Bulls N' Bears (Commercial Content)

Empire Energy is predicting an increase in gas flow from its Carpentaria-3H well following a five-month post-fracture stimulation shut-in and soak at its permit within the Top End's giant Beetaloo Basin. The company's planned pause was designed to allow its reservoir shales to release more gas. The same technique proved successful in a sister well that targeted the same formation within the EP187 permit.

Strickland Metals has moved quickly to make use of the $61 million it pocketed from selling its Millrose gold project, with the company set to launch an exploration blitz at its Yandal and Earaheedy operations. Management says ongoing work in the Earaheedy Basin has identified a new lookalike prospect to its Iroquois project that has been dubbed Rabbit Well.

ChemX Materials has secured a funding package worth up to $6 million from US-based investment firm Mercer Street Global Opportunity Fund. Management says the fresh funding will go towards the company's high-purity manganese play on South Australia's Eyre Peninsula and its high-purity alumina project in Perth. ChemX has also promoted Peter Lee to the role of chief executive officer.

Budding gold producer Auric Mining has delivered the first five gold doré bars from its Jeffreys Find gold project near Norseman in WA to the Perth Mint for further refining. The company has also packaged a 36,000-tonne ore parcel for delivery to the Greenfields Mill in Coolgardie for toll treatment, which is expected to be completed in the coming week.

Buru Energy says commercialisation of its Rafael gas-condensate discovery in Western Australia's Canning Basin will service the Kimberley's power needs at reduced capital expenditure through phased development. It says the development is viable for all contingent resource volumes as it moves ahead with de-risking subsurface uncertainties and firming up volumetric estimates, with an imminent 3D seismic survey to be followed by appraisal well drilling next year.

ABx Group's 83 per cent-owned subsidiary Alcore has captured a research-and-development tax offset of $522,715 from the Australian Tax Office for work undertaken last year on its world-first process to recover hydrogen fluoride. Management says it also expects to receive an additional tax offset for the R&D activities it undertook at its Deep Leads-Rubble Mound rare earths project in Tasmania.

Venture Minerals has received a handy boost to its coffers with $450,000 in research-and-development support from the ATO for the 2022 financial year. The cash bonus will help the company recoup the significant expenditure it has committed to metallurgical testwork and studies at its flagship Mount Lindsay tin-tungsten project in Tasmania and will enable ongoing exploration on other important projects.

Ora Banda Mining has unveiled a swag of new drilling results, including an 8.1m hit at 13.4 grams per tonne gold from 515m, expanding its Riverina project beyond its current resource boundaries to the south and at depth. Management says separate exploration at the company's Siberia project is also targeting below the current pit floors of the Missouri and Sand King open-pit mines.

Lindian Resources has delivered the highly-anticipated maiden mineral resource estimate for its Kangankunde rare earths project in Malawi, coming in at 261 million tonnes at a cracking grade of 2.19 per cent TREO. Including 5.7 million tonnes of contained rare earths of excellent grade, it positions the project among the world's biggest deposits and paves the way for offtake agreements and mine development.

TSX-listed Novo Resources is aiming to join the ranks of ASX mineral explorers after lodging a prospectus with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission amid plans for an initial public offering. It has secured the support of giant neighbour De Grey Mining as a cornerstone investor and potential joint venture partner in a deal worth up to $35 million at its Becher project.

Galan Lithium says its new Catalina tenement in Argentina's “Lithium Triangle” could add between 500,000 and 1.5 million tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent at between 953 and 988 milligrams per litre lithium to its Hombre Muerto West resource. Management says a well-drilled 500m to the south of Catalina hit lithium grades in the target range and believes it may extend into its exclusively-owned ground.

An independent technical review of Gold Mountain's Wabag project in Papua New Guinea has highlighted its potential for more copper exploration and recommended extra work across several prospective zones. Management says the comprehensive report's author, Dr Steve Garwin, has already identified a series of targets using the company's database for its Wabag tenements.

American West Metals' stock touched an all-time high of 31 cents during today's intraday trading, up from last night's close of 20c after making a fresh copper discovery at its Storm project in Canada – including 45.5m of visual sulphides in one hole. It says the discovery exhibits similarities to many of the world's major sediment-hosted copper systems.

Octava Minerals has launched a new soil-sampling program to follow up three priority targets defined by a recent hyperspectral survey within its Talga project near Marble Bar in Western Australia's Pilbara region. The campaign has a particular focus on lithium, although the gold and base metals potential in the wider tenement area is also of interest to the company.

Emerging sustainable battery materials producer Neometals says it has completed an engineering cost study for the hydrometallurgical refinery section of its Primobius lithium-ion battery recycling facility. The company says the study delivers greater transparency on the project's commercial economics. Primobius is a joint venture between Neometals and SMS group, which has installed plants in nearly every country in the world.

Venture Minerals' maiden drilling probe at its recently-acquired Greater Brothers project in WA's Mid West region has landed a swag of high-grade rare earths that included an impressive 45m averaging 1455ppm TREO. The reconnaissance program has tested just a fifth of its 1165-square=kilometre tenure, with plenty of blue sky to scale up the mineralised horizon over the remainder of the company's prospective patch.

After a successful $4 million capital raise, Reach Resources is set to test its Morrissey Hill lithium project with a maiden drilling program to target areas that returned high-grade lithium from rock chips. Management says its 4500m campaign will be split between reverse-circulation and diamond drilling at its project in Western Australia's emerging Gascoyne region.

Quantum Graphite has acquired the complete set of flake graphite purification technology from The Sunlands Energy Company, providing what it says is a commercialisation path for products from its Uley flake graphite mineral deposits in South Australia, to advanced industrial manufacturers in North Asia and Europe. The company plans to deliver superior natural flake products across all applications.

Perth-based 88 Energy has bolstered its 100 per cent-owned Peregrine oil project in Alaska, adding two new reservoir intervals to its Harrier prospect, with 180.1 million barrels of oil as a best-case estimate. Basin modelling has also revealed that Harrier sits in an area of good reservoir quality and will be tested by the drillbit as a priority.

Legend Mining believes it is getting closer to unearthing a “Nova-style” nickel-copper deposit after finding encouraging signs in its latest diamond drillhole at its Octagonal prospect within Western Australia's rugged Fraser Range. Management says it identified visual sulphides at regular intervals between 848m and 1661m in the hole which ran to a depth of 1700m.

Higher zircon grades and increasing demand for heavy mineral concentrate (HMC) has had Image Resources ringing its till, with a bottom-line boost of nearly $12.5 million revealed in its quarterly report today. The company also increased HMC production quarter on quarter by six per cent at its Boonanarring minerals sands project near the Western Australian town of Gingin.

Infinity Lithium subsidiary Extremadura New Energies has entered into a joint venture with Spanish energy firm Enalter to potentially deliver low-cost green energy to its San José lithium project in Spain. The creation of the “Extremadura Energy H2 Hub (EEHH)” allows a first right to secure a long-term green energy power purchase agreement for the San Jose project.

Lindian Resources has hailed its Kangankunde rare earths project in Malawi as “one of the greatest in the world” after recording a massive 853.6m hit at 2.73 per cent TREO from 52m. Two deep diamond drillholes were sunk to 980m and one returned 156m at 3.61 per cent TREO from 124m and a 56m hit grading 3.83 per cent TREO from 289.1m.

Galan Lithium has revealed details of a deal which it says has given it exclusive ownership of the vast Catalina tenements at its Hombre Muerto West lithium project within South America's “Lithium Triangle”. Management says it has secured ownership of the Argentinian ground that has been at the centre of a long-standing dispute by issuing 9.76 million shares to the private owner.

Everest Metals Corporation has kicked off a second phase of drilling at its Mt Edon project in Western Australia's Mid West region as it looks to follow up on positive lithium and rubidium results from its previous campaign. The company plans to sink up to 10 reverse-circulation drillholes to test pegmatite targets highlighted from a deep ground penetration radar geophysical survey carried out in April.

Triangle Energy will ramp up its oil and gas chase after receiving $15 million from Pilot Energy for the sale of its share in the Cliff Head oilfield and carbon reinjection joint venture in waters off the Dongara coastline in Western Australia's Mid West. The consideration will be paid in three stages and is expected to be completed early next year.

Surefire Resources is a step closer to developing its Victory Bore vanadium play in Western Australia into a significant critical minerals project, with the positive completion of a hydrogeological assessment. The company is planning an open-pit mine development with a proposed 4 million tonnes per annum mine rate, in addition to onsite beneficiation and processing.

Cancer fighter Chimeric Therapeutics has expanded its patent protection in Japan for certain cell therapy clinical and preclinical stage applications using chlorotoxin, which is derived from deathstalker scorpion venom. Management says the patents will expand the company's intellectual property portfolio and underpin important assets in its development pipeline. Japan has recently been dubbed the world's third-biggest pharmaceutical market.

Lindian Resources is one step closer to owning its Kangankunde rare earths project in Malawi after completing the third of four tranche payments needed to acquire the site's current owner, Rift Valley Resources Developments. With the latest $US10 million transaction, a total of US$20 million has been paid to Rift Valley, with the final tranche payment of $US10 million still to come.

Javelin Minerals believes new assays from two of its projects in central New South Wales indicate the company is drilling the same ultramafic rock that mining giant Rio Tinto valued at $21 million, just 4km away. Management considers its Husky and Malamute projects to have excellent prospectivity for scandium and rare earths, in addition to precious, base and battery metals.

Terrain Minerals believes its latest drilling campaign has revealed hallmarks of the typical gold-bearing systems in Western Australia's Mid West region that is home to its Smokebush gold and pegmatite project. Six holes from a second round of reverse-circulation (RC) drilling confirmed sulphides relating to IP anomalies, while another five intercepted pegmatites and samples will be analysed for lithium.

Godolphin Resources has applied for a huge 112-square-kilometre package of prospective rare earths ground next to its 94.9-million-tonne Narraburra project going 739 parts per million total rare earth oxides in New South Wales. The company believes its world-class mineralisation may extend into its new ground, which it plans to actively explore once the application is approved by the NSW Government.