Public Company News

Australia currently leads the globe in terms of lithium production and according to Geoscience Australia about 95 per cent of Australia’s lithium resources are found within just five deposits and all are in WA. The renowned Greenbushes mine, 200km south of Perth, is the undisputed king when it comes to contained amounts of lithium and grade. The next two deposits on the leaderboard, Pilgangoora and Wodgina, both belong to the Pilbara, an area that is again a hotbed of exploration and discovery.

Terrain Minerals is now the sole owner of the Smokebush tenements in WA’s Mid West after mopping up the remaining 20 per cent interest of the gold-bearing ground from a private vendor. The company has been systematically exploring the zone since entering a farm-in and joint-venture deal in 2019 posting several solid intersections since then including 3m at 4.86 grams per tonne gold.

Meeka Metals has received positive results from test work at its Cascade Valley rare earths project near Esperance with up to 90.4 per cent of the elements recovered in the less than 20 micrometre fraction. The company says cheap and simple screening and hydro-cyclone classification can be applied to discard the coarse fraction greater than 20 micrometres and remove up to 65.5 per cent of the mass whilst retaining up to 90.4 per cent of the rare earth elements.

AVZ Minerals has delivered a suite of broad lithium intersections including 144.5m at 1.75 per cent from 13.5m and 172.3m going 1.57 per cent from 48.5m at its monster Manono hard-rock lithium and tin project in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Four more extensional diamond drill holes have been knocked over during a probe at its centrepiece Roche Dure deposit as the company looks to bolster its battery metal inventory.

ASX-listed Empire Energy has kicked another goal in the Beetaloo sub-basin after casing and cementing the horizontal section of its Carpentaria-3H gas well in the Northern Territory in just 2 days. The play sets the asset up for a December reservoir fracking program where the company will look to harvest some of the zone’s 500 trillion cubic feet of gas.

St George Mining has entered into a memorandum of understanding with Shanghai Jayson New Energy Materials to pursue lithium business opportunities based on the potential of the explorer’s Mt Alexander project. According to the agreement, the two companies will establish a strategic partnership to consider working together on investment and offtake opportunities at Mt Alexander where St George has discovered high-grade lithium-bearing pegmatites along a 15km corridor near Leonora.

A fresh review of JV partners Triangle Energy Global and Pilot Energy’s Cliff Head oil reservoirs suggests the assets could hold 9.7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide – a 50 per cent increase on initial projections. The producer’s oil fields are currently pumping out roughly 700 barrels of oil each day but once exhausted the aim is to use them to store carbon produced from power generation and industrial activities.

St George Mining has secured financial support for a drill campaign at its Mt Alexander lithium project after a global battery minerals company provided a $2 million cornerstone commitment. The explorer’s recent placement received commitments of more than $7 million including $2.04 million from Shanghai Jayson New Energy Materials – a significant supplier to the emerging clean energy sector and the world’s leading producer of cathode precursor materials for lithium-ion batteries.

Newly listed explorer Octava Minerals has outlined a suite of new pegmatite targets at its Pinnacle Well lithium prospect in the Pilbara region of Western Australia after a field reconnaissance program. The campaign was headlined by the detection of a 1.5km long east-west running outcrop about 10km north of Global Lithium’s 10.5 million tonne Archer deposit.

Classic Minerals has received approval to build a key piece of infrastructure for its gold processing plant at the company’s Kat Gap project in the Goldfields with a water pipeline getting the green light. The water bore is located near the main haul road 1100m from the processing plant that will simplify the pumping process. The pipeline will be placed above ground so limited additional infrastructure will be required.

Drill testing at Meeka Metals’ Murchison gold project has intersected a new zone of shallow high-grade oxide gold at the St Anne’s deposit, prompting the company to defer its planned release of St Anne’s initial mineral resource until the March quarter next year. The company says the new discovery remains open to the north and depth and has named it the Brassie lode.

Multicommodity explorer CZR Resources is ramping up its gold hunt in the Mallina Basin, home to DeGrey’s 8.5-million-ounce gold discovery, in Western Australia’s Pilbara goldfields. The company has commenced a ground gravity survey at its Croydon project targeting intrusion-related gold mineralisation where previous drilling has unearthed 8m running at 10.2 g/t from 135m.