Public Company News

A potentially lucrative base metals joint venture project between Classic Minerals and Independence Group in the revered Fraser Range nickel province of WA has been quietly bubbling away at the same time as the ASX-listed junior explorer looks to develop its flagship Kat Gap gold project about 170km south of Southern Cross.

Gawler Craton stalwart and former managing director of neighbour, Marmota Limited, David Williams, has bolstered the Board of Indiana Resources. Williams joins as a non-executive director, just a month after Indiana locked away a deal for around 2,700 square kilometres of fresh gold ground in South Australia from private player, Patron Resources, also led by Williams.

Northern Minerals has launched a major drilling campaign at its Browns Range heavy rare earths project in WA’s East Kimberley region, with 8,000m of the 16,500m RC program planned for the financial year set to be completed before Christmas. It has also recently started building a $5.9 million ore sorter at the front end of the project’s pilot plant that is flagged as a low-cost method of potentially doubling the ore feed grade.

Middle Island Resources’ 50,000m-plus drilling campaign this year has reaped a mind-boggling array of high-grade gold hits from its historic Sandstone gold project in the East Murchison mineral field in WA. The positive results from its drilling blitz aimed at upgrading existing deposits, infilling and extending five new satellite open-pit deposits saw the Sandstone gold resource climb to the latest total of 732,100 ounces.

Novo Resources has completed a battery of test work on the bulk samples from its Karratha gold project, successfully recovering fine nuggety gold from the conglomerate ores found at both the Purdy’s Reward and Comet Well deposits. The recovery of this size fraction, via mechanical sorting, significantly enhances the potential economics of the operation and validates the process flow sheet being designed for the developing operation.

Adriatic Metals has been buoyed by early diamond drill hits from a 10,000m confirmation drilling program at its historic Kizevak silver-lead-zinc deposit, part of the recently acquired Raska project in Serbia. The new asset in the company’s project portfolio, courtesy of an all-scrip acquisition of fellow Balkans precious and base metals play, Tethyan Resource Corp, is located approximately 200km from its advancing flagship Vares silver-lead-zinc project in neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina.

ASX-listed Lithium Australia’s 90 per cent-owned subsidiary, Envirostream Australia, has been allocated just over $200,000 in grant funding from the Victorian State Government for the further development of its “electrolyte management in rechargeable battery recycling” project. The battery recycling company’s electrolyte management process safely captures electrolyte components in liquid form from the recycling of spent lithium-ion batteries.

Deep Yellow has completed drilling over its Tumas 3 uranium deposit in Namibia, ticking off yet another box as it charges toward the completion of its pre-feasibility study in south-west Africa. The company has completed 53 drill holes over the target which exceeding expectations returning results of up to 515 eppm uranium oxide.

ASX-listed explorer, Oakdale Resources, has received regulatory approvals for a maiden aircore drilling program at its Gibraltar halloysite-kaolin project on SA’s Eyre Peninsula. The company says a drilling contractor has been locked in and the drill rig and geological crew are expected to be on site early next month.

White Cliff Minerals has wasted no time in releasing a maiden inferred and indicated gold resource at its historic Reedy South gold project 40km north of Cue in WA’s resurgent Murchison goldfields. The company, which only completed the acquisition of the project three weeks ago, has already come out with a resource of 779,000 tonnes going 1.7 grams per tonne for 42,400 ounces of contained gold.

Blackstone Minerals has moved quickly to put a mine-to-market management group in place to develop its Ta Khoa nickel-copper-PGE project in Vietnam. The appointments come just a fortnight after the company tabled a scoping study with a tantalising set of numbers including a A$1 billion present-day valuation and net pre-tax cash flows in excess of US$1.2 billion over the projected 8.5-year life of mine.

ASX-listed 3D metal printing developer, Aurora Labs, is exploring software innovation with US computing giant HP Inc., investigating the potential compatibility of HP software to generate 3D print files with Aurora’s printers. HP said its new Universal Build Manager leverages its software to enable simplified and automated build preparation across multiple additive manufacturing technologies at super-charged speeds.