Public Company News

Strickland Metals has been given the green light to explore the main structure of its Millrose gold project near Wiluna after receiving heritage clearance from the Tarika Matuwa Piarku Aboriginal Corporation in addition to program of work approval from the West Australian Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety. The company can now focus on several high-priority areas along strike of the main 13km structure.

St George Mining's maiden drilling program at its Paterson copper-gold project in WA's east Pilbara region is in full swing with three more drill holes returning encouraging signs. The explorer says the lithologies intersected in all three drill holes appear consistent with those known to host major copper-gold deposits in the Paterson province.

Empire Energy has started the much-awaited fracking of its Carpentaria-2H well, the longest horizontal well drilled in the Beetaloo sub-basin as it attempts to unlock the potential of the prospective multi-trillion cubic feet NT gas play. The company has pumped the first of a 25-stage frack in its 1250m-long hydraulic stimulation program it is planning for last year's C-2H gas discovery.

They say if you want to go elephant hunting you must go to elephant country and when talking mineral endowment, Mongolia is clearly elephant country. The ridiculous scale of Rio Tinto's part-owned Oyu Tolgoi mine is just one truly biblical example and Xanadu Mines is also turning heads in the country with its Kharmagtai project, now thought to be one of the largest undeveloped copper-gold resources controlled by a junior explorer.

Routine earth-moving activities at Kairos Minerals' Mt York gold project in the Pilbara have turned up spodumene pegmatites, opening the door to a possible lithium play for the diversified West Perth explorer. The discovery has excited Kairos, not least because it was made less than 4km from Pilbara Minerals' massive lithium operation, Pilgangoora.

Okapi Resources has become a key player in the new energy sector after completing the acquisition of a 51 per cent interest in the high-grade Hansen uranium deposit in Colorado, USA, from STB Minerals. The deal extends its resources at its Tallahassee project to 42 million tonnes at 540 ppm for 49.8 million pounds of triuranium octoxide and increases the grade of Okapi's existing resource about 10 per cent.

Great Southern Mining says it will focus its Queensland exploration efforts on its Edinburgh Park gold project after signing a deal to offload its Palmer River site to Revolver Resources for a cool $1 million. The deal appears to be mutually beneficial for both companies with Great Southern enjoying a significant exploration cash boost whilst Revolver receives licences covering an area of 360 square kilometres adjacent to its flagship Dianne copper mine project in northern Queensland.

Junior explorer Meeka Metals has done no harm to its goal of growing the resource at its Murchison gold project by finding more high-grade gold on the western flank of the project's Turnberry deposit including 32m at 3.09 g/t gold from 32m. The strikes will bolster Meeka's case to upgrade its mineral resource and bolster the company's forthcoming pre-feasibility study for mining operations.

Rock chip samples from three recently discovered pegmatite sites at Tambourah Metals' namesake gold and lithium project in WA's Pilbara region have returned elevated rubidium and lithium results. The 17 samples were assayed at Labwest for a full suite of pegmatite elements, with 12 recording between 151 and 842 parts per million rubidium and another four samples returning lithium grades between 96 and 226 ppm.

ASX-listed American West Metals could be riding a winner after drilling at its West Desert project in Utah, USA, delivered a solid set of copper, gold, zinc and silver-laced assays that continue to illustrate the project's potential scale. The company is in the midst of a resource upgrade and says the significant mineralisation intersected in its latest play bodes well for its campaign.

Conico is ready to kick off drilling at its Ryberg copper-nickel and platinum group project in east Greenland as it follows up high-grade gold hits it reported in April. It expects a second crew to spin the bit at its Mestersvig zinc-lead-copper-silver project this month.

Octava Minerals is preparing for its ASX debut next month as it seeks to exploit some early lithium shows just 10kms from Global Lithium's revered Pilbara lithium discovery. Octava has also pulled together a package of Kimberley and Mid West tenements in solidly mineralised terranes that are already jostling with battery metals big hitters and the company's Pilbara ground also has some intriguing historical gold drill holes that are begging for follow up.