Public Company News

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.

Toronto-listed Novo Resources has confirmed a 16km lithium-cesium-tantalum pegmatite swarm about 5km north of the Kurrana granite complex that it says hosts significant lithium-tantalum potential. According to the company, the Kurrana pegmatite trend is open to the south-west and to the east of the currently defined 16km prospective zone, potentially covering over 25km of strike length.

As its mammoth 23,000m RC and diamond program continues, ASX-listed gold junior Strickland Metals has confirmed surface laterite gold mineralisation directly above a northern section of its Millrose mineral resource at the company’s broader Yandal gold project in WA. Among a broad array of holes probing the shallow mineralisation, standout intercepts include 5m at 3.6 g/t gold and 4m at 3 g/t.

After drilling the first 12 holes of an RC campaign at its Yidby gold project in WA, Surefire Resources is now planning to kick off work with RC and diamond rigs at its advanced WA vanadium and iron assets. The company reports the holes at Yidby designed to test gold anomalies and step-out from previous exploration has now been completed with assay results pending.

A resource upgrade appears to be on the horizon for Kairos Minerals after receiving positive assay results from its RC drilling efforts at the company’s 873,500-ounce Mt York gold project in Western Australia’s Pilbara region. The explorer says its latest results are “highly encouraging” as it expects the broad grades to have a positive impact on the next resource estimate.