Announcements

ABx Group has signed a joint venture agreement with Alumin to develop its Sunrise bauxite mine and port project. The mine is expected to have a 20-year life and provide 50 direct local jobs. Situated 115km from Bundaberg Port in Queensland it is anticipated the mine will initially export 500,000 tonnes per year of metallurgical grade bauxite, scaling up to 2 million tonnes per year.

After months of Covid-impacted labour shortages, Buru Energy has begun the process of well testing at its Rafael 1 oil and gas well in WA’s Canning Basin. The company has started the clean up process in anticipation of turning the taps on, opening up the valves and finally ascertaining definitive flow rates from November’s ‘wet gas’ discovery. A robust result could lead to Buru’s second major development in the area.

Canadian listed gold producer Novo Resources Corporation has struck high grade gold up to a serious 91 grams per tonne, or nearly 3 ounces to the tonne, through rock chip sampling at the historic Pilgrims Rest gold mine within the company’s Station peak prospect in Western Australia. Other notable high grade rock chips were 30 g/t gold, 13 g/t gold and 12 g/t gold.

Tambourah has captured 17 priority targets in its battery metals search after a detailed data analysis of the Wongan Hills South project in the Wheatbelt region of Western Australia. The targets were generated using available geophysics and the project’s database. The Wongan Hills South project is part of Tambourah’s larger Julimar North project in what is fast emerging as Australia’s most exciting PGE-nickel-copper-cobalt mineral field.

Cyclone Metals has acquired six exploration projects in New Zealand covering gold, copper, nickel and platinum group elements. Highlights include the Muirs project containing 222,000 ounces of gold near the 45 million ounce Hauraki goldfield. At the Mareburn project drill hits include 10m at 2.4 g/t gold and it is only 8km from the 10-million-ounce Macraes gold mine.

CZR Resources has received assays from the first 55 holes of a larger drill campaign that indicate the potential for a massive upgrade to direct shipping iron ore resources at Robe Mesa in the Pilbara. Resource increases are anticipated from extensive mineralized hits outside current resource blocks and from the lower ore horizon below existing pit designs.

Trigg Mining is set to directly benefit from $678 million in government funding earmarked to upgrade “The Outback Way” linking Laverton in WA to Winton in Queensland. The funding will be used to seal the road extending from 40km east of Laverton to the WA-NT border, passing through Trigg’s tenure connecting the company’s developing Lake Throssel potash project with key domestic and international export markets.

ASX-listed Metal Hawk has lit up a string of bedrock conductors, potentially pointing to the presence of massive nickel sulphides following a ground electromagnetic survey at its Berehaven project located some 20km southeast of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia. Several of the identified conductors lie along strike from the company’s exciting massive nickel-sulphide Commodore discovery which has returned assays up to 5.89 per cent nickel.

Godolphin Resources has dated the mineralisation at its Turrawonga prospect within its Copper Hill East project in NSW which it says is remarkably similar to the massive Cadia and Boda copper-gold discoveries in the region. The company believes its porphyry intrusions date back to the Ordovician age, the same age as many major discoveries that hug the lucrative Molong Volcanic Belt in NSW.

Strickland Metals is hitting its Millrose gold project in WA hard with three drill rigs to remain on site for much of 2022. Drilling is currently focused on laterite hosted gold near surface and strike and depth extensions are key targets in a big push to add to the existing 603,000-ounce gold resource ahead of the development of a mining plan.

Surefire Resources may be poised to unwrap a parcel of polymetallic treasures after a high−resolution aeromagnetic survey and first-pass exploration work at its Kadji Project in the West Yilgarn region of WA confirmed the presence of nickeliferous ultramafic lithologies. The project is considered highly prospective for nickel, copper and platinum group elements and is in the same province as Chalice Mining’s Julimar Gonneville discovery.

Infill drilling by ASX-listed PolarX at its Caribou Dome copper deposit in Alaska has returned assays hitting an eye-watering 15 per cent copper underscoring the uber high-grade potential at the project. One notable intercept returned 19.09 metres at 7 per cent copper from 45m downhole and contained a high-grade interval of 3.98m going a staggering 14.8 per cent copper.

ASX-listed Okapi Resources has expanded its US uranium portfolio after staking more than 460 claims covering 3,600 hectares to acquire the high-grade Maybell Uranium project in Colorado. According to the company, the tenements boast historical production figures of 5.3 million pounds of uranium trioxide with a cracking average grade of around 1,300 parts per million.

Junior nickel explorer St George Mining has identified a strong off-hole conductor through down hole electromagnetic surveying nearby another at its Mt Alexander nickel-copper project in WA it believes may be a potential 70m long conductive horizon. The company says the off-hole conductivity readings are interpreted to be consistent with massive nickel-copper sulphide mineralisation and could represent an exploration breakthrough at the project.

Empire Energy’s exploration grants, rescinded by the Federal Court of Australia in late 2021, have been reinstated by the Federal Government providing almost $20 million in funding to Beetaloo Basin exploration. The package will cover 25 per cent of the cost of seismic data acquisition in addition to the drilling, fracture stimulation and flow testing of three horizontal appraisal wells.

ASX-listed junior explorer Askari Metals has capped off the second phase of drilling at its prospective Burracoppin gold project in Western Australia’s eastern wheatbelt. The company completed 1,300 metres over 13 reverse circulation holes following on from a number of significant strikes in the first pass. The junior has its eyes on a third round as it keenly awaits assay results.

Newfield Resources has appointed Charl Barnard as General Manager of its Tongo diamond mine in Sierra Leone. The new GM will hold the tiller as Newfield heads for diamond production. The Tongo diamond mine comprises two adjacent mining licenses covering a combined 134 square kilometres in eastern Sierra Leone. It has an indicated and inferred diamond resource estimate of 8.3 million carats.

Venus Metals Corporation, together with joint venture partner Rox Resources has continued its golden run of high tenor drill hits after a fresh set of results from recent work at the company’s flagship Youanmi gold project in WA. Notable results from recent drilling include 3.25 metres grading a formidable 32.22 grams per tonne gold from 282m downhole and 4m going 10.91 g/t gold from 196m downhole.

Mixed metals explorer Kairos Minerals could be onto lithium at its wholly owned Lalla Rookh Project, located in the East Pilbara region of Western Australia. The company has unveiled a suite of lithium-caesium-tantalum pegmatite targets that it says forms part of an ongoing battery metals hunt aimed at beefing up its new energy portfolio amid a ravenous global market for all things lithium.

Torian Resources has dished up further high-grade gold hits from recent resource and extensional drilling at its flagship Mt Stirling/Viserion project approximately 40km northwest of Leonora in WA that continues to consistently produce high tenor results. Notable recent results include 1 metre grading 5.57 grams per tonne gold from 20m downhole, 5m at 7.79 g/t gold from 194m and 2m going 15.21 g/t gold from 195m.

ASX-listed junior explorer Javelin Minerals has secured a further 72 sq kms of territory at its Mt Ida-Ida Valley project in a region currently under the microscope of other juniors for its multi-element mineralisation. The Mt Ida-Ida Valley project covers approximately 972 square kilometres in total of highly prospective ground about 100 kilometres west of Leonora in WA.

King River Resources will pick up a hefty $452,831 rebate from the federal government for research and development costs spent developing its high purity aluminium precursor compounds for application in the flourishing lithium-ion battery industry. Using the company’s proprietary “ARC” processing technology, three separate trials of a newly commissioned lab scale pilot plant have delivered a “Type 1” precursor aluminium salt at more than 99.999 per cent purity.

Junior explorer Meeka Gold has entered the rare earths game following the acquisition of the Cascade project that boasts a huge 2,068 square kilometre landholding in the emerging province along the Albany-Fraser mobile belt in southwest Western Australia. Neighbouring explorers have had successes in the region with the most notable being Mount Ridley Mines who intersected peak grades up to 10,461 parts per million rare earths.

ASX-listed junior explorer Askari Metals has launched an accelerated exploration program at the Barrow Creek Lithium project in the Arunta Pegmatite Province of the Northern Territory. The work will investigate the outcropping lithium pegmatites identified in an earlier round of field reconnaissance. Initial sampling found the rocks running up to 817 parts per million lithium oxide.

ASX-listed Calidus Resources has spun out a new company, Pirra Lithium, together with Haoma Mining with the aim of focusing exploration primarily on the most prospective lithium ground in the Calidus and Haoma portfolios. The lithium rights tenure granted totals 1,063 square kilometres with the two companies each owning an equal share of the newly created venture.

Oar Resources is poised to return to an early-stage, gold-focused diamond drilling campaign at its Douglas Canyon project in Nevada in the United States after adverse weather conditions and the festive season break paused the program. According to the company, the area to be examined has been expanded during the recess with new claims staked in the west.

Alaskan explorer 88 Energy has increased its American presence with the purchase of a 75 per cent stake of Texas oil player Big Horn Energy who is currently producing around 300 barrels of Permian Basin oil per day. The company will spend US$9.7 million to take a majority share of Bighorn Energy’s 32 wells across nine leasehold areas and is targeting a doubling of production by year’s end.

Allup Silica is poised for a March 2022 listing on the ASX and is aiming to raise $5 million to supercharge its resource definition drilling efforts across its four WA based high-purity silica sands projects. The company has been quietly accumulating high-quality, low impurity silica sands projects near shipping ports across the southwest and Kimberley regions of WA over the last two years.

ASX-listed Trigg Mining is eyeing a seat at the table amongst global sulphate of potash producers as it shifts gears from fertiliser explorer to developer. The company is progressing a pre-feasibility study to develop its flagship Lake Throssell project east of Laverton in WA that it says should see it muscle its way into the top ten SOP producers club globally.

Toronto-listed gold miner and explorer Novo Resources has unveiled a series of “high-order” soil sampling assay results from exploration work completed late last year at its Nunyerry North gold prospect in the West Pilbara region of WA. According to the company the work has advanced its understanding of the region’s prospectivity ahead of additional sampling and drill testing.

Home and hygiene products business Pental Ltd has delivered a bumper $5.27 million net profit after tax driven in part by last year’s acquisition of online hamper and gifting specialist, Hampers with Bite. Revenue from Hampers in the four months since its August acquisition was higher than the unit’s entire FY21 sales, pushing the bottom line up 82.5 per cent.

Northern Minerals has been refining its heavy rare earths processing systems using a specialised pilot plant that could see the company become the world’s first serious heavy rare earth producer outside of China. Northern has an expanding dysprosium and terbium resource base at its flagship Browns Range project. Both products are critical in the manufacture of permanent magnets in an electric vehicle motor.