Announcements

Octava Minerals will pick up the Byro rare earths and lithium project in WA’s Gascoyne after agreeing to purchase 100 per cent of the shares in private company Byro Mining. The conditional agreement will see Octava undertake due diligence on two exploration licenses at the project which has some tantalising historic exploration hits from drill cuttings peaking at 388ppm lithium oxide and 501ppm total rare earth oxides.

Buxton Resources says it has seen intense porphyry style veining along with evidence of copper mineralisation in outcrop at its 100 per cent owned Sun Devil prospect in Arizona. The prospect is part of the larger Copper Wolf project and remains undrilled but has historic rock chips as high as 76,800 ppm copper and 93ppm molybdenum.

Larvotto Resources has kicked off a 2000m diamond drilling program to test previous high grade gold intercepts at its recently acquired 100 per cent owned Hillgrove project, 23km east of Armidale in NSW. Drilling will focus on the Bakers Creek area, which was the first locality opened up in the Hillgrove area by miners in 1877 who concentrated on the extraction of gold rather than the accompanying antimony.

Strickland Metals has kicked off drilling at its Earaheedy and Yandal projects in WA’s Pilbara region with a rig already operating on-site to focus on the company’s large-scale Rabbit Well base metals prospect. Management says a 6000m reverse circulation drill program has been designed at Rabbit Well to map out the mineralisation and geology of the target in preparation for follow up diamond drilling.

Galan Lithium says it is just two weeks away from beginning the evaporation process at its Hombre Muerto West lithium brine project in Argentina with the initial filling of its first pond underway. The move marks the first major step of the long-term production schedule for the project where Galan is aiming to produce high-grade concentrate of up to 6 per cent lithium by the first half of 2025.

Auric Mining has hit the ground running in 2024 with toll mining set to recommence at its Jeffreys Find gold mine near Norseman in Western Australia as soon as March following a successful finish to last year. The company produced more than 9740 ounces during two mining campaigns with joint venture (JV) partner BML Ventures in 2023, returning a total gold revenue of $29.28 million for the first stage of the two-year project.

Askari Metals says its first exploration licence has been granted at the company’s Yarrie lithium project, just 100km east/north-east of Pilbara Minerals’ giant 214.2 million tonne Pilgangoora lithium resource. The entire project area comprises nine contiguous exploration licences which enclose a total of 1711 sq kms across ground adjacent to and along strike from other significant hard rock pegmatite-hosted lithium deposits.

ABx Group has revealed high grade critical rare earths in drilling at its Wind Break prospect, only 15km northeast of the company’s 52 million tonne Deep Leads-Rubble Mound rare earths resource in Tasmania. Seventeen of the holes yielded samples where more than 4.5 per cent and up to 6.7 per cent of the total rare earth oxide content is made up of the more lucrative heavy rare earths dysprosium and terbium.

Assays from the first eight diamond drill holes at Aurum Resources’ Boundiali gold project in Côte d'Ivoire, West Africa suggest wide, shallow gold mineralisation with more assays on the horizon. The best results were 16m at 1.24 grams per tonne from 117m including a 6m thick section grading 2.44g/t from 127m, 7.39m at 1.94g/t from 139.34m including 5.35m at 2.53g/t from 141.37m.

Xanadu Mines has entered into a binding term sheet to earn up to 80 per cent of the Sant Tolgoi project in Mongolia which hosts multiple shallow copper-nickel targets over several kilometres of strike. The deal adds to the company’s already significant presence in Mongolia which is home to its flagship Kharmagtai copper-gold project and its highly prospective Red Mountain operation.

Gold Mountain has moved closer to locking-down drill targets at its Custodia hard-rock lithium project in Brazil with stream sediment sample assays backing-up soil sampling results. Steam sampling has identified a total of 15 target areas and only two of those areas have seen overlapping soil sampling programmes to-date. The company says it will be back on the ground shortly to conduct more sampling before getting a drill-bit in the ground.

Ora Banda Mining has increased gold production and the head grade from its Davyhurst plant in WA’s Goldfields region for the third consecutive quarter while lifting its gold sales by 15 per cent. According to its December quarterly report, the company produced 16,340 ounces at a head grade of 2.1 grams per tonne and sold 15,387 gold ounces from its Davyhurst operations for the three-month period. All-in sustaining costs reduced by 15 per cent compared to the previous quarter.

Everest Metals Corporation will develop the 48,545 ounces of gold and 89,011 ounces of silver at its 100 per cent-owned Mt Dimer Taipan gold and silver project in WA’s goldfields as the gold price continues to trade near record highs above $3000 an ounce. The company will now lean into the project which contains recent intercepts as high as 8m at 13.55 g/t gold from 80m – including a 4m slice at a 23 g/t.

St George Mining has expanded its footprint on the Ida fault in Western Australia’s Goldfields region after picking up a new exploration licence alongside its Destiny rare earths and lithium project. The recently acquired Prince of Wales tenement is considered prospective for lithium, nickel and gold mineralisation and covers about 8km of the Ida fault next door to Destiny’s 90km stretch of the geological feature.

Toro Energy has moved quickly to take advantage of the recent price spike in global uranium prices announcing plans to freshen up a previously released scoping study over its Lake Maitland project eyeing off the possibilities of what the current 16-year high price above US$100 a pound could mean for the prospects of its uranium project near Wiluna in WA.

Meeka Metals has extended its positive run of gold hits during the final seven infill holes drilled at its St Anne’s prospect with a 31m section grading 1.11grams per tonne gold from 31m including 4m at 4.66g/t gold. St Anne’s has an estimated mineral resource of about 277,000 tonnes at an average grade of 2.8g/t gold for a contained 25,000 ounces of gold and forms part of the company’s Murchison gold project about 30km north-east of Meekatharra.

Venture Minerals has wound up stage one resource drilling at its 40 sq km, large-scale, clay hosted Jupiter rare earths prospect, 80km south-west of Mt. Magnet in WA’s Mid-West region. The project previously threw up some eye-watering results including 32m at 1629ppm TREO from 22m including 16m at 2397ppm TREO and a further 2m at an eyebrow-raising 7367ppm TREO from 36m.

Non-executive director of BMG Resources John Prineas will replace Greg Hancock as the non-executive chairman of the company as it kicks off a search for a new MD to develop its 500,000-ounce gold find near Wiluna. The move follows the resignation of Managing Director Bruce McCracken and will see Mr Hancock remain on the board as an independent non-exec director.

Infinity Mining has tabled a maiden resource estimate of 60,300 ounces of gold and an exploration target estimate for its Central Goldfields project in WA’s Leonora gold district. The exploration target points to the scale of potentially discoverable mineralisation in just two of the company’s prospects and is between 116,000 and 592,000 ounces of gold with a significant grade range of between 2.2 and 3.7 grams per tonne gold.

Toro Energy’s Wiluna uranium project may grow with the addition of ore from two of the company’s 100 per cent owned satellite deposits now being assessed as part of an extension study. Ore from the company’s Lake Way and Centipede-Millipede deposits, which are about 70km west of the project’s main Lake Maitland deposit, may add to the project’s already impressive financial metrics that predict a $100m a year EBITDA for 17.5 years.

American West Metals has appointed current non-executive director and 40-year mining veteran Dan Lougher as non-executive chairman of the company. Lougher has a track record of developing and operating large-scale base and precious metals assets in Australia, North America, Africa and Europe and will oversee American West as it looks to develop its potentially massive Storm copper project in Northern Canada.

Larvotto Resources has finished a metallurgical auger drill program to determine just how much gold, tungsten and antimony was left behind in tailings from mining campaigns dating back to the eighties at its Hillgrove project in NSW. Encouragingly, old records show gold averaging 1.34 grams per tonne and plenty of tungsten was shipped into the 1.4m tonnes of tailings during historic antimony mining.

Vanadium magnetite concentrate from Surefire Resources Victory Bore project will potentially be shipped to Saudi Arabia where it will be processed into vanadium-titanium-magnetite end products under a new agreement to be thrashed out between Surefire and Saudi based Ajlan & Bros Mining and Metals Company. The deal will also likely involve Ajlan investing directly into Victory Bore.

White Cliff Minerals has added 3300sq-km to its Canadian portfolio after securing the Radium Point multi-element project in the Northwest Territories province that takes in several historical mining operations. The company is focussed on iron-oxide-copper-gold-uranium deposits and silver mineralisation in the area that hosts the historical Eldorado, Echo Bay and Contact Lake mines.

In the next Bulls N’ Bears instalment on what made stocks jump in 2023, we look at how ClearVue Technologies bucked the trend of how big share price movers were mainly companies that stare at the ground for a living. It proved that staring through solar power-generating windows can also move the market when it hit a high of 66 cents in November.

This week’s Bulls N’ Bears top ASX runner is… Kali Metals. Its share price rose up some 256 per cent to join fellow movers and shakers Culpeo Minerals, Jupiter Energy and Singular Health Group.

Alma Metals has expanded the Briggs, Mannersley and Fig Tree Hill joint venture it shares with Canterbury Resources in central Queensland after grabbing two new exploration permits adjacent to the project. The JV ground includes the Briggs porphyry copper-molybdenum deposit that contains an inferred mineral resource of 415 million tonnes at 0.25 per cent copper and 31ppm molybdenum.

While 2023 saw explorers flock to the James Bay region of Quebec in Canada, a host of ASX-listed companies set their sights further north to the province of Nunavut to hunt for gold, copper and critical minerals. With Quebec becoming a little too popular, several hopefuls decided to roll the dice in the cold, but far less crowded province of Nunavut.

Senior geologists from giant Chinese battery raw materials supplier Huayou Cobalt have made a snap visit to Namibia to assess Askari Metals’ trenching and channel sampling progress at its Uis lithium project. Huayou, a major supporter and key strategic and technical partner of Askari, is listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange with a market capitalisation of about US$12.8 billion (AU$19 billion).

New seismic data has revealed that Triangle Energy may be sitting on a gushing 36 million barrels of oil and 535 billion cubic feet of gas as best-estimate prospective (P50) resources in the North Perth Basin. The company plans to drill-test two of its 12 new prospects that hold part of the volume, with wells kicking-off in the first half of this year.

Buxton Resources has discovered an extension to the porphyry copper-molybdenum system at its Copper Wolf project in Arizona that is not a part of the nearby JV it shares with mining giant IGO. The new “Wolverine” prospect gave up rock chip samples going as high as 14.1 per cent copper and 1160 parts per million molybdenum, suggesting the potential for a fertile porphyry system below.

In the next Bulls N’ Bears instalment on what made stocks jump in 2023, we look at Buxton Resources’ blistering start to last year with a 169 per cent share price jump on the back of graphite drill hits in Western Australia’s Gascoyne region. It went from 10.2c in early January to 27.5c the following month … and there was still more to come.