Bulls N' Bears (Commercial Content)

ASX-listed Blackstone Minerals has landed a new massive sulphide discovery with portable-XRF readings of up to 20 per cent nickel at its Flagship Ta Khoa nickel project in northern Vietnam. Several nickel targets have been identified at the project including massive and semi-massive and net-textured sulphides. The standout results saw a 2.95m intersection of sulphides, with portable XRF readings indicating the presence of up to 20 per cent nickel.

Superior Resources has potentially unearthed a significant copper system at its Bottletree copper prospect, part of its larger Greenvale project near Townsville in Queensland, after assays returned a 632m copper hit within a remote section of an interpreted porphyry structure. The news was not lost on the market with Superior’s share price up 60 per cent at one point during the session on heavy turnover from the previous close.

Only one month after its first gold pour at the company’s Warrawoona gold operation, Calidus Resources is looking at its Blue Spec East prospect as an open pit operation following strong drilling results. The move could boost throughput at its nearby plant in the Pilbara. The company produced first gold last month with a 33kg pour and aims to ramp up to 90,000 ounces per year.

CZR Resources has increased the mineral resource at its Robe Mesa iron ore project in the Pilbara by more than 50 per cent whilst maintaining an iron ore grade of 56 per cent. Assay results reported in March revealed extensive direct shipping iron ore outside the prefeasibility study pit designs. The deposit’s JORC mineral resource has increased from 24.7 million tonnes to 37.5Mt.

As it looks to stack more gold on its 603,000-ounce Yandal project, 70km east of Wiluna, junior explorer Strickland Metals is gearing up to pass its fleet of drill rigs over its cornerstone Millrose gold system. In preparation for its drill out, the company has completed a heritage assessment and will start a magnetic survey as early as next week.

Podium Minerals has been given the green light to start drilling next week at the central section of its Parks Reef platinum group metals project in the Mid West region of WA after it was granted registered heritage site access in April and its program of work approved last month by the Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety.

Cyclone Metals has wrapped up a maiden gold exploration program at its Mareburn and Macraes South projects, about 40km north of Dunedin in the Otago Province of New Zealand. According to the company, the region has churned out over 10 million ounces of the precious metal and all eyes will now be on the results from the campaign, which are anticipated for around a month.

Multi-element explorer Horizon Minerals has hit nickel sulphides in its first hole at its Euston prospect within the company’s wholly-owned Cannon project in WA. Preliminary assays of the 4m nickel intercept revealed encouraging grades of over 1 per cent nickel, 607 parts per million copper and 250ppm cobalt from 160m. Further assays from the five-hole program are pending.

Metal Hawk’s Berehaven nickel project on the outskirts of Kalgoorlie, WA, is growing in size with strong geochemical platinum group elements results from the Torana prospect. The new data came just to the north of the Commodore nickel sulphide discovery that the company made in the project area last September, 20km south-east of the historic goldfields town.

Coda Minerals has extended its Emmie iron oxide-copper-gold deposit within its Elizabeth Creek copper project in South Australia by more than 900m — increasing its mineralised target zone. A recent surface step-out drill hole encountered multiple zones of visible copper sulphide mineralisation to the north of the Emmie IOCG geophysical anomaly, providing evidence the deposit contains multiple conduit zones.

Okapi Resources is targeting a two-commodity play at its Rattler uranium project in Utah, USA, after a rock chip sampling program confirmed the samples also contained high-grade vanadium. The results ran up to 12.5 per cent vanadium pentoxide, some way above the general concentrations of up to 2.5 per cent found in some deposits.

As it hurtles towards an expected resource upgrade, Asra Minerals has returned more significant high-grade gold intercepts from RC drilling at its flagship 118,400-ounce Mt Stirling project in WA’s Eastern Goldfields. The program continues to extend mineralisation beyond previous resource boundaries, with the company reporting results grading up to 1m at 11.86 g/t from two more holes.

Toro Energy has tabled more massive nickel sulphide discoveries at its Dusty project in Western Australia. The results from Toro’s latest campaign saw a drill hole intersecting 7.2 metres of visible nickel sulphides, grading 1.05 per cent nickel and 0.26 per cent copper from 252m downhole. The Dusty nickel project falls within Toro’s 100 per cent owned Yandal Gold Project in the State’s Mid West.

Galan Lithium will soon hit the go button on a long-term pumping test program at its wholly-owned Hombre Muerto West lithium brine project in the Catamarca Province of Argentina. The company says the results of the analyses will flow into a definitive feasibility study for the operation and is expected to be wrapped up by September this year.

Mineral explorer Si6 Metals has completed its second phase of air core drilling at its wholly-owned Monument gold project in WA’s Laverton gold district. The 6000m program tested five prospect areas and was designed to follow up on successful drilling from a first phase completed late last year. The campaign encountered a wide range of prospective rocks with assays now pending.

Triangle Energy has completed the first stages of pivoting away from its ageing, offshore foundation asset of Cliff Head by completing a 3D seismic survey over its onshore permits as it seeks to replicate the success of fellow explorers in the Perth Basin in discovering elephant-size gas fields along the route of the Dampier-to-Bunbury natural gas pipeline.

Venus Metals believes the presence of mafic-ultramafic rocks discovered during recent exploration at its Youanmi base metals and lithium projects make the area prospective for gold and base metals mineralisation. The rocks were found along an east-south-east trending structure that comes off the Youanmi shear zone close to Ramelius Resources’ Penny gold mine, about 550km north-east of Perth.

Buoyed by positive gold assays, ASX-listed Askari Metals has started a third round of RC drilling at its Burracoppin gold project in Western Australia’s eastern Wheatbelt. The program will probe up to 3500m, with the explorer launching a volley of 13 holes before adjusting its aim and firing another volley of up to 40 holes.

Test work on rare earths from ABx Group’s Deep Leads project in northern Tasmania has strengthened the company’s belief that it hosts ionic adsorption clay-style or “IAC” mineralisation. The deposits are known to be a major source of permanent magnet minerals and are used to develop super magnets for electric vehicles, wind turbines, mobile phones and computers.

Terrain Minerals has discovered clay-type rare earth elements at its fully owned Lort River project in Western Australia after a review of historic auger drilling data, including a high percentage of rare earths used in the production of magnets. Assays also show high scandium grades the company says are a potentially important addition to the high-grade rare earths mineralisation.

Aruma Resources has returned high-grade lithium and rubidium results from a surface rock chip sampling program at its fully owned Mt Deans lithium project in south-eastern WA. Results included high-grade lithium of up to 1.96 per cent lithium oxide and very high-grade rubidium of up to 1.42 per cent rubidium oxide. A total of 11 samples were taken along a 500m strike.

Adriatic Metals has its foot down on construction of its Vares high-grade zinc-silver project in Bosnia and Herzegovina as it works towards opening its namesake mine and processing plant next year. The company says a newly appointed drilling contractor has delivered a dramatic increase in productivity in converting the Rupice ore body, increasing confidence in its mineral resource.

After an air core drilling campaign, mineral explorer Meeka Gold Limited has detected grades of up to 5791ppm TREO over an expansive 1143 square kilometre region at the company’s Cascade rare earth elements project in WA. The assays reveal shallow and high-grade mineralisation up to 24m thick, with a standout strike of 4m at 5791ppm TREO unearthed within a 16m zone running 2223ppm TREO.

Junior explorer Emu NL has plans underway for further RC drilling at its Flying Emu prospect at Badja gold project near Yalgoo in Western Australia after early positive results. The first hole targeted from Emu’s stage three-drill program in April recorded a 9m hit at 3.44 g/t gold from 39m downhole, including 2m at 10.14 g/t.

Initial assays from gold and nickel explorer Metal Hawk have come up trumps, with results from five diamond drilling holes from its Commodore prospect at the Berehaven project in WA returning gold hits, its best zone grading 38.5 grams per tonne. Nickel was also discovered with the company saying the result demonstrates a link with both the gold and nickel sulphide zones announced in February.

Godolphin Resources is one step closer to starting a proposed diamond drill program at its Narraburra rare earth project in NSW following its submission to the State regulators. The six-hole program has been fast-tracked after previously approved air core drilling was postponed because of waterlogged land conditions. Diamond drilling will start once approval is received.

Pirra Lithium, one of Australia’s newest lithium explorers, has started drilling at its Spear Hill project in WA’s Pilbara Craton region, testing a 1.2km stretch of outcropping lithium pegmatites where rock chips previously returned assays grading up to 2.34 per cent lithium oxide. Pirra is a 50-50 JV between Calidus Resources and Haoma Mining.

Mineral explorer Aurumin has kicked off a barrage of diamond drilling after completing the RC portion of its exploration campaign at the company’s 784,300-ounce Central Sandstone gold project in WA. Nine holes for 1245m of RC drilling on the project’s 86,500-ounce Shillington deposit have been completed in addition to five RC “pre-collars” for the explorer’s Two Mile Hill tonalite deposit.

ASX-listed explorer Kalgoorlie Gold continues to expand the size of its La Mascotte discovery in WA’s goldfields, with the prospect now extending to a 700m strike length. The company says the mineralisation remains open in every direction. Only last month KalGold doubled the strike length of La Mascotte to 500m on the back of rich results going 16 grams per tonne gold.

Venus Metals Corporation has hit returns of 5.8 and 3.6 per cent lithium dioxide from the latest round of exploration at its Henderson tenements near Menzies in Western Australia. Following the discovery of lithium-cesium-tantalum pegmatites at Henderson in February, assay results from 89 rock samples showed 29 had more than 100 parts-per-million lithium dioxide.

After collecting lithium-rich soil samples from Askari Metals’ Barrow Creek lithium project in the NT’s Arunta pegmatite province, the company has now found lithium in its samples of rocks protruding through the soils. The find validates an extension of its interpreted zone of lithium mineralisation to a strike length of 3km.

Revitalised explorer Oar Resources is preparing for a 5,500m air core drilling program to flesh out the Oakdale graphite project in South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula. The company is aiming to upgrade Oakdale’s 2015 initial combined indicated and inferred JORC resource figure of 13.47 million tonnes at 3.3 per cent total graphitic carbon. Purified spherical graphite recently joined the Federal Government’s suite of critical minerals.