Doug Bright

Lindian Resources has launched a 4000m mine development drilling program at its Kangankunde rare earths project in Malawi in a bid to upgrade about 20 million tonnes of its inferred resource to higher categories before finalising its stage-one pit outline. The company says the campaign is one of the key steps in its transition to production.

Strickland Metals has discovered a new high-grade gold trend at its Horse Well prospect in Western Australia, with its discovery air-core drillhole intersecting 31m at 5.6 grams per tonne gold from 72m to bottom-of-hole, including 8m at 17.7g/t gold. The company says the find was in an area that is not known to have been previously drilled.

Reach Resources has entered into a tenement sale agreement to acquire a new exploration licence from Firebird Metals, extending its grip on prospective manganese terrain in Western Australia’s Edmund Basin. The strategy is in line with the company’s anticipation of increasing global demand for critical lithium, manganese and rare earths in the ongoing global phase of decarbonisation and attendant electrification.

Multiple outcropping lithium-caesium-tantalum (LCT) pegmatites carrying high lithium oxide grades of up to 4.6 per cent have been revealed in follow-up mapping and sampling by Venus Metals at its Deep South prospect within its Youanmi lithium project in Western Australia. The company says broad surrounding caesium-tin anomalism is indicative of an extensive and mostly-hidden granitic and pegmatitic late-phase intrusive system.

When all looked lost for a group of parent hopefuls in India, a groundbreaking piece of Australian medical technology developed by Memphasys has turned their dreams of the pitter-patter of tiny feet into reality. Memphasys confirmed today that after its Felix system led to a baby boy being born in India in April, another 10 families have now welcomed little ones into the world.

Stream geochemical sampling by Gold Mountain at its Cerro Cora-Porta D’Agua project in Brazil has confirmed that lithium anomalies correlate with niobium-tantalum ratios and may help the company identify lithium-rich pegmatites. Management says it found that a fine sample fraction provided better anomaly definition and it used the method’s results in all subsequent analyses and interpretations.

Strickland Metals has kicked off two 3D induced-polarisation surveys at its priority Rabbit Well and Iroquois base metals prospects in Western Australia’s Earaheedy Basin – an emerging metallogenic terrane believed to have tier-one base metal potential. The company says both prospects exhibit coincident geophysical and surface geochemical anomalies and are geologically well-situated for the mineralisation styles it is chasing.

Australian med-tech Chimeric Therapeutics has secured the support of a United States cancer centre for a trial of its “natural killer” cell therapy for newly-diagnosed patients with acute myeloid leukemia. The clinical “Advent_AML” study, designed to enrol up to 20 patients at the University of Texas’ MD Anderson Cancer Center, will include a novel first-time combination with standard-of-care therapy.

ABx Group has installed a pilot-scale bath reactor and an associated support system at its Alcore Technology Centre in NSW to trial the production of hydrogen fluoride from aluminium smelter waste. The chemicals research and manufacturing company has developed a world-first process to produce hydrogen fluoride from a fluoride-rich waste product known as “bath”, which is often produced in excess from aluminium smelting.

BMG Resources has instigated scoping and development studies, in addition to resource definition, expansion and exploration drilling, to develop and expand the 518,000-ounce resource at its Capital deposit in Western Australia. The company also plans to test other gold anomalies south of Capital, which it believes have the potential to deliver more pre-PFS ounces to the project.

ABx Group has locked in a deal that could be worth up to about $9 million for the supply of cement-grade bauxite to South Australian construction materials company Adelaide Brighton Cement’s Birkenhead manufacturing operation. The contract will see ABx supply between 90,000 and 120,000 tonnes of bauxite during a five-year term from its DL130 project in northern Tasmania.

Reach Resources’ maiden reverse-circulation and deep diamond drilling at its Bonzer prospect at Yinnetharra has intersected multiple thick pegmatites in all holes, including some at depth that do not outcrop at surface. The program was run to follow-up extensive soil and rock-chip sampling results that returned significant lithium, caesium and tantalum values. The discovery highlights the potential for significant lithium mineralisation.

GreenTech Metals has confirmed spodumene as the dominant lithium mineral in a single rock-chip sample from its Osborne joint venture ground following x-ray diffraction (XRD) mineral characterisation analysis. Previous chemical analysis had revealed the sample contained a healthy 3.6 per cent lithium oxide, prompting management to confirm its host mineral. Spodumene is the most common host mineral in hard-rock lithium deposits.

An induced-polarisation survey at Strickland Metals’ Great Western project has thrown up a bonzer drill target for the company, with a high-chargeability anomaly centred over coincident gravity, magnetic and geochemical anomalies. Management believes its survey confirms Great Western as a compelling drill target that potentially represents a large-scale high-grade orogenic gold mineralised system at the site that sits 85km north-east of Wiluna.

Kalgoorlie Gold Mining has turned the start key on its Pinjin project in Western Australia’s Eastern Goldfields, with hole collars and drill pads being prepared after management confirmed vital heritage clearance at the site. The company says discussions with traditional owners clarified that there were no Aboriginal heritage sites at either of its Kirgella Gift or Providence prospects and drilling is slated to start soon.

Cancer-fighting cell therapy company Chimeric Therapeutics has finished its fourth and final phase-1A dose escalation study at the City of Hope campus in the United States, with the successful treatment of a third clinical trial cohort using a scorpion venom derivative. The company’s “CHM 1101” (CLTX CAR T) treatment is designed to treat patients with glioblastoma cancers.

Terrain Minerals is eyeing the potential to unearth gallium and germanium to complement the rare earths at its Lort River project near Esperance, where an air-core program recently intersected clay hosts. The 16-hole proof-of-concept program through 300m was designed to test for clay-hosted rare earths and rare semi-conductor mineralisation, with all holes intercepting clay zones to a maximum vertical depth of 38m.

Strickland Metals will kick off a planned heritage survey on October 9 at the company’s Yandal and Earaheedy projects ahead of a planned drill program at what it describes as a compelling but untested gold target. The company seeks heritage clearance across priority areas, with particular focus on its promising Great Western, Rabbit Well and Cowza prospects and other regional gold prospects in the Yandal project.

Brightstar Resources has made the milestone jump from explorer to producer status following the inaugural blast on the cutback of its Selkirk joint venture open-pit mine in Western Australia’s historic Menzies goldfields. Mining is expected to run for about six months, with ore being stockpiled in Menzies, and the company is anticipating its maiden gold pour early next year.

Auric Mining’s first toll milling of ore from its Jeffreys Find mine has yielded 1721 ounces of gold – and more than $5 million in revenue. The company says all mining has been completed, but a package of about 145,000 tonnes of ore is still in haulage for processing. Surplus funds are to be set aside for further development of its Munda project.

Brightstar Resources has its sights set firmly on building its gold resource after revealing results from its latest 2000m reverse-circulation drilling campaign at its Cork Tree Well deposit in the Laverton Gold Belt. The results include 1m at 109.6g/t from 167m and 3m at 8.7g/t from 197m and interpretations show a high probability that a 3km northerly extension to mineralisation exists, requiring immediate follow-up work.

Neometals’ joint venture company Primobius has received an order from Mercedes-Benz to supply a 10-tonne per day lithium-ion battery shredding plant for the global vehicle manufacturing giant’s new recycling operation at Kuppenheim in southern Germany. The “spoke” plant is designed to recover materials that will be recycled into a planned 50,000 battery modules that will be installed into new Mercedes vehicles.

Gold Mountain’s recent trial soil sampling at its Casa Nova project in Brazil has revealed a zone it believes is anomalous in several critical elements including lithium, caesium, beryllium, tin and gallium. The company says it may represent components of a classic pegmatite-hosted lithium, caesium, tantalum (LCT) mineralised system. The trial was conducted on only a small part of the project.

Terrain Minerals has joined the frenetic exploration and drilling fray in Western Australia’s up-and-coming, clay-hosted rare earths province near Esperance. The company has joined the ever-growing rare earths search party in the area by launching a maiden proof-of-concept drilling program after securing heritage approval at its 100 per cent-owned, 320-square-kilometre Lort River project, just 50km north-west of the town.

Sri Lankan government legislation designed to promote its mineral sands industry and exports has delivered a major boost for Titanium Sands and its bold development plans for its project on Mannar Island in the country’s north-east. The recent legislation was brought in to ensure local participation in adding value to related products earmarked for export.

Strickland Metals has begun an induced-polarisation (IP) survey at its Great Western project, about 85km north-east of Wiluna in Western Australia, to explore a promising, but untested coincident magnetic, geochemical and gravity anomaly. The company says the structural setting at the site, which is largely masked by transported cover, is considered favourable for large, high-grade orogenic gold deposits.

Reimagined explorer Lithium Universe Limited will use artificial intelligence to assimilate imagery and data to assist development and optimisation of its exploration strategy at its Apollo lithium project in Canada. The company will use its AI information in concert with other geological data as part of an initial goal to fast-track exploration in its high-latitude project environment, where field-time has traditionally been restricted by the seasons.

Venture Minerals has engaged Curtin University to start stage-two metallurgical testwork on its tin-rich Mount Lindsay borates. The testing follows the CSIRO’s stage-one investigation into the extraction of tin, boron and iron from tin-iron borates, conducted in a bid to enhance tin recovery and produce a high-value boron byproduct to add another revenue stream to the project.

Everest Metals has planted its foot on an extensive multi-commodity area of ground with its recent grant of six new exploration licences covering 3421 square kilometres. They are part of 15 applications in two new project areas, which have distinct but complementary polymetallic characteristics in the Georgina and Amadeus Basins, centred on Alice Springs in the Northern Territory.

Recent surveys by PolarX at its Humboldt Range claims area in Nevada have identified several geophysical anomalies coinciding with surface gold anomalies and faults within both its Black Canyon and Fourth of July projects. At Black Canyon, the survey has extended the priority drill target out to 2.7km of strike, coincident with the Rochester Rhyolite Formation – a known gold-silver host.

Askari Metals has completed a follow-up probe to test the copper-nickel potential indicated by rock sampling results at its promising Callawa project in Western Australia, about 90km north-east of Marble Bar. After running an 18-square-kilometre drone magnetics survey last year, it has now finished an 864-sample auger program to test rock-sample geochemistry that included anomalous copper, silver, nickel and chromium.

Everest Metals believes it is hot on the trail of another DeGrussa-style deposit as it launches a new campaign of three deep diamond holes for 1000m of drilling at its Revere project in Western Australia’s Murchison region. The program will follow up highly-encouraging geological indications and geophysical targets from its recent phase-one deep diamond drilling work at the volcanic-hosted massive sulphide play.