Announcements

Meeka Metals is set to plunge 22,500m worth of underground and grade-control drilling into its Murchison gold project in WA’s Mid West in a bid to unveil new mining areas to help fill its recently-expanded processing capacity. Management has also confirmed a new drill-for-equity deal with contractor Topdrill as it looks to assess high-grade plunging shoots beneath oxide open pits at its Turnberry mine.

Larvotto Resources is ready to roar into a highly-anticipated drilling campaign at its wholly-owned Hillgrove gold-antimony project in New South Wales after securing the required drill permits to launch the work. The company has designed the program to test a significant geochemical anomaly south of its Clarks Gully deposit and will conduct infill drilling with 20m spacing to enhance its confidence in the resource.

Radiopharm Theranostics has secured the services of United States-based Dr Dimitris Voliotis as its new chief medical officer in a bid to advance the company’s novel fight against aggressive cancers. Dr Voliotis comes to the company with almost 20 years of experience under his belt in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors across the US and Europe and has also spent 12 years pursuing academic research.

ASX-listed Lithium Universe has joined forces with the traditional landowners of the site near Québec City in Canada where the company is planning to construct its Bécancour Lithium Refinery. Management has formed a joint committee with the W8banaki Nation’s tribal council to assist with site impact assessment and the construction of the facility while it completes a definitive feasibility study for the project.

St George Mining has beefed up its in-country leadership in Brazil – and its environmental credentials – by securing a pair of renowned niobium experts as it completes the acquisition of the high-grade, niobium-rich Araxá rare earths project in the State of Minas Gerais. The company says its new appointments add a combined four decades worth of experience in managing mining operations in Brazil.

Chariot Corporation has struck some intriguing mineralisation during exploration at its Black Mountain project in the United States, suggesting it may be homing in on a high-grade lithium source, which early evidence suggests may be lurking beneath. The company has confirmed the presence of rubidium in feldspar crystals, which is often a pathfinder to lithium-caesium-tantalum (LCT) mineralisation, with high ratios of potassium-to-rubidium being a further source of encouragement.

Thunderbird Resources has kicked off its maiden drilling campaign for uranium in Canada’s world-renowned Athabasca Basin. The initial 2400m program will test five high-priority basement-hosted targets at the company’s flagship Hidden Bay project. Hidden Bay sits within 40km of two of the Athabasca’s – and consequently the world’s – most successful uranium mines, Cigar Lake and Rabbit Lake.

Legend Mining is preparing the diamond drill bit after identifying six important electromagnetic geophysical nickel-copper conductors at its Octagonal prospect within Western Australia’s Fraser Range. The company believes its newly-discovered conductors relate to and potentially extend the mineralised eastern margin of the Octagonal intrusive – part of its Rockford project – where previous drilling has already delivered multiple nickel-copper sulphide intercepts.

Oil and gas explorer 88 Energy is expecting imminent results on oil samples from the Hickory-1 discovery well at its flagship Phoenix project in Alaska, with a contingent resource estimate expected before year’s end. The oil sample tests are expected to help the company’s commercialisation planning at Phoenix and results are expected to be returned this financial quarter.

In this week’s edition of Bulls N’ Bears Big Hits, we examine some of the notable drill intersections revealed on the ASX, including Mako Gold’s 7m at 5.39g/t gold from 87m at its Napié project in Côte d’Ivoire. We also take a close look at other drill hits from last week as reported by Sunshine Metals in Queensland and West African Resources in Burkina Faso.

Larvotto Resources has cited China’s recent decision to install export bans on antimony as a key reason behind its 100 per cent share price surge and increased trading volumes since Friday’s ASX market open. However, the company has also made its own luck, purchasing the Hillgrove mine in NSW six months ago for $8 million, including a $5 million environmental bond.

Javelin Minerals has identified a host of copper-gold exploration targets at its Coogee project in the St Ives goldfield in Western Australia after independent and collaborative reviews of reprocessed geophysical and other data. Recently-defined drill sites include a gold-copper target indicated by a high-intensity magnetic anomaly 300m north of the Coogee open pit and potentially down-dip from the company’s Coogee North mineralisation.

White Cliff Minerals has dished up more promising rock-chip samples from a maiden program at its Great Bear Lake project in Canada, including hits of up to 42 per cent copper, 17.4g/t gold and 716g/t silver. Management believes the discovery of consistent high-grade copper, gold and silver occurrences across a relatively small portion of the project underscores the district's significance.

Hot on the heels of kicking off the oil well pad construction at the Rafael Shallow 1 project in Western Australia’s Canning Basin earlier this week, Buru Energy has named David Maxwell as the company’s new chairman. Maxwell will replace retiring chairman and founding shareholder Eric Streitberg, who is regarded as an industry stalwart after compiling a 50-year career.

Novo Resources has opened the gates to further exploration activities at its priority Bamboo and Miralga projects in Western Australia’s East Pilbara region after securing a key Aboriginal heritage agreement. The agreement with traditional landowners will facilitate the company’s exploration activities across some 1500 square kilometres of its East Pilbara titles and will include non-ground-disturbing surface work such as mapping and geochemistry.

This week’s Bulls N’ Bears Runner of the Week is … LiveHire. Its share price jumped 95.83 per cent on news of it entering a bid implementation agreement for an all-cash takeover offer priced at 4.5 cents per share – an impressive 75.8 per cent premium to its 30-day volume-weighted average price (VWAP). Other movers and shakers this week were Artemis Resources, LTR Pharma and Noxopharm.

Allup Silica has beefed up the leadership team tasked with producing a prefeasibility study on its mineral sands project in Western Australia's Eucla Basin by installing Simon Finnis as its new managing director. The company has also added experienced mineral sands operator Peter Secker as a non-executive director as it ramps up its plans to develop the McLaren valuable heavy mineral sands project.

Kalgoorlie Gold Mining is all cashed up and raring to rip into a new air-core drilling program to follow up shallow gold targets identified in its first probing of the Wessex deposit within its Pinjin project in WA. The program will entail 4500m of AC drilling in KalGold’s bid to further assess results from Wessex just three months ago that included 28m at 1.27g/t gold.

Infinity Mining is stretching its wings into multiple new gold, copper and other base metal projects in NSW, Victoria and Tasmania, with ground acquisitions from two vendors covering more than 2000 square kilometres. The projects are well-situated near other mining operations and come with extensive datasets and existing workings that will assist the company to quickly gain a rapid foothold on exploration and development.

American West Metals has paved the way for a resource upgrade and extension for its Cyclone deposit in Canada, with notable new drill hits including 19.8m at 1.2 per cent copper and 3g/t silver from just 12.2m. That intercept includes 4.6m going 3 per cent copper and 7g/t silver from 21.3m and a 3m slice running 3.2 per cent copper and 8.5g/t silver from 59.4m.

Australia’s Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) has given its approval for a powerful Japanese consortium consisting of Sumitomo Metal Mining and Mitsubishi Corporation to join forces with Ardea Resources for the development of the Goongarrie Hub operation within the latter’s giant Kalgoorlie Nickel Project (KNP) in Western Australia’s Goldfields region. A joint venture (JV) agreement was signed by the three parties in April this year.

Estrella Resources has applied for four additional exploration and evaluation licenses, identified as containing rich outcropping manganese, in Timor-Leste’s Baucau municipality. The new coastal licenses, which are 8km west of the company’s existing grounds, cover an area of 194.4 square kilometres. If granted, the additional prospects would bring Estrella’s total landholding in the country to nearly 700 square kilometres.

Latitude 66 has found evidence of high-grade gold hits after digging through historical data from its K8 target in northern Finland and says the findings support the company’s previous strong assay results and is further evidenced through recent geophysical work at the site. The data was previously compiled from drilling campaigns run by the Geological Survey of Finland (GTK) and former project owner Belvedere Resources.

Buru Energy and Sabre Energy have kicked off oil well pad construction at their Rafael Shallow 1 joint venture in Western Australia’s Canning Basin. The launch of the civil works for the project, which will be completed ahead of well spudding in late September, follows the receipt of heritage and environmental approvals and Sabre’s recent $6 million commitment to drilling and testing costs.

GreenTech Metals’ recent downhole electromagnetic survey at its Whundo project in WA’s Pilbara region has identified a big conductor plate measuring 400m long and between 50m and 100m wide at its Shelby target. It comes after Fox Resources’ geophysical work in 2006 picked up a deep conductor associated with a weak magnetic response at Shelby, about 500m north of the old Whundo open pit.

Terrain Minerals’ geophysics have identified five conductors at its Lort River project near Esperance in Western Australia that show the potential for sulphide mineralisation analogous to IGO’s renowned Nova-Bollinger deposits in the same mineral belt. Two of the conductors lie on the western periphery of a prominent “eye-shaped” aeromagnetic imagery feature that may also signify a mineralised mafic intrusive.

A first batch of rock chip samples revealing an eye-watering 42.6 per cent copper and an impressive 38.2 grams per tonne gold at White Cliff Minerals’ newly-named Phoenix district, within its Great Bear Lake project in northern Canada, has management convinced it could be on the precipice of not one, but two major, high-grade copper discoveries in the near-term.

American West Metals’ recent metallurgical testwork on copper-mineralised sample material from its Cyclone and Chinook deposits at its Storm project in Canada has successfully generated what it says is commercial-grade direct shipping ore. The testwork employed a two-circuit ore-sorting and inline pressure jig stream, which was shown to produce a range of direct shipping copper concentrate grades with good yields.

Buxton Resources has wheeled in a reverse-circulation drill rig at its Graphite Bull play in Western Australia’s Gascoyne region, eager to unveil the full extent of thick graphitic mineralisation intersected from a recent diamond program. The company says it has squared away several strategic deals, with its drilling and earthworks contractors to partly fund the 5500m program.

With Galan Lithium’s phase one pond inventories now sitting at 3200 tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) – up 15 per cent from last month – and its fourth and fifth ponds nearing completion, the company has continued to make strong inroads at its Hombre Muerto West lithium brine project in the Catamarca region of Argentina as it continues to push forward with finance and offtake agreements.

In this week’s edition of Bulls N’ Bears Big Hits, we examine some of the notable drill intersections revealed on the ASX, including Wildcat Resources’ Tabba Tabba run of 67m at 1.9 per cent lithium oxide. We also look at other interesting intercepts as reported by Rumble Resources from its Western Queen project in WA and Strickland Metals at its Rogozna project in Serbia.

Meeka Metals has filled its pockets to the tune of nearly $360,000, after it was awarded a research-and-development Federal Government rebate for rare earths works undertaken at its Circle Valley project near Esperance in Western Australia. The company qualified for the rebate through its metallurgical studies, experimental set-up and leaching of clay-hosted rare earths from the Circle Valley operation.