Doug Bright

Lindian Resources has topped up its coffers with a double shot of cash totalling just under $1.65 million from the exercise of 10M unlisted options at $0.12 per share for $1.2M and a $448,753 R&D refund. The federal Research and Development Tax Incentive Program refund is for Lindian’s process development and metallurgical testwork conducted to improve beneficiation at its massive Kangankunde rare earths project in Malawi.

Meeka Metals has kicked off its much-anticipated plant commissioning, navigating a decisive moment when ore is first fed into the plant, paving the way for first gold from its gravity circuit later this month. Meeka’s commissioning team is onsite at the company’s Murchison project, 50km north of Meekatharra, working with the construction and processing crews to ensure everything is fault-free and at or coming up to specification.

Bulls N’ Bears Big Hits examines some notable drill intercepts revealed on the ASX, including Sunshine Metals’ one-ounce-per-tonne gold hit from 41m, which included 2m at 3.9 ounces per tonne gold. Other interesting drill hits from last week were reported from Variscan Mines’ Udias lead-zinc mine in northern Spain and PVW Resources’ Capao Bonito rare earths project in Brazil.

Meeka Metals continues to expand its shallow high-grade oxide gold zones immediately south of its stage one Turnberry Central open pit at its Murchison gold project, 50km north of Meekatharra. The company’s best intercept of 30m assaying 1.09g/t gold from 29m, including 9m at 2.45g/t gold, follows a 10m run at 5.2g/t gold from 37m, including 2m going 23.23g/t gold reported last month.

Kalgoorlie Gold Mining will run high-resolution geophysics across about 9.5 square kilometres enclosing prospective sites at its Pinjin gold project, 140 kilometres north-northeast of Kalgoorlie. The company plans to launch the sub-audio magnetic survey in mid-June to better define sub-surface geological structures and mineralised zones mainly under extensive surface cover.

Encouraged by a surging gold price, GreenTech Metals has identified significant gold associated with the copper in a review of more than 50,000 historical samples from its Whundo copper-zinc project in WA’s West Pilbara. The review of more than 1195 holes has uncovered a best intercept of 1m at 64.7g/t gold from 47m at the south end of a 2km-long mineralised trend. The findings could open the door to near-term production.

Dual-listed Dateline Resources’ share price has gone ballistic in the US, after the company’s latest modelling showed its Colosseum gold project in California is surrounded by a huge felsite-breccia pipe complex. The company will run new geophysical surveys in June to stack up evidence for new drilling targets for gold resource growth and to potentially delineate a rare earths ore body for the project.

Meeka Metals expects to pour its first gold in the coming weeks, having recently passed key plant pre-commissioning milestones at the company’s expanded Murchison gold project. Meeka now has an energised and refurbished processing plant after it commissioned an onsite power station and has expanded its accommodation village so that its open pit and underground mines can work concurrently.

Meeka Metals continues its indomitable run of high-grade, shallow, open-pittable gold numbers from its flagship Murchison gold project near Meekatharra in Western Australia, with 10m at 5.20g/t gold, including 2m at 23.23g/t. That headline hit began at 37m downhole depth in Meeka’s latest resource expansion drilling program, south of its Turnberry Central stage one oxide pit design.

Terrain Minerals’ Larin’s Lane gallium-rare earths project is fast advancing, with studies now underway as part of a WA industry and government-funded research project that ultimately aims to develop a reliable supply of REEs in the state. The Larin’s Lane collaboration will also offer insights into the economics of emerging REE extraction techniques and the potential for strategic mineral by-products, which could benefit WA.

Bulls N’ Bears Big Hits examines some notable drill intercepts recently revealed on the ASX, including White Cliff Minerals’ 58m hit of 3.08% copper and 13.3g/t silver at its Canadian Rae project. Other interesting drill hits were reported from Benz Mining Corporation’s Glenburgh project in Western Australia’s northwest and from Koonenberry Gold’s Enmore gold project in New South Wales.

Aurum Resources has added two new contiguous permit applications to the southern part of the company’s extensive tenement holdings, which make up its 1.6-million-ounce Boundiali gold project in Cote d'Ivoire. The strategic acquisition, covering 316 square kilometres, extends the overall width of Aurum’s current southern targets to about 52km and could help the company further expand its rapidly growing existing mineral resource.

Titanium explorer McLaren Minerals has completed a phase one drilling program of 192 air core holes for 4067 metres, targeting its high-value McLaren titanium sands project in Western Australia’s Eucla Basin. The program identified extensions of prospective sediments outside the limits of historic resources in three key zones. The biggest southern zone measures about 2600m wide and averages 10m thick, up to 15m maximum.

Aurumin Limited has bagged high-grade hits in its first drilling program since 2013 at its Johnson Range project in the WA Goldfields, with a top hit of 6m grading 16.5g/t gold from 65m. The result includes 3m assaying 32.1g/t gold, with 1m at 76.1g/t gold, putting a shine on the company’s infill and validation program at its current 64,700-ounce Gwendolyn resource.

Aurum Resources continues its stellar run of quality gold intercepts from its Boundiali project in Cote d'Ivoire, nailing a best hit in the latest results of 34 metres assaying 2.32 grams per tonne gold. The hit, from 56m depth in the company’s BDT1 target, includes 9m at an average grade of 5.44g/t gold. A second-best result delivered 48m going 1.27g/t gold from 73m, including 8m running 3.11g/t gold.

In a significant step for the company, lab tests have confirmed Green360 Technology’s new high-reactivity metakaolin is well suited for producing low-carbon cement and low-carbon, high-performance structural concrete. The company produced metakaolin samples from its kaolin resources and deposits that exceed the quality benchmarks of other metakaolin products currently available in Australia.

Larvotto Resources has discovered tungsten lurking in its already economic Hillgrove gold and antimony project in NSW, setting the scene for another payable by-product from the project that is already showing big numbers based on gold and antimony alone. Larvotto has delivered an initial mineral resource estimate for tungsten of 8.77 million tonnes at 0.05% tungsten trioxide at the project for 4774 contained tonnes.

Strickland Metals is picking up the pace at its south Serbian Rogozna gold and base metals project which includes a further 20,000m of drilling at its Gradina target and a slew of new middle managers that are capable of guiding it into production. The company’s pre-development programs have expanded to include environmental baseline surveys, the opening of a local office, well-advanced metallurgical studies and ongoing drilling by six rigs across three targets.

Reach Resources has punched out another 5,800 ounces of shallow gold at its Murchison South project near Paynes Find. The new resource at the company’s Pansy Pit was confirmed by independent consultant Mining Plus and adds to the 61,300 ounces already banked at the Blue Heaven deposit at the project. The combined 67,000 ounces now make a compelling case for toll treating.

Aurum Resources has nailed a series of additional high grades gold hits at its Boundiali Project in Côte d'Ivoire, including 1m at 73.10 grams per tonne from Target 3 in its eastern BM licence, ahead of an expected upgrade to its mineral resource. The company is also working towards a pre-feasibility study at the site which it expects to complete before year’s end.

King River Resources has acquired a new exploration licence, which encloses its Kurundi gold prospect in the Northern Territory and includes possible north-westward extensions from the Kurundi targ

Terrain Minerals is on the cusp of launching a reverse circulation drilling program next week to follow up on the company’s recent discovery of shallow high-grade gold and silver at its Lightning and Monza prospects. The two prospects lie in the northern extremity of its Smokebush project, 350km north of Perth. The drill program co-incides with Terrain’s mid-May ex-date, $1.8M rights issue.

Novo Resources’ recent field exploration activity at its farm-in John Bull gold project in NSW has provided a host of new exploration targets, which the company plans to drill in June. Novo has also extended its known 100ppb soil gold anomaly to more than 1.5km of strike with a peak result of 1.59g/t gold, while sampling of quartz veins has nailed grades of 67.9g/t and 29g/t gold.

Bulls N’ Bears Big Hits examines some recent notable drill intercepts revealed on the ASX, including Riversgold Ltd’s 10m intercept at 8.89g/t gold from 46m, including 1m at 77.96g/t, in the WA Goldfields. Resouro Strategic Metals, Indiana Resources and Chilwa Minerals also reported interesting results that are worth considering.

Askari Metals has entered into a binding agreement to acquire 100% of Rift Valley Metals which owns a gold portfolio of five tenements enclosing 460 square kilometres of highly prospective ground in Ethiopia. The company’s landholdings are within the Adola Greenstone Belt in the under-explored southern segment of the Arabian-Nubian Shield, about 350km south of Ethiopia’s capital of Addis Ababa.

Javelin Minerals has completed a maiden 22-hole reverse circulation drilling program at its recently acquired Eureka gold project, 54km north of Kalgoorlie in WA’s Eastern Goldfields. The 2779m campaign was planned to confirm and possibly expand the existing 2.45Mt JORC-compliant resource, which averages 1.42g/t gold for a contained 112,000 ounces of gold. About 62,000 ounces are in the indicated category.

Great Southern Mining has assayed 3m at 2.55g/t gold from 33m, including 1m at 6.48g/t gold, in the final results from a February RC drilling program at its Golden Boulder East trend at its Duketon project in WA. The hole included a separate 2m hit going 1.81g/t gold from 42m. A second hole probed 1m assaying 1.02g/t gold from 53m and 2m at 1.42g/t gold from 60m.

Latitude 66’s KSB project in Finland is a key part of a wide-scale, European Union-funded geophysical and geological exploration and innovation program hunting for new critical mineral resources. The imminent $9M UNDERCOVER project aims to increase Europe’s raw materials production and will include the Kuusamo Schist Belt, which hosts Latitude’s flagship project.

This edition of Bulls N’ Bears Big Hits singles out an exceptional recent hit. Patriot Battery Metals’ latest caesium discovery in Quebec, Canada, includes a best hit of 5m at 13.2% caesium oxide, while another hole produced a top grade in 1.1m at 26.61% caesium oxide.

Image Resources has shipped its first heavy mineral concentrate from its new Atlas project in the Dandaragan shire, 170km north of Perth, under an existing off-take agreement used for its previous Boonanarring project. The company shipped a nominal 10,000 tonnes of wet HMC from the port of Geraldton last week, just two months after commissioning the plant.

GreenTech Metals has hailed significant results from its first two diamond drill holes at its Whundo volcanogenic copper-zinc project south of Karratha, including 7.14m at 1.46% copper and 1.23% zinc from 277.16m. That intercept from the company’s unmined Austin conductor target includes 6.3m going 1.84% copper and 1.4% zinc from 278m, including 3.45m assaying 2.42% copper and 2.41% zinc from 278m.

Askari Metals’ recent trawl through a historical exploration database at its Uis project in Namibia has identified significant tin, tantalite and rubidium mineralisation within its licence area. The review reveals “exceptionally high” tin, tantalum and rubidium responses from a 492-sample rock chip database, with assays including 3.17% tin oxide, 5226ppm tantalum pentoxide and 0.87% rubidium oxide.