Craig Nolan

Larvotto Resources has scored $30 million from new and existing investors, ensuring it is well-funded to intensify exploration of its Hillgrove antimony-gold operation near Armidale in NSW. The placement will see 57.7 million shares issued at 52c apiece and follows on from the company recently banking a total of $14.2m from an offtake pre-payment and option conversions.

This week’s Bulls N’ Bears Runner of the Week is … PhosCo. The phosphate explorer was awarded a critical exploration permit and signed an important agreement to collaborate on developing Tunisia’s northern phosphate hub. Paradigm Biopharmaceuticals ran hard after being given the green-light for its phase-three drug trials, while other movers and shakers this week were AVJennings and Errawarra Resources.

ChemX Materials has locked-in an agreement to provide private firm Vytas with high-purity assay services on quartz and synthetic silica samples and expects revenue of between $15,000 to $30,000 per month. The firms will explore the potential to utilise ChemX’s equipment and facilities when the company’s 24tpa pilot plant in the Perth suburb of O’Connor is completed.

Meeka Metals is gearing up for gold mining to begin in March with significant progress made with its processing infrastructure and accommodation village at the company’s Murchison gold project in WA. Its much larger “game-changing” processing plant equipment is on site and expected to dramatically increase its pre-feasibility numbers in the upcoming definitive-feasibility-study due in December.

Empire Energy is now well on its way to being the first to produce gas out of the NT’s biblical scale Beetaloo gas basin after Macquarie Bank put up a $65m funding package for it, avoiding the need

Strickland Metals has nailed a 41m drill hit grading 4 grams per tonne gold in Serbia that was part of a massive 272m intersection going 1.8 g/t gold equivalent. The broader intersection also showed copper, zinc, lead and silver. The new results are from Strickland’s Shanac deposit within its wholly-owned 5.4-million-ounce gold-equivalent Rogozna project in the Balkan country of Serbia.

This week’s Bulls N’ Bears Runner of the Week is … Petratherm. The critical mineral explorer discovered titanium and heavy minerals in historical South Australian core library samples. InFocus Group Holdings ran hard after nabbing a potential multi-million dollar agreement to develop a digital gaming product, while other movers and shakers this week were Noviqtech and Narryer Metals.

Aurumin non-exec director and businessman Daniel Raihani has moved into the managing director’s chair at the gold and iron ore explorer after the departure of company founder Brad Valiukas. Raihani has been a non-executive director at Aurumin for the past year and is an experienced accountant and businessman with various property and commercial interests.

Kalgoorlie Gold Mining is set to hammer further gold targets with its fourth air-core drill program at its Pinjin project in WA’s renowned 30-million ounce Laverton Tectonic zone, one of the state’s biggest gold endowment regions and host to several producing gold mines. The program will target the company’s prospective Kirgella East gold prospect with a planned 4000m maiden drill campaign.

Reach Resources has intercepted thick rare earth hits at its 100 per cent owned Wabli Creek project in WA’s Gascoyne region, scoring a whopping 109m running 1109 parts per million total rare earth oxides. Initial assays from 18 holes drilled at the company’s Pelops target returned significant intersections of rare earths from surface, with multiple holes ending in mineralisation.

Larvotto Resources latest reverse-circulation drill campaign at its Hillgrove project has kept the gold-antimony party going with further big high-grade hits rolling off the drill bit at the company’s Clarks Gully deposit, some 23km east of Armidale in northern NSW. Larvotto also struck visible gold in diamond core drilling at its Bakers Creek prospect within the Hillgrove project area.

Novo Resources has bolstered its bank balance with the sale of its remaining 20 per cent interest in the Quartz Hill joint-venture project, along with the company’s gold and silver rights, for $850,000. Novo is now laser-focused on developing its prospective gold and base metal projects in Western Australia’s Pilbara region.

King River Resources has discovered two new zones exhibiting high-grade gold from its phase-one, 28-hole reverse-circulation drill program at the company’s Kurundi project in Australia’s top-end. A phase-two campaign is already underway to further interrogate the new finds, with one zone sitting in the Kurundi Main Central target area and the other about 250m to the south.

Allup Silica has undertaken further analysis on its 2023 air-core drill samples and identified promising rare earths, uranium and graphite mineralisation at its Pink Bark project near Esperance in WA’s Albany Fraser region. The campaign originally identified a significant kaolin clay deposit that the company believes may contain a resource of between 700,000 and 1.2 million tonnes.

Aurum Resources’ bid for Mako Gold could create a new West African golden-force with $20 million in cash, its own fleet of drill-rigs and a string of well mineralised projects within cooee of each other. And this isn’t the first rodeo for Aurum managing director Caigen Wang who has done it all before in Côte D’Ivoire having built the 3.8m ounce Abujar gold mine on the same structural trend.

This week’s Bulls N’ Bears Runner of the Week is … Green Critical Minerals. The critical mineral explorer picked up some new groundbreaking graphite technology that can produce high-thermal conductivity material. Li-S Energy ran hard after revealing improvements to its lithium-sulfur battery tech, while other movers and shakers this week were Asian Battery Metals and Red Mountain Mining.

Infinity Lithium non-exec chairman Adrian Byass will step up into the roles of executive chairman and interim CEO as the company shifts its operational focus to Spain for its San José lithium project. Infinity has been pushing hard to obtain the relevant project approvals and is working with the Mines Department to establish a public consultation period, hoping to work with stakeholders and finalise the approval process.

Red Metal has been knocked over by punters in the rush for shares after its latest share purchase plan received applications totalling $6.6 million blowing an initial target of $2 million out of the water. The company’s exploration plans at its Sybella rare earths project in Queensland and drill programs at its other prospective targets are now fully-funded for the next year.

This week’s Bulls N’ Bears Runner of the Week is … Peak Minerals. The junior miner acquired a large swathe of ground prospective for uranium-rutile in the West African nation of Cameroon. Yandal Resources also ran hard after a series of impressive gold-drilling hits, while other movers and shakers this week were Argent Minerals and TZ Limited.

Horizon Minerals is set to take over Poseidon Nickel and its mothballed mining plant with a $30m all-scrip deal that will give Horizon a neat opportunity to commercialise its myriad of gold deposits scattered around Kalgoorlie. Horizon is offering 0.1156 of its shares for each Poseidon share and aims to raise a minimum of $14 million via a two-tranche placement at 4.5c per share to bolster its balance sheet.

Suvo Strategic Minerals’ subsidiary, Climate Tech Cement, has inked a 50:50 joint-venture (JV) agreement with respected pre-cast concrete manufacturer PERMAcast to commercialise intellectual property for a low-carbon “geopolymer” cement product made from processed mining waste. The aim is to introduce low-carbon concrete projects and products to market. PERMAcast has supplied concrete products for many notable WA developments.

White Cliff Minerals has extended its land grab in Canada by securing ground adjacent to its Rae copper-silver project that sits in the Canadian territory of Nunavut. The project now boasts a prospective strike length of 72km for copper-hosted sedimentary structures. The company jumped on the additional 243 square kilometres of tenure identified from geophysical data that it says may have district-scale potential for mineralisation.

Suvo Strategic Minerals has raised $2 million in a heavily-oversubscribed placement to develop and commercialise its low-carbon green cement product, with the owners of WA’s premier supplier of pre-cast concrete products, PERMAcast, kicking in $300,000 to join the register. Suvo holds a worldwide intellectual-property (IP) license for its “Geopolymer” cement that is manufactured using what would traditionally be waste streams from other industries.

This week’s Bulls N’ Bears Runner of the Week is … Ovanti Ltd. The buy-now-pay-later hopeful is planning to tackle the U.S market after appointing an ex-Zip Co executive to drive its plans forward. Also, Nanoveu ran hard as it readies for crucial testing on its new semiconductor technology, while other movers and shakers this week were African Gold and James Bay Minerals.

Askari Metals has revisited exploration data from its Horry copper-gold play in Western Australia’s Kimberley region to whip up new drill targets after fielding significant interest in the company’s local assets due to strong commodity pricing for both metals. Based on previous programs at the site, management now believes it has the potential to reveal high-grade mineralisation via a significant exploration push.

Subiaco-based Altech Batteries has supercharged its alumina-coated silicon anodes to boost the energy capacity of lithium-ion batteries by 55 per cent after combining graphite with its high-tech anodes. The company says the game-changing results stem from its strategy to coat silicon particles with alumina, overcoming previous drawbacks associated with using silicone as an anode material.

A recent induced-polarisation geophysical survey run by Strickland Metals at its Rogozna gold project in Serbia has highlighted what the company says are two targets exhibiting strong chargeability anomalism. The survey identified the Jezerska Reka and Obradov Potok targets as having bigger anomalous zones, with stronger responses than the anomalies associated with its Shanac and Copper Canyon deposits that comprise a 5.4 million-ounce gold-equivalent resource.

Quantum Graphite has extended its land grab at the Uley project in South Australia, increasing the ground area to 117 square kilometres at the site near the State’s historic fishing town of Port Lincoln. The company is on the hunt for deposits of flake graphite to supply the critical mineral into its Sunlands Power joint venture for conversion into thermal energy storage cells.

This week’s Bulls N’ Bears Runner of the Week is … lithium. The silvery-white metal is back in the headlines for all the right reasons, pumping the share prices of several companies, including Arcadium Lithium, which is at the centre of a takeover bid by Rio Tinto. Kali Metals also spiked on the lithium trend, while Rimfire Pacific Mining and Rhythm Biosciences also ran hard.

Aurumin has pocketed a cash boost of $500,000 for the sale to private company Newcam Minerals of an exclusive six-month option on the iron ore rights at its Central Sandstone gold project in WA. Newcam will conduct due diligence across the site that consists of three mining leases and it may lead to a JV agreement between the two parties, resulting in a further $500,000 payment.

De Grey Mining has invested $7 million to achieve its minimum first-stage spend at Novo Resources’ Egina gold project in Western Australia’s Pilbara region, with a further $18 million to be tipped in to create a joint venture operation. The earn-in is part of a required $25 million cash plunge within four years to create the 50:50 equal share at the site.

Surefire Resources has confirmed it has secured clearance to launch an 11-hole, 2200m maiden drilling campaign at its recently-discovered Phat Boy copper prospect in Western Australia’s Mid West region. The prospective ground consists of four coincident copper-zinc anomalous zones and is interpreted to sit within a similar geological and structural setting to the world-class Golden Grove massive sulphide deposit.