Public Company News

Just a week into its pivotal deal with global IVF provider Vitrolife, reproductive biotechnology company Memphasys has already received its first order to put its patented Felix system into clinics in Japan. Last week, Memphasys revealed it had opened a new door by signing an exclusive five-year distribution deal with Vitrolife Japan KK – a subsidiary of the world-renowned Vitrolife Group.

On the back of a strong scoping study last year, Perth-based company Toro Energy has commissioned a pilot processing plant design and added vanadium to its Wiluna uranium project in Western Australia’s Goldfields region. The study into a standalone operation at its Lake Maitland deposit holds a pre-tax net present value of $610 million and a total capital cost of $270 million.

Reach Resources’ maiden drill campaign for lithium has begun at its Bonzer pegmatite field in WA’s Gascoyne region, with some 2500m of reverse-circulation drilling and about 2000m of diamond drillhole work. The campaign has been designed to target soil sampling and rock chip lithium anomalies, the lithium grade, the size of the mapped surface pegmatites and any others that may occur in the sub-surface.

Terrain Minerals has been given the all clear for a maiden drill campaign this month to target clay-hosted rare earths at its Lort River project near Esperance, after receiving heritage clearance. Last year, a review of soil samples from historical gold exploration at the site returned positive results, including 580ppm TREO, with 25 per cent of the total grade magnet rare earths.

From the sometimes dark and dingy bedroom corners that play home to online gaming, to the searingly bright lights of one of the world’s hottest commodities, Lithium Universe has orchestrated a remarkable ASX transformation. Lithium Universe confirmed last Friday it had raised its maximum subscription of $4.5 million at a share price of 2 cents each, announcing itself a new lithium industry player.

Askari Metals has completed a follow-up probe to test the copper-nickel potential indicated by rock sampling results at its promising Callawa project in Western Australia, about 90km north-east of Marble Bar. After running an 18-square-kilometre drone magnetics survey last year, it has now finished an 864-sample auger program to test rock-sample geochemistry that included anomalous copper, silver, nickel and chromium.

Everest Metals believes it is hot on the trail of another DeGrussa-style deposit as it launches a new campaign of three deep diamond holes for 1000m of drilling at its Revere project in Western Australia’s Murchison region. The program will follow up highly-encouraging geological indications and geophysical targets from its recent phase-one deep diamond drilling work at the volcanic-hosted massive sulphide play.

Strickland Metals has officially kicked off a new 40,000m air-core (AC) drill campaign, with a primary focus on its Horse Well gold project about 85km north-east of the Western Australian town of Wiluna. The aim of the program is to define new shear zones and extend known shear zones further north where regional magnetic surveys suggest the structures may extend for more than 20km.

Octava Minerals’ recent geochemical soil-sampling program has identified extensive nickel, copper and cobalt anomalism at the company’s Yallalong project, about 220km north-east of the Western Australian regional city of Geraldton. Management believes the early signs show it may be a precursor to unearthing another significant nickel-copper-PGE discovery in the virgin and mostly unexplored West Yilgarn mineral province.

ABx Group has pocketed a cool $1.25 million in research-and-development tax rebates after receiving more than $503,000 from the Australian Tax Office for rare earths activities in Tasmania throughout last year. Earlier this month, the company’s 83 per cent-owned subsidiary Alcore took home a similar tax offset of $522,715 for work undertaken last year on its world-first process to recover hydrogen fluoride.

Xanadu Mines is on track to produce a prefeasibility study resource update for its Kharmagtai copper-gold project in Mongolia before the end of the year after completing phase-one infill drilling at the site. Management says the infill program has defined and expanded the volume of higher-grade mineralisation within its Stockwork pit, indicating both grade uplift and resource expansion potential.

Hard on the heels of a recently-completed prefeasibility study, Image Resources has reported positive results from beneficiation testwork involving the conversion of ilmenite from its Bidaminna mineral sands project to synthetic rutile. The company believes it could offer an opportunity to enhance the processing, economic, marketing and ore utilisation considerations of its project in Western Australia’s North Perth Basin.