Announcements

Podium Minerals has kicked off the new year on a high after diamond drill holes sunk just prior to Christmas were shown to have intersected a thick sequence of mineralisation at its Parks Reef platinum group elements project in the Mid West region of WA. The news provided a perfect start for incoming CEO Sam Rodda who took up the reins on 1 January.

King River Resources has shored up its high purity aluminium precursor compounds in a bid to supply the increasing demand from the lithium-ion battery industry. A fourth run through of the company’s proprietary “ARC” processing technology using its newly commissioned pilot plant has now surpassed original expectations consistently creating a “Type 1” precursor aluminium salt grading exceeding an incredible 99.999 per cent purity.

Venture Minerals has ensured its Mount Lindsay tin-tungsten project in Tasmania is fully funded to completion after it netted $6 million from a heavily oversubscribed share purchase plan. The recently raised funds compliment a $4.25 million war-chest raised through a December private placement. The money will also go towards an updated feasibility study and additional testing of its Mount Lindsay targets.

ASX-listed Neometals is on course to enter the sizzling electric vehicle, or “EV” battery recycling market in North America after its joint venture company, Primobius GmbH rubber stamped an agreement to commercialise its recycling technology with Canadian steelmaking juggernaut Stelco Holdings. According to Neometals, the region is the fastest growing sector for lithium battery production.

Torian Resources has continued its run of gold hits at its 100 per cent owned Mt Stirling project in the Eastern Goldfields of WA that extends its mineralised gold envelope up-dip towards surface. The latest results from its massive 17,500m campaign include a 4 metre section grading 4.76 grams per tonne from 70m downhole, 4m going 1.97 g/t gold from 8m and 7m at 0.78 g/t gold from 42m downhole.

Surefire Resources is set to kick off the new year with a fresh bit of kit after picking up close to 160 square kilometres of prospective gold ground, some 300km from Perth. The company says its newly acquired tenement is significantly underexplored and that historical soil sampling delivered grades of up to 1 gram per tonne of anomalous gold.

Altech Chemicals has moved closer to the development of a battery material coating plant in Germany after its subsidiary, AIG inked a MoU with two European lithium-ion battery grade anode material suppliers.

Buru Energy remains on track with its drilling program at the Ungani 8H horizontal development well designed to lift production levels at its cash-generating Canning Basin oil field in Western Australia. The company reported it has now passed the 1000 metre mark towards a target depth of 2560m with operations proceeding as planned and there were no adverse incidents to report.

JV partners DiscovEx Resources and Carnaby Resources look to have made it onto Santa’s nice list after drilling at their Greater Duchess project near Mt Isa in Queensland outlined an “extremely” high-grade copper-gold discovery. ASX-listed Carnaby Resources, which owns the majority rights to the project, says the results are summarised as 41 metres at 4.1 per cent copper with 0.5 grams per tonne gold from 274m.

Triangle Energy, operator of the Perth Basin’s only offshore oilfield, is hoping the recent run of company-making onshore gas finds will breathe new life into the drilling prospects near its Cliff Head field. The Perth Basin ‘deep gas’ resurgence has reinvigorated exploration across the Basin, kicking off drilling programs, company takeovers and breathing new promise into a number of companies.

Newfield Resources has retired approximately $40 million worth of corporate bond debt and roughly $2.1m of associated accrued interest for its Tongo diamond mine in Eastern Sierra Leone. Additionally, the company raised $12.5 million through a capital raise with the combined exercise significantly strengthening its balance sheet and reducing long-term bond debt to zero.

Venus Metals Corporation has tallied some impressive gold recovery rates with an average of 92.2 per cent gold extraction from metallurgical testwork on its Youanmi Deeps mineralisation near Sandstone in WA. Venus, together with its joint venture partner, Rox Resources, trialled a series of treatment methods and decided the Albion process is the preferred treatment to deliver high gold yields with low overall cost.

Junior explorer, Torian Resources has scooped a slew of high-grade gold hits at its flagship Mt Stirling gold project, some 40km north-west of Leonora in WA. The company struck a 10m intersection at 3.59 grams per tonne gold from 12m including a 3m hit grading 7.9 g/t gold from 14m in the first planned drillhole at its Mt Stirling-Viserion resource.

Quantum Graphite will incorporate the 50 per cent return from its new joint venture partner, Sunland Co’s thermal storage media manufacturing business using Quantum’s flake graphite for assembly within its thermal energy storage cells. The technology is at the forefront of a blossoming ‘long-duration energy storage’ industry that is becoming central in providing stability and flexibility to energy grids increasingly reliant on renewable power.

ASX-listed Neometals has moved a step closer to production at its massive Barrambie titanium-vanadium deposit after commissioning a gravity beneficiation plant at Menzies in Western Australia to produce titanium-rich gravity concentrate samples for offtake evaluation trials. The company will produce and ship around 150 tonnes of the concentrate to Chinese titanium slag producer Jiuxing Titanium Materials for commercial scale trials early next year.

ASX-listed, Blackstone Minerals has delivered a cracking 73 per cent lift to its nickel resource base at its multi-deposit Ta Khoa nickel, copper and platinum group elements project in northern Vietnam. A global resource base at the project taking in four deposits now clocks in at a hefty 130 million tonnes grading 0.37 per cent nickel for an eye-catching 485,000 tonnes of contained nickel.

Twenty Seven Co has wrapped up a 31 hole RC drill program that intersected a 4m envelope of massive sulphides at its Rover gold project approximately 25 kilometres southeast of Sandstone in WA. The company says Rover has the potential to host volcanogenic massive sulphide targets given its similar geology and location only 30km north of Cobre Limited’s Perrinvale base metals project.

Toronto-listed conglomerate gold miner, Novo Resources has kicked off ‘Phase 2’ mechanical sorter trials of bulk samples taken from its Comet Well, Purdy’s Reward, Egina and Talga Talga gold projects in the Pilbara region of WA. The sorter and its infrastructure are designed for deployment at Novo’s array of projects to produce gold-bearing concentrates on site in a single pass for further upgrading or downstream processing.

Venus Metals Corporation has bolstered its already overflowing suite of high-grade gold hits with a series of solid gold intercepts from recent resource drilling at its Youanmi gold joint venture project in WA. Notable results include 3m grading 7.2 grams per tonne gold from 131m downhole, 2m going 8.16 g/t gold from 183m and 2m at 6.78 g/t gold from 127m downhole.

Mineral exploration company, Coda Minerals has delivered more cracking copper hits at its exciting Emmie Bluff Deeps IOCG-style copper discovery in South Australia. New intercepts from one hole returned two mineralised intervals of 26.9m grading 1.95 per cent copper from 803.5m and 41.8m going 1.21 per cent copper from 911.5m to grow the high-grade bornite zone at the prospect.

Horizon Minerals’ toll milling of stockpiled low-grade ore from its Boorara open pit mine in the historic WA Goldfields has yielded profitable results, with the company banking $770,000 from the initial campaign of 69,700 tonnes milled at a reconciled grade of 0.92 grams per tonne gold for 1,857 ounces. It said its second campaign was underway and due to be completed in January.

Lithium Australia’s battery recycling venture took a critical step forward after its 90 per cent owned subsidiary Envirostream was given the all-clear to open a second battery recycling plant in Laverton, Victoria. According to the company, its latest work puts it ahead of demand for electric vehicles and energy-storage system battery dismantling.

Middle Island has kicked off a detailed magnetics and radiometrics survey over its prospective Barkly copper-gold project area located in the emerging Tennant Creek mineral hub in the Northern Territory. The company is also marching forward with the Crosswinds copper discovery, also in the NT having recently completed a 2 kilometre IP survey following up on initial copper oxide mineralisation identified in October.

St George Mining has brought forward a drilling campaign designed to pierce two recently identified high priority nickel-copper sulphide targets at its Mt Alexander project in the north-eastern Goldfields of WA. According to the company, both deeper seismic targets have a geophysical signature consistent with its Investigators prospect where shallower drilling recently returned a sizzling 8.49m hit grading 5.8 per cent nickel and 2.6 per cent copper.

Superior Resources has intersected sulphide mineralisation in its third consecutive drill hole targeting a large, induced polarisation anomaly at the company’s Bottletree Copper prospect within its Greenvale project in Queensland. The company believes it may be onto a potential porphyry system west of the induced polarisation anomaly indicated by an enormous 1.5km by 1km intense copper and gold soil anomaly coincident with a large magnetic feature.

White Cliff Minerals has wrapped up the heritage survey over its 100 per cent owned McCaskill Hill and Cracker Jack prospects, with further sampling and drilling planned for the wider Reedy South Gold Project. The company is planning to assemble a number of mineable ore bodies in the Reedy’s South Gold Project area, which can collectively underpin commercial operations.

Perth-based gold-miner Wiluna Mining is ringing in the new year with the successful commissioning of the sulphide ore concentrate plant at its namesake project in WA. As part of its major production ramp-up plan the company is looking to treat 750,000tpa through the plant as it targets 90,000-100,000ozpa of gold in concentrate production by the end of the 2022 financial year.

Venus Metals Corporation has uncovered anomalous rare earth, gold and palladium mineralisation at its Mangaroon North project abutting Dreadnought’s prospective nickel-copper-PGE rich tenure in the Gascoyne region of Western Australia. Initial geochemical reconnaissance surveying has outlined multiple target areas that Venus is planning to extensively explore through geochemical sampling, geophysical surveying and drill testing during 2022.

Oar Resources says the maiden exploration program at its Douglas Canyon Gold Project in the US has yielded “very encouraging” initial results which included intersecting a massive 213m silica matrix brecciated quartz vein. Laboratory results from Douglas Canyon, located in the prolific Walker Lane Gold-Silver district of Nevada, are expected in the new year.

The boards of St Barbara Ltd and its smaller peer Bardoc Gold Ltd have announced a $157 million buyout of Bardoc with St Barbara now set to acquire all the shares in Bardoc by way of a scheme of arrangement, at an almost 30 per cent premium to last Friday’s closing share price. Bardoc’s proposed Woodie Woodie manganese spinout would still proceed, according to the companies.

Brightstar Resources continues to deliver sparkling results with significant shallow gold intercepts at its flagship Cork Tree Well prospect near Laverton in WA. The latest strikes include 26m going 2.97 g/t gold from 111m downhole and 17m at a respectable 3.09 g/t gold from 139m. These intersections are wider than the previous intercepts but still maintain similar metal tenor.

Kalgoorlie Gold Mining has spied out a gold target east of Kalgoorlie that it identified through geophysical interpretation. The same areas have recently turned up some cracking gold nuggets and the company is now planning a 3,000 metre-plus RC drill program to test the new target area. It also plans to drill test other established gold prospects that showed promising first pass drilling results.