Public Company News

At a time when steelmaking is receding from the Kwinana industrial estate, just south of Fremantle, high purity alumina aspirant King River Resources has identified the zone as the likely hub to house its planned High Purity Alumina facility. The company is now in discussions with the WA Department of Jobs, Tourism, Science and Innovation and also Development WA with regard to land sale and leasing issues.

ASX-listed Great Southern Mining has not taken its foot off the pedal in the midst of the festive season and instead has launched into a major drilling program at its historic Cox’s Find gold project about 80km north of Laverton in WA. It hopes to unearth repeats of the old Cox’s Find deposit along strike to the south as well as extensions at depth.

Fresh from ongoing success in the Eastern Goldfields, Lefroy Exploration has switched its attention to the west, to embark on an early-stage quest at another enticing prospect near Lake Johnson. The company’s Bullseye target has sat untouched for more than 20 years and is defined by a 2.5-kilometre-wide ovoid-shaped aeromagnetic anomaly which Lefroy believes may represent an underlining mafic or ultramafic intrusion.

ASX-listed heavy rare earths hopeful, Northern Minerals, has a couple of reasons to hit the festive season with an element of good cheer following a year of significantly improved price action in two key payable elements that occur in the mineral resource at its Browns Range heavy rare earths project in WA.

Kingwest Resources has continued to reel off a string of high-grade gold hits from multiple deposits as part of an onslaught of resource definition drilling at its Menzies gold project about 120km north of Kalgoorlie. The latest stand-out RC drill intersections included 11m at 7.13 g/t from 62m, 2m at 20.71 g/t from 91m, 1m at 26.78 g/t from 40m and 1m at 22.42 g/t from 88m.

ASX-listed West Africa gold explorer, Mako Gold, continues to be rewarded with encouraging gold hits following a recently implemented revised drilling orientation at the Tchaga gold prospect at its flagship Napie project in Côte d’Ivoire. The latest stand-out assay from Tchaga was 26m grading 4.34 g/t gold from surface including 2m at 16.19 g/t from surface and 3m at 13.58 g/t from 21m.

ASX-listed aspiring manganese producer, Element 25, has been granted the key environmental approvals that pave the way for it to click into serious construction mode at its Butcherbird manganese project 130km south of Newman in WA’s southern Pilbara. The company says the approvals marked the final milestone it needed to square away before the main construction of the new mining and beneficiation operation could commence.

Hot Chili is set to spice up its production profile in Chile after putting in place an agreement to ramp up the processing of copper ores from its Productora deposit at the nearby Vallenar mill. The agreement will see the company lift production from its underground mining operations at the high-grade deposit to 180,000 tonnes per annum, a 50 per cent increase on the current mining rate.

ASX-listed iron ore and gold hopeful, CZR Resources, has tabled a robust pre-feasibility study offering positive financial returns for a potential 2 million tonnes per annum development at its 85 per cent-owned Robe Mesa iron ore project in WA’s West Pilbara. The PFS delivers payback within 2 years and more than A$600 million in cash flow over the life of the mine, with direct shipping ore leaving Port Hedland.

Deep Yellow is continuing to extend the boundaries of its uranium find in Namibia as it charges towards the delivery of a feasibility study over the proposed mining centre at Tumas. Shallow drilling over the Tubas deposits, which are located 10km west of Tumas, has returned a wealth of uranium mineralisation including an intercept of 4m at 442 eppm uranium oxide from 4m.

ASX-listed White Cliff Minerals is leaving no exploration stone unturned at its Reedy South gold project in WA’s Murchison Goldfields as it buckles up for a large aeromagnetic survey having almost completed an upsized 4,500m RC drilling program. The company plans to fly 6,100 line kilometres at 50m line spacing across its Reedy South tenement holdings prior to further in-field exploration earmarked for early next year.

Venus Metals has stumbled across a new gold discovery after getting the drill rods spinning again in the hills around Youanmi, Western Australia. The Hope prospect turned up gold mineralisation in fresh granite adjacent to the area’s classic granite-greenstone contact, with one RC drill hole hitting 1m at a solid 9.3 g/t gold from 103m downhole.