Announcements

Buxton Resources will try to turn a new project in Mohave County into a manganese oasis after today revealing its acquisition of the Matrix project that sits in the north-western region of Arizona. The 12-square-kilometre operation lies adjacent to the world’s sixth-biggest manganese resource in terms of contained metal and expands the company’s push into the electric vehicle critical minerals space.

Horizon Minerals has inked a toll milling agreement with FMR Investments to process 200,000 tonnes of gold ore from its Cannon underground mine at the Greenfields Mill near Coolgardie in Western Australia. The binding agreement comes alive in December, with Horizon arranging contract mining and the 67km haulage of ore to Greenfields by road. Milling is expected to take up to eight months to complete.

Surefire Resources has made a key boardroom addition to help guide its Victory Bore vanadium project in WA’s Mid West after appointing experienced finance specialist Jan De Jager as its new chief executive officer. The company recently released an updated Victory Bore mineral resource estimate of 465 million tonnes at 0.3 per cent vanadium oxide, 5.1 per cent titanium dioxide and 17.7 per cent iron.

Aspiring rare earths developer Red Metal is aiming to stretch its “world-first” Sybella discovery with a new drilling program outside the known mineralisation zone at its project about 20km south-west of Mt Isa in North Queensland. The company is looking to define the potential size of the deposit and its grade, with plans to drill 10,000m using a combination of air-core and percussion drilling.

Resource definition drilling is underway at Everest Metals Corporation’s Mt Edon critical mineral project in WA’s Mid West region in a bid to firm up the existing rubidium exploration target to mineral resource status. The target is between 3.2 and 4.5 million tonnes with a grade of 0.23 to 0.35 per cent rubidium – numbers the company hopes to swell in its looming maiden mineral resource estimate.

This week’s Bulls N’ Bears Runner of the Week is … Iceni Gold. Its “WA Budget week” share price leapt more than 307 per cent after the discovery of more gold-bearing veins at its Christmas Gift target. The company joins fellow movers and shakers Alliance Nickel, OZZ Resources and Caprice Resources on this week’s coveted list.

88 Energy has earmarked the middle of this year to begin shooting a 200-line-kilometre 2D seismic survey over 10 prospective oil and gas closures picked up by airborne gravity data in Namibia’s Owambo Basin. Management says the closures are also supported in part by existing 2D seismic data, in addition to soil gas sampling that validates the existence of a hydrocarbon-producing source rock.

Aurum Resources has revealed a glimmering suite of wide gold hits from a recent diamond drilling campaign at its Boundiali project in West Africa’s Côte d'Ivoire – peaking at 90m going 1.16g/t from 143m. The new assay collection also includes 59m at 1.42g/t gold from 68m with 13m at 3.92g/t and 23m at 1.36g/t from 293m featuring a 5m chunk going a solid 3.32g/t.

With world copper prices remaining close to all-time highs, GreenTech Metals believes it now has a “significant exploration opportunity” after an exhaustive review at its Whundo project in Western Australia’s Pilbara region. The review highlighted four significant volcanogenic massive sulphide copper-zinc targets within a 2.2km-long zone, offering considerable scope for resource extensions to the 5.3 million-tonne Whundo copper-zinc deposit.

Gold Mountain has run the rule over its Wabag project in Papua New Guinea, with a data overhaul uncovering the core of at least three porphyry systems that may host substantial copper-gold deposits. The company says the review suggests there may be multiple centres of porphyry-style mineralisation through 7km of strike in an arc parallel to the direction of its main copper anomalies.

Askari Metals’ latest auger drilling campaign has revealed encouraging total rare earth oxides hits as high as 4505ppm at its 100 per cent-owned Red Peak project in Western Australia’s Gascoyne region. It comes just a week after its neighbour Krakatoa Resources set the ASX alight with a 130 per cent share price jump after it discovered a new niobium-rare earths target.

A project-wide lithium sweep of St George Mining’s Mt Alexander operation near the historic Western Australian town of Menzies has isolated multiple new drill targets for a campaign slated to launch in the second half of this year. The company’s soil sampling and lithium pegmatite fertility review also identified geochemical analogues and a relationship between local gold mineralisation and pegmatites.

A bonanza-grade gold hit of 5.3m at a sparkling 220 grams per tonne from 245m has sent Larvotto Resources’ share price surging on the company’s biggest-ever trading day since its 2021 listing with the ASX. The stunning intersection was revealed today within a suite of results following a diamond drilling campaign that has extended the mineralisation at the company’s Hillgrove gold-antimony project in NSW.

The identification of multiple new high-grade copper targets at American West Metals’ Cyclone prospect in Canada has the company contemplating its potential for resource growth at its wider Storm project. The company’s recent moving loop electromagnetic survey at the Somerset Island site in Nunavut has unveiled what it says are “outstanding” new copper targets that include likely resource extensions in most directions.

White Cliff Minerals is ready to scratch into the surface at Canada’s Great Bear Lake after securing Federal Government approval for all of the licences at its Radium Point uranium-copper-gold-silver project. The company’s total project tenure at the Northwest Territories site encloses 2900 square kilometres of the Great Bear magmatic zone that is known for its iron oxide-copper-gold and uranium potential.

Terrain Minerals has launched a helicopter-borne electromagnetic survey at its Lort River project near Esperance in Western Australia to test a distinctive “eye” magnetic feature. Management says the feature bears stark similarities to IGO’s renowned Nova-Bollinger nickel-copper deposit in WA’s prospective Albany-Fraser belt. Importantly, the 640-square-kilometre Lort River operation sits along the interpreted strike of the Nova nickel-copper mine.

St George Mining’s latest gravity survey program has unveiled four compelling targets with coincident high gravity and prominent magnetic features at its Destiny project, about 100km south-west of the small Western Australian mining town of Kambalda. The high gravity signatures indicate the potential for similar carbonatite or mafic intrusions found recently to host highly-valuable minerals such as niobium or high-grade rare earths.

Xanadu Mines managing director Colin Moorhead has joined the growing chorus of industry experts predicting a commodity “supercycle”, with the spot price for copper rising almost 15 per cent in the past year. Moorhead told the “On the Couch” podcast series aimed at giving insights into the investing world, that while some commodities come and go, copper is here to stay.

Surefire Resources will commit a tidy $454,000 tax rebate towards extending its research and development activities at its Victory Bore vanadium project in Western Australia’s Mid West region. The tax rebate relates to the company’s processing technology results and high-purity alumina testwork at the operation that includes a “breakthrough” metallurgical process which yielded extraction rates of 91 per cent vanadium and 88 per cent titanium.

Meeka Metals has strengthened the indicated mineral resource for its optimised Turnberry open pit in WA’s Mid West, lifting it by 26 per cent to 290,000 ounces of gold. The revision follows infill drilling to December last year and retains a resource of 10.7 million tonnes at 2g/t gold for 690,000 ounces – but 85 per cent of the resource now sits in the indicated category.

Horizon Minerals is on the path to generating its first cash flows from mining its Boorara gold deposit in WA after entering an ore sale agreement with Paddington Gold for the treatment of 1.4 million tonnes of ore at the Paddington mill. The agreement will start in the next quarter and run for 22 months, with the mill sitting about 56km by road from Boorara.

Shaw and Partners WA State Manager Davide Bosio waxes lyrical about the stubbornness of junior gold exploration stocks that many thought would run hard or be taken over amid the highest of gold price highs. Is this a perfect setting for M&A activity? Will junior gold stocks finally be dragged skywards by the inevitable M&A activity that should flow from times like this?

In the first of Bulls N’ Bears’ new weekly series, “Doug Bright’s Greatest Hits”, our senior analyst gets the dirt under his well-worn fingernails to pull apart some of last week’s most intriguing ASX finds. The column will run the rule each week over a range of commodities, geological successes, oddities and matters of processing and metallurgical interest.

This week’s Bulls N’ Bears Runner of the Week is … Krakatoa Resources. Its share price jumped 130 per cent on a Meekatharra niobium find to join fellow movers and shakers Adisyn, Canterbury Resources and Pivotal Metals.

Phase one drilling at Chariot Corporation’s Black Mountain hard rock lithium project in Wyoming has wrapped up, with all holes hitting highly-fractionated pegmatites and high grades expected to soon emerge. Buoyed by the fractionated nature of the drill intercepts, the company is prepping the drill bit for phase two efforts to follow grades as high as 1.12 per cent lithium oxide from the first three holes.

ABx Group has expanded the rare earths resource at its combined Deep Leads-Rubble Mound-and Wind Break deposits in Tasmania by 70 per cent, to 89 million tonnes at a grade of 844ppm total rare earths oxides. Importantly, the resource contains what the company describes as “the highest proportion of combined dysprosium and terbium magnet rare earths oxides of any clay-hosted rare earths resource in Australia”.

A recent trip to several Chinese lithium producers has reinforced Lithium Universe’s commitment to building its proposed 16,000 tonnes per annum battery-grade lithium carbonate refinery in Canada. The trip, undertaken by the company’s key management figures, took in the Jiangsu lithium carbonate refinery that was built by Lithium Universe executives Iggy Tan, Dr Jingyuan Liu and John Loxton during their time with Galaxy Resources.

Meeka Metals says a $180,000 WA Government grant is a glowing endorsement for its 100 per cent-owned “kilometre-scale”, gold-rich Circle Valley project near Esperance in Western Australia’s deep south. Previous drilling at the project has thrown up impressive gold drill hits as high as 16m at 1.5g/t drilling is scheduled to begin in the second half of this year.

Si6 Metals will assume a more commanding role in its Brazilian critical minerals joint venture with Foxfire Metals after lifting its stake in the partnership to a 70 per cent interest in any future licences – up from its 50 per cent share in the existing 10 licences. It signifies Si6’s commitment to its already massive Brazilian ground-holding, which is prospective for rare earths and lithium.

A surging uranium price has led Toro Energy to re-evaluate the mineral resource of its Dawson Hinkler deposit in Western Australia, leading to a 115 per cent increase in the site’s contained uranium oxide. Management says the market supports a lower cutoff grade for the deposit’s economics, allowing it to lift its resource from 9.44 million pounds of uranium oxide up to 20.29 million pounds.

Novo Resources will kick off 4km of RC drilling next week to follow up on high-grade gold hits reaching up to 6m at 6.12g/t at its Nunyerry North prospect, about 150km south-west of Port Hedland in Western Australia. Results from the company’s maiden drill program turned heads, with other intercepts running as high as 11m at 2.52g/t from 22m including a 6m chunk at 4.19g/t.

A successful Lindian Resources infill drill campaign has underpinned an indicated resource boost of 61 million tonnes at 2.43 per cent total rare earth oxides (TREO) at the company’s giant Kangankunde project in Malawi. Management confirmed this morning that the updated indicated resource also includes a higher-grade component of 25 million tonnes at an impressive 3.26 per cent TREO.