing plant for electric vehicle batteries and the European Union’s second-biggest JORC lithium resource. Regional election results have increased the company’s prospects for getting the project off the ground.

Budding critical materials producer ChemX Materials is set to kick off construction of its high-purity alumina (HPA) pilot plant in Perth’s southern suburbs in Western Australia. Tweaks to the process flow and plant design have slashed infrastructure costs from $2.5 million down to $600,000 for a refined plant capacity of 24 tonnes per annum of HPA destined for the lithium-ion battery market.

Cell therapy cancer-fighter Chimeric Therapeutics is wasting no time on its mission to commercialise its novel potential treatment for glioblastoma. The ASX-listed company was given approval in April for a phase-1B clinical trial of the treatment, which employs the venom of the deathstalker scorpion. The first of multiple sites to enrol patients in the trial has now been revealed in the United States.

Askari Metals has hit several 100m-wide pegmatites with multiple zones of lithium-bearing minerals in phase-two reverse-circulation (RC) drilling at its Uis lithium project in Namibia. While assay results are pending, the company isn’t slowing its exploration efforts, with its next round of drilling – including the project’s first diamond drill holes – slated to begin in just weeks.

Brightstar Resources has kicked off a scoping study on the combined assets at its Menzies and Laverton gold projects in Western Australia’s Eastern Goldfields, with mining set to begin at the former as soon as next quarter. The company is moving towards becoming WA’s next gold producer after completing its successful merger with Kingwest Resources last month.

Surefire Resources is tallying up the hits from its latest drilling probe at its promising Yidby project in Western Australia’s Murchison goldfields. Early composite assay results returned 4m averaging 5.5g/t gold from 118m, housing a 1m intercept tipping the scales at an impressive 20.81g/t. The gold mineralised envelope has been etched out over a whopping 3km strike length … with no end in sight.

ASX-listed Reach Resources has recorded impressive results from surface samples at its Wabli Creek project in Western Australia’s Gascoyne region, including 14.3 per cent niobium oxide and 6.7 per cent tantalum oxide. The company says the type of mineralisation at the site is rare and presents a unique exploration opportunity. It’s share price doubled on the back of the news.

Galan Lithium is adding the final touches to an optimised two-phase definitive feasibility study at its one of its two lithium brines projects in Argentina. The company is also considering its third and fourth phases that will ramp up production to as much as 60 kilotonnes per annum of lithium chloride concentrate equivalent in the South American region known as the “Lithium Triangle”.

Askari Metals is continuing to accelerate its lithium exploration efforts in Namibia with the appointment of seasoned African specialist, Cliff Fitzhenry to the new role of Chief Exploration and Project Manager (Africa). A veteran geologist, Mr Fitzhenry will lead in-country exploration with a diamond drill program due to commence shortly at the company’s flagship Uis project which has revealed multiple lithium bearing pegmatites more than 100m wide.

ASX-listed Neometals’ joint venture (JV) with Primobius is a step closer to bridging the lithium-ion battery circular economy. Improvements to the partnership’s refining process in its patent-pending battery recycling technology have increased metal recoveries to more than 95 per cent of nickel, cobalt and copper – far exceeding the recovery requirements in the European Union’s pending battery regulations.

Infinity Mining will ramp up drilling at the most prospective targets across five of its projects in Western Australia’s Central Goldfields after results from a recent 37-hole reverse-circulation (RC) program returned grades of up to 21.86 grams per tonne of gold. The company is now planning its follow-up drilling campaign for late this year or early next year.

Horizon Minerals is charging towards a resource estimate upgrade after completing an eight-hole drill program at its Penny’s Find gold mine, 50km north-east of Kalgoorlie. Results show its high-grade lode is open at depth, with intercepts including 3.2m at 4.19g/t gold from 318.3m, 1m grading 7.49g/t from 363.9m and 0.78m going 12.85g/t gold from 331.48m. Underground mining is planned.

Geochemical sampling has confirmed massive nickel-sulphides at ASX-listed Toro Energy’s Jumping Jack discovery, which is part of its wholly-owned Dusty nickel project in Western Australia’s northern Goldfields. Toro’s 10,000m drilling program has continued this year at Dusty, which now boasts four massive nickel-sulphides discoveries and sits just 50km east of BHP’s world-class Mt Keith open-pit nickel operation.

Latest assay results from St George Mining’s lithium hunt at its Mt Alexander project in Western Australia have returned intersections going as high as 1.77 per cent as the company chases a bigger fractionated pegmatite system. Management says its headline hit was 1m going 1.77 per cent lithium from 96m, while another 2m intersection graded 1.49 percent from 109m.

WA-based mineral explorer Lindian Resources has released the highest assay grades to date from its Kangankunde rare earths project in Malawi, with headline figures including 293.4m at 3.66 per cent TREO from 4m to end of hole. The company says the “spectacular” results mean Kangankunde is emerging “as one of the world’s greatest rare earths assets”.

A positive meeting with the United States Food and Drug Administration has boosted Radiopharm Theranostics' approval prospects for an investigational new drug clinical trial for its brain cancer treatment. The company’s F18-Pivalate is a novel radiotracer that combines a molecule and a radioisotope for the detection, characterisation and monitoring of brain metastases and glioblastoma – an aggressive form of brain cancer.

Aruma Resources is hunting for unconformity-related rare earths at its Saltwater project in WA’s emerging Pilbara province. Fieldwork will consist of detailed mapping and extensive surface sampling through an 80km prospective strike, with work to start at a 15km-long priority radiometric target. Previous results of up to 11 per cent rare earths at the project will give Aruma confidence it could have the real deal.

Empire Energy Group says it has a “nationally significant resource” on its hands after an independent review of its EP187 site boosted its estimated 2C contingent resource by 270 per cent to 1739 petajoules (PJ). It says the analysis increases its conservative 1C contingent resource by 217 per cent to 304 PJ and the best-case 3C contingent resource by 129 per cent to 3507 PJ.