Public Company News

Ora Banda Mining has bolstered its balance sheet by locking in a $50 million revolving credit facility with two Australian banks and hedging 100,000 ounces of gold via a put option at $4400 per ounce. The two-year funding agreement has supercharged the company’s war chest to more than $100m, including a $58m bank balance, and provides the company with the financial clout to achieve production of 150,000 ounces in WA next year.

This week’s Bulls N’ Bears ASX Runner of the Week is… Industrial Minerals. The company had no news this week, instead its share price ran up on speculation about its high-purity quartz projects and tariffs pricing. Base metals explorer Litchfield identified two big sulphide-bearing targets for drilling, fintech group InFocus announced a stablecoin deal with a Seychelles tech provider GBO and TG Metals acquired an advanced gold asset in WA.

Meeka Metals’ reverse circulation drilling west of its current Turnberry South stage one open pit design has nailed a string of gold runs with a best intercept of 21m at 5.13g/t gold, including 5m going 15.65g/t. The top intercept was obtained from 51m. With most other hits from less than 83m downhole, the new shallow high-grade zone will likely justify westward expansion of the pit design.

Aguia Resources has locked in $1.5 million in fresh capital after completing a placement of 40 million shares at 3.8 cents each, setting the stage for an aggressive drilling campaign at its high-grade Santa Barbara gold project in Colombia. The new cash will support expansion of the company’s gold processing plant to 50 tonnes per day, kick off a comprehensive drilling program and cover general working capital needs.

ABx Group is examining its options to monetise its bauxite projects - the biggest gibbsite-type bauxite deposits in eastern Australia - to capitalise on increasing bauxite prices and supply shortages. The company is in talks about potential offtake deals, direct investment and asset purchases and is also updating its resource figures and mine studies to support the earliest possible start to production.

Strickland Metals has jagged a massive 7.5-kilometre intrusion-related gold system next to its 109,000-ounce Dusk ’til Dawn gold deposit which is part of the company’s wider Yandal project in Western Australia’s Eastern Goldfields. Strickland spent several months pouring over new geophysics and geochemical analysis of the area before overlaying the findings with historic exploration data.

St George Mining has kicked off a major downstream processing study at its high-grade niobium-rare earths project Araxá in Brazil, aiming to fast-track the project into production following completion of its acquisition last week. Metallurgical programs are already underway and are soon to be accompanied by a substantial drilling campaign scheduled to begin this month.

Kalgoorlie Gold Mining has wasted no time gearing up the rigs for follow-up drilling at its exciting Lighthorse gold discovery, part of the company’s Pinjin project in Western Australia’s Eastern Goldfields. The 16-hole reverse circulation drilling program will test fresh rock beneath a shallow, wide area of mineralisation - interpreted as a horizontal supergene blanket - to chase up potential sources of uber-high-grade gold.

Quantum Graphite and its JV partner Sunlands Energy have received a big federal government tick that will help develop the companies’ graphite hub on South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula. The hub will support the biggest commodity-focussed graphite supply chain between Australia and the US, centred around Quantum’s flagship Uley 2 graphite project and using Sunlands’ associated manufacturing, logistics and inventory management facilities.

Strickland Metals may be on the cusp of a major porphyry discovery after its diamond drill rig intercepted a whopping 493m intercept of 0.14 g/t gold from 223m at its Jezerska Reka prospect, part of the company’s Rogozna gold and base metal project in Serbia. Assays revealed a 412m section grading 130ppm copper from 300m, ending in gold and copper mineralisation at 700m depth.

Reach Resources’ latest drilling program has confirmed the company’s gold model with mineralisation intersected in every hole, validating historical results at the company’s Murchison South gold project, near Paynes Find in WA’s gold-rich Murchison region. The company now plans to optimise pit shells targeting the shallow, higher-grade, narrow-vein gold encountered within the project’s low-grade mineralised envelopes.

American West Metals’ preliminary economic assessment has knocked out a whopping $1.33bn revenue number for a 10-year mine with a net cashflow of A305m at its flagship Storm Copper project in Canada. The study is targeting 10.3mt of resource at 1.3 per cent copper and 3.7g/t silver to produce 487,000t of 17 per cent copper concentrate. With a low A$76m capex and a A$238m NPV, the project will pay for itself within three years.