Bulls N' Bears (Commercial Content)

Strickland Metals is targeting the near-surface mineralisation at its Gradina prospect in Serbia in a bid to expand the company’s existing 5.4 million-ounce gold equivalent Rogozna project and drive its gold and base metal resource to next-level status. A new diamond-drilling program for 10,000m has been launched at the site that sits in the landlocked Balkan nation.

Latitude 66 has wrapped up what could prove to be a pivotal 18-hole, 2197m diamond drilling program at the K South target within its Kuusamo Schist Belt (KSB) play in Finland, in a bid to lift the project’s gold resource. The company says all samples from the program have now been submitted to MSALABS in Canada, with assay results expected in early November.

Altech Batteries has clocked up a key milestone with the successful launch of its first 60kWh “Cerenergy” sodium-chloride battery prototype in Germany. The company says the battery unit, which has been installed at the Fraunhofer IKTS lab in Dresden, has passed all physical tests with “flying colours” and has smashed through forecast performance and efficiency expectations in the rigorous daily assessments.

In this week’s edition of Bulls N’ Bears Big Hits, we examine notable drill intercepts revealed on the ASX, including Global Uranium’s hits up to 5387ppm uranium oxide in Colorado. We also take a look at other interesting drill hits as reported by Superior Resources from its Steam Engine gold project in Queensland and Great Boulder Resources from its Mulga Bill gold prospect in WA.

Triangle Energy has secured the crucial environmental plan approval to drill its Becos-1 well in WA’s Perth Basin and expects to launch the campaign before year’s end in its quest for onshore oil and gas. Rig tenders are now underway to test the shallow target where a best estimate of 5 MMbbl has been identified, with the potential to reach as much as 21 MMbbl.

Estrella Resources has revealed high-grade manganese in Timor-Leste just days after nailing down new exploration licenses at its Samalari prospect in the nation’s Baucau Municipality. The site is showing manganese oxide mineralisation along a 1.7km strike zone with widths of up to 5m and early samples have returned impressive hits going up to 53.9 per cent manganese, according to analysis from Australian Laboratory Services.

Aguia Resources has reinterpreted its high-grade, polymetallic gold-copper-silver-zinc El Dovio play in Colombia as an orogenic lode gold-silver style of mineralisation that was followed later by copper and zinc. The company’s new designation contrasts sharply with its previous casting as a volcanogenic-hosted massive sulphide (VMS/VHMS) deposit and indicates that the base metal component results from emplacement during later tectonic processes.

Lithium Universe has defied market trends to post an upbeat prefeasibility study for its Bécancour lithium carbonate refinery in the Canadian city of Québec, delivering a pre-tax NPV of US$779 million (AU$1.17 billion) and an annual EBITDA of US$147 million (AU$221 million) in its bid to service the growing North American market and fill the conversion gap by reducing the need for Chinese product.

Kalgoorlie Gold Mining has kicked off a high-resolution aeromagnetic geophysical survey in the northern half of its Pinjin project, 140km north-east of Western Australia’s important mining centre of Kalgoorlie. The survey will provide modern quality data with significantly better resolution than is currently available for the northern part of the project that covers the prospective Jungle Dam area and southward extensions of the Edjudina Goldfield.

Estrella Resources has locked up four extra exploration and evaluation concessions to kick off Timor-Leste’s newly-instituted 2021 mining code direct grant process. The leases, which are particularly prospective for manganese, sit in the Southeast Asian country’s western Baucau Municipality and add to its four exploration licences, 30km to the north-east, that it picked up last year.

American West Metals has revealed one of the best-ever drill hits at its Storm project in Canada after a hole put in on the south side of the North Graben fault intercepted 22.9m at 8.5 per cent copper. The interval includes semi-massive sulphide zones with individual assays up to 27 per cent copper and importantly, lies outside the Cyclone target’s mineral resource.

A recently-completed magnetic survey by Carnaby Resources has jagged multiple new targets at the Greater Duchess copper-gold joint venture (JV) it shares with Latitude 66 near Mount Isa in Queensland. The versatile time domain electromagnetic (VTEM) survey covering 194 line kilometres revealed multiple strong bedrock conductors at previously-undrilled sites at the JV’s Mount Hope and Nil Desperandum deposits.

This week’s Bulls N’ Bears Runner of the Week is … Element 25 after the potential high-purity manganese producer hit paydirt with a US Government energy grant for US$166 million (AU$241.5 million). West Cobar Metals’ share price also leapt higher after it nailed impressive antimony-copper drill hits at its NSW project, while other movers-and-shakers this week were Emperor Energy and Neometals.

Strickland Metals has struck the third-biggest drill result from its Rogozna play in Serbia, reeling in a hefty 50m intercept grading 5.6g/t gold equivalent as part of a total 365.8m hit at 2g/t. The drillhole was aimed at replicating the more than 300m-thick body of gold, copper and zinc mineralisation discovered at an earlier hole and has confirmed a 60m extension to the south-east.

Terrain Minerals has leapt into a new drill campaign at its Wildflower gold project in Western Australia’s Murchison province, with an air-core program of 41 holes for 2100m set to test its two high-priority targets – Wildflower and Cota. The AC drilling will target a significant 1000m-by-500m gold-in-soil geochemical anomaly consisting of a peak value of 246 parts per billion gold.

Novo Resources has unveiled the conceptual exploration target for its Belltopper gold project in Victoria of between 1.4 and 2.1 million tonnes containing between 320,000 and 570,000 ounces of gold. Belltopper lies in the highly-prospective Bendigo Tectonic Zone, about 52km south along strike from Bendigo and 15km south-east of Castlemaine – areas that have produced about 22.4 and 5.6 million ounces of gold, respectively.

Allup Silica has readied itself for drilling as early as next month in a bid to fast-track the development of its 100 per cent-owned McLaren heavy mineral sands project near Balladonia in WA as it pushes forward with a prefeasibility study. The infill drilling is aiming to refine the project’s existing resource estimate and ultimately target a 200 million-tonne deposit.

Aruma Resources has kicked off ground gravity and induced-polarisation geophysical surveys at its Fiery Creek project near Mount Isa in Queensland to test areas of outcropping copper and identify drill targets. The detailed geophysics are part of Aruma’s new mission to acquire data of sufficient quality and resolution to enable prospect-scale drill-targeting, which had not been possible with previous geophysical data over the area.

As market conditions continue to improve, Toro Energy has cranked up the resource estimate at its Lake Maitland deposit near Wiluna in WA to reveal a 12 per cent rise in its uranium resource and a 74 per cent jump in vanadium, after lowering the cut-off grade to 100 parts per million (ppm) to better align with its peers

Red Metal is gearing up for an intense period of exploration across north-west Queensland, with separate drilling programs set to kick off at three of its projects in the coming month. Initial investigative drill campaigns at the company’s Gidyea copper-gold and Lawn Hill silver-lead-zinc projects will be launched to test their significant base metals potential, followed by infill drilling at its Sybella rare earths play.

ChemX Materials has secured a patent from the New Zealand Intellectual Property Office for its “HiPurA” processing technology used to produce high-purity alumina (HPA) for application in cutting-edge technologies such as LEDs, semiconductors and lithium-ion batteries. The patent adds to the company’s recently-granted Australian equivalent and helps reinforce its push to become a key HPA producer in Australasia.

American West Metals has sealed a US$12.5 million (AU$18.8 million) royalty funding deal from TMRF Canada – a subsidiary of Australian-based Taurus Funds Management – to boost the development of its Storm copper project in the Nunavut territory in northern Canada. The company expects to pocket the first US$1 million in the next few days and it will be followed shortly by an additional US$4 million.

Neometals has dusted off historical data to unveil a new Western Australian gold strategy at its Barrambie project that previously produced 27,000 ounces at 27.8g/t. The company says recent rock-chip samples threw up grades as high as 44g/t, prompting it to pivot back to the precious yellow metal, while its titanium and vanadium pursuits will now take a backseat.

In this week’s edition of Bulls N’ Bears Big Hits, we examine some notable drill intercepts revealed on the ASX, including Mithril Silver and Gold’s 33m at 31.8g/t gold and 274g/t silver at its Mexican project. We also look at other interesting drill hits as reported by Flynn Gold from its Trafalgar zone and from Patronus Resources’ Cardinia project near Leonora in Western Australia.

American West Metals has discovered thick high-grade copper assaying up to 3.7 per cent from deep diamond drilling at the Cyclone deposit within its Storm project in the Canadian territory of Nunavut, indicating a big mineralised system. The discovery hole was collared about 110m south of the North Graben Fault that cuts off the south side of the Cyclone target.

Reach Resources says a grab sampling program has helped it unlock the geological key to its Wabli Creek rare earths play in Western Australia’s Gascoyne region. Armed with its newfound wisdom, the company is now drawing up an exploration plan aimed at replicating earlier successes at the site that include rock-chip samples from bedrock returning assays up to 17.65 per cent niobium oxide.

This week’s Bulls N’ Bears Runner of the Week is … BPM Minerals. The exploration company hit high-grade gold at its Claw project in Western Australia and its share price surged on massive volume. Octava Minerals’ stock also leapt on an antimony discovery from historical drill results at its Yallalong project, while other movers-and-shakers this week were Mithril Silver and Gold and Metal Hawk.

Antimony is the latest critical metal to send the hearts of ASX punters aflutter, but with new "must-have" metals constantly emerging, investors may be feeling just a little confused by the ever-changing landscape. Bulls N’ Bears takes a look into the rise and rise of the metal also sometimes referred to as stibnite and the companies jumping on the increasingly raucous bandwagon.

GreenTech Metals has intersected thick copper-zinc zones below six shoots during a new 1743m drilling program, indicating significant resource expansion potential at its Whundo project in WA’s Pilbara region. The campaign was designed to drill-test underexplored mineralisation along a 2.1km-long string of targets at Whundo and was followed up by DHEM surveys on selected holes in a bid to identify new copper-zinc mineralised zones.

Javelin Minerals’ reinterpretation of data from its Coogee project in Western Australia’s Goldfields region has thrown up a tantalising exploration theory that it is now primed to test with the drill bit. The company plans to determine if a magnetic anomaly lurking just 300m from an old open pit at the site is a potential repetition of the historic lode.

Aurum Resources has scored extensive gold grabs reading up to 11.46m at 6.67g/t in four diamond drillholes during a second campaign at the BM Target 1 within its Boundiali gold project in Côte d'Ivoire. The program entailed five diamond drillholes for 914.5m and delivered a crop of broad, shallow medium to high-grade gold hits, with responses indicating mineralisation remains open along strike and down-dip.

88 Energy has today reported a significant increase in the oil and gas resources in two of the six key reservoirs at its Phoenix project in northern Alaska following an independent assessment of the operation. The company says respected energy consultant ERCE Australia has verified the 50 per cent resource jump to 378 million equivalent barrels of oil at the project.