Announcements

After getting a long-awaited green light last week to start exploring its Stansmore niobium-rare earths project in Western Australia’s West Arunta region, Lycaon Resources is now building a war chest to fuel its mission. The company today revealed it had completed a $2.5 million capital raise and also secured a $180,000 State Government grant to drill two holes to test its Stansmore and Volt prospects.

A recent drone aeromagnetics survey by Buxton Resources has unveiled a north-east-trending cluster of magnetic anomalies in the south-central part of the company’s 100 per cent-owned Wolverine prospect in Arizona. The cluster coincides with the orientation of copper-molybdenum mineralised porphyry dykes, with rock chip sampling yielding 1.2 per cent copper and 383ppm moly next to Buxton’s permitted drill site.

Aurum Resources has reassembled part of the management team that helped establish Tietto Minerals’ Abujar gold mine in West Africa to drive the development of its new Boundiali operation in Côte d’Ivoire. The company has named Yao N’Kanza as country manager, reuniting him with former Tietto workmates Caigen Wang and Yaya Ouattara in a bid to expedite Aurum’s project and business development initiatives.

Triangle Energy Group has capped off a solid quarter, raking in $6.54 million courtesy of oil sales associated with its Cliff Head JV partnership with Pilot Energy. The proceeds are earmarked for high-impact exploration drilling near Geraldton in Western Australia’s Mid West region, with the company set to kick off its hunt for hydrocarbons at the Booth-1 well by July.

Horizon Minerals has tipped $2.93 million into its till after selling a share package it received from Vox Royalty late last year following a royalties divestment deal relating to gold projects in WA’s Goldfields region. Horizon also collected an initial $4 million when the agreement was struck and Vox later decided to complete the deal via the share package instead of a further cash consideration.

Mining software provider K2fly has recorded a remarkable 15 straight quarters of annual recurring revenue (ARR) growth, which it says has been driven by contract renewals from two major clients. According to its March quarterly report, the company delivered an ARR of $8.3 million in the first three months of the calendar year, representing a 19 per cent increase compared to the previous corresponding period.

Larvotto Resources says engineering studies have shown it can double the process plant throughput at its Hillgrove gold-antimony operation in NSW up to 500,000 tonnes per annum, with only minimal upgrade and modification required. The company says its capacity to produce gold concentrate and doré in conjunction with antimony concentrate can easily be increased by expanding the crusher feed rate from 220,000 tonnes per year.

A giant Japanese consortium has committed to backing the development of Ardea Resources’ Goongarrie Hub project in Western Australia’s Goldfields region – a major milestone for the nickel-cobalt operation billed by the Federal Government as “globally significant”. Sumitomo Metal Mining and Mitsubishi Corporation have agreed to join Ardea to form an incorporated joint venture to be known as Kalgoorlie Nickel.

Buxton Resources is poised to launch a drilling campaign to pump up the 2014 mineral resource at its Graphite Bull project in Western Australia’s Gascoyne region after securing clearance from a recent Aboriginal heritage survey. The company can now complete infill drilling along a 2.1km potential strike zone where drilling last year confirmed further high-grade graphite mineralisation at the project.

Galan Lithium says it already has a contained inventory of 1000 tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent at its Hombre Muerto West project in Argentina as the initial evaporation process at the site builds steam. The company says about a third of the overall project has been completed, with total pond construction at 45 per cent and the first two evaporation ponds operating.

Strickland Metals says it has delivered samples from its first three diamond drillholes in Western Australia’s Yandal gold belt to the laboratory for assay, while reverse-circulation and diamond drilling is continuing. The company says it expects assay results to be returned in June. All three holes were drilled at Palomino, with two being put into the existing mineral resource for structural information.

DiscovEx Resources is on the cusp of a major transformation after its bid to snare Finland-based private Australian company Latitude 66 Cobalt was given a unanimous tick of approval from that firm’s board of directors. Latitude owns several projects in Finland, with its most advanced project containing Europe’s second-biggest undeveloped cobalt-gold resource that features 5800 tonnes of cobalt and 650,000 ounces of gold.

This week’s Bulls N’ Bears Runner of the Week is … Osteopore. Its share price hiked up more than 478 per cent to join mining movers and shakers Base Resources, Orion Minerals and Rincon Resources.

Buru Energy’s interpretation of 3D seismic data from its wholly-owned conventional Rafael condensate-rich wet gas discovery has thrown up a new shallow resource in its exploration permit in the Canning Basin. The new target zone, which it has designated Rafael Shallow, consists of two clastic reservoirs sitting at less than 1200m depth, with one stacked about 130m to 170m above the other.

The door has been kicked open for Lycaon Resources to start exploring its Stansmore niobium-rare earths project in Western Australia’s West Arunta region after it secured consent from Mines Minister, David Michael. The company says the approval will allow it to start exploration programs, including heritage and gravity surveys and drilling campaigns, on a site designated for the use and benefit of its Aboriginal inhabitants.

ra Banda Mining has further bolstered its bank balance after pocketing $11.71 million as its lucrative joint venture deal with business goliath Wesfarmers at the Davyhurst project in Western Australia’s Goldfields region nears completion. Ora Banda will now receive a final $4.29 million next week to complete the Davyhurst transaction after all conditions of the deal were satisfied.

Xanadu Mines continues to deliver positive metallurgical testwork for its Kharmagtai copper-gold project in Mongolia, with its latest figures showing recoveries of up to 94 per cent copper and 92 per cent gold. Management says tests using the “Eriez HydroFloat” system showed the company could recover valuable minerals within the 150-to-200 micron range that conventional flotation methods are unable to achieve.

Aurum Resources has scored high-grade gold hits charging as high as 45 grams per tonne from scout drilling at just the second target to be tested at its Boundiali project in West Africa’s Côte d’Ivoire. Diamond drilling designed to test a 1.7km-by-1km gold prospect revealed solid initial results, with a 6m section going 9.95g/t gold from 165m including 2m at 28.9g/t from 169m.

Galan Lithium has taken a major step towards selling product from its Hombre Muerto West lithium brine project in Argentina both locally and internationally after signing a crucial new deal with the Catamarca Government. Managing director Juan Pablo Vargas de la Vega and Catamarca Governor Raúl Jalil signed a commercial agreement that supports the grant of permits for the commercialisation of Galan’s lithium chloride concentrate.

Aurumin has secured five new exploration tenements to stretch its near 1 million-ounce Sandstone gold operations that sit about 600km north-east of Perth in Western Australia’s historic East Murchison region. The tenements sit on more than 60 square kilometres of the Youanmi terrane greenstone and consist of various historical workings and old deposits that make up several compelling targets.

American West Metals has vowed to uncover new zones of copper mineralisation at its Storm project on Canada’s Somerset Island after kicking off this year’s exploration and resource definition drilling program. The initial RC campaign will also further explore the resource potential at the company’s Thunder prospect where last year’s drilling jagged a 48.6m copper intercept going 3 per cent copper.

Image Resources has revealed a compelling prefeasibility study for its 100 per cent-owned Yandanooka mineral sands project north of Perth in Western Australia, showing an annual EBITDA of $277 million for more than eight years and a capital payback of just 15 months. The project is modelled to produce 1.04 million tonnes of heavy mineral concentrate during its 8.2-year mine life.

This week’s Bulls N’ Bears top ASX runner is … Dalaroo Metals. Its share price rose more than 182 per cent to join fellow movers and shakers Nimy Resources, Adherium and Firebrick Pharma.

Perth-based explorer Estrella Resources has uncovered another manganese prospect in Timor-Leste, with pXRF grades from float going as high as 27.9 per cent manganese. The company’s new Sauro prospect sits just 12km south-east of its Lalena prospect that just last week threw up pXRF results from grab samples going up to 57.2 per cent and 48.1 per cent manganese.

Si6 Metals has detailed plans to kick off its third drilling program in Brazil’s renowned “Lithium Valley”, with 20 auger holes to be plunged as the company homes in on lithium and rare earths soil anomalies going as high as 103ppm lithium and 710ppm TREO in the Padre Paraiso prospect area. The area has proven to be highly-prospective for lithium and rare earths.

Triangle Energy will be hunting a 279Bcf resource in ground south-east of Geraldton in WA’s Mid West when it launches drilling for oil and gas at its Booth prospect in the onshore Perth Basin in late June. The Booth-1 well is expected to cost less than $1.5 million and will be followed by the Becos-1 well as the search for hydrocarbons intensifies in the region.

A second drill rig has rolled onto Strickland Metals’ Yandal project in WA’s Eastern Goldfields region to target high-grade gold intercepts from last year’s reconnaissance drilling program that pulled up 39m averaging 6.1g/t, including a 7m core running at 22.2g/t of the precious yellow metal. It is back to business for Strickland after it yesterday confirmed the acquisition of a giant Serbian gold project.

Empire Energy Group says it has received binding commitments to raise a hulking $46.8 million from new and existing institutional shareholders, including two United States-based oil and gas heavyweights. The company will be extremely well-funded after the raise and will use its new “cash stash” to drill a 3km-long development well at its Carpentaria pilot project in the Northern Territory’s Beetaloo Sub-basin.

Meeka Metals has unveiled a 60 per cent boost for its St Anne’s gold resource in Western Australia’s Mid West region, increasing to 40,000 ounces at more than 3 grams per tonne. The resource forms part of the company’s 1.23 million-ounce Murchison gold project that sits in the area bearing the same name, about 650km north of Perth.

Strickland Metals has entered the lucrative Serbian gold game after acquiring the Rogozna project that already boasts a whopping resource of 5.44 million JORC-compliant ounces of gold equivalent. The company says advanced exploration targets at Rogozna offer near-term growth, with diamond drilling outside of the existing resource going as high as a staggering 352m at 2.1 grams per tonne gold equivalent from 240m.

Thunderbird Resources has assembled a surprising array of interesting-looking uranium and lithium targets in some of the hottest mineral territories in the world, including Canada’s Athabasca uranium basin. The Athabasca basin is remarkable for its average uranium grades of about 2 per cent and its massive-scale deposits – and Thunderbird appears to have picked the eyes out of it.

Gold Mountain has revealed encouraging anomalous lithium results from a stream sediment sampling program carried out at its Campo Formoso project in Brazil. The company says six strongly and nine moderately anomalous samples were returned from an area overlying a granite body considered to be of similar age and setting to the prospective Jaguar pegmatite to the north.