Announcements

First-pass shallow RC drilling at Venus Metals’ Youanmi lithium project in Western Australia’s Murchison region has unearthed pegmatite-hosted LCT mineralisation that the company says remains open at depth and along strike. Lepidolite-bearing pegmatite with up to 2m at 0.33 per cent lithium oxide from 9m was intersected in one hole at the Beryl prospect and Venus has flagged more follow-up drilling.

ASX-listed mining software provider K2fly has unveiled revenue of $3.4m for the third quarter of the financial year – a 19 per cent rise on the company’s income from the previous quarter. The company says the figure was a 35 per cent jump on the corresponding period last year and put the result down to freshly-inked contracts and “go live” milestones.

Meeka Metals has added new impetus to Australia’s growing rare earths sector after unveiling 10 square kilometres of high-grade clay-hosted mineralisation at its Circle Valley project in WA. It will declare an initial resource in June after drilling gave grades up to 3084 parts per million total rare earth oxides with consistently high neodymium-praseodymium assays of up to 34 per cent of the TREO values.

Infinity Mining says it has uncovered a “lithium-rich system” during a maiden scout drilling program at its Tambourah South project in the Pilbara, with more than 50 samples returning results above 0.2 per cent lithium oxide. Highlights include a 4m hit at 0.573 per cent lithium oxide from 32m, while the widest section showed a 9m intercept going 0.332 per cent lithium oxide from surface.

Neometals has struck a binding take-or-pay offtake agreement, via its wholly-owned subsidiary Australian Titanium, with Chinese partner Jiuxing Titanium Materials for both direct shipping ore and titanium-rich mixed gravity concentrates. The company says it now plans to update a recent prefeasibility study to reflect the potential for a lower-capital development of its Barrambie titanium and vanadium project near Sandstone in Western Australia’s Murchison region.

Legend Mining has highlighted two significant nickel-copper sulphide targets ready for diamond drilling at its Octagonal prospect in Western Australia’s Fraser Range after analysis of 3D seismic and additional data sets. Octagonal forms part of the company’s Rockford project and sits within the same structural corridor as IGO’s game-changing Nova-Bollinger deposit.

Alaskan authorities have awarded 88 Energy the entire 10,291-square-kilometre Project Leonis lease area, south of the giant Prudhoe Bay oil field and north of its existing Phoenix operation and Hickory-1 well. Leonis sits near oil fields that successfully exploit the USB oil reservoir. In the project area, more than 60m of prospective oil zones were found in the Hemi Springs Unit 3 well.

Valor Resources has completed its second anniversary payment as part of a farm-in agreement in Canada, where it is aiming to take an 80 per cent stake in the Hook Lake uranium project. Valor’s expenditure has reached C$3.5 million (AU$3.9 million) over a three-year period as required by the deal and it is finalising cash and share commitments to complete its second earn-in milestone.

Godolphin Resources has set a maiden JORC 2012-compliant mineral resource at its Narraburra rare earth project in NSW, with a massive 126 per cent increase in resource grade compared to its previous JORC 2004 estimate. The updated estimate sits at 94.4 million tonnes at 739 parts per million total rare earth oxides, with 50 per cent of the resource now defined in the indicated category.

White Cliff Minerals is eyeing a maiden JORC resource at its Hines Hill rare earths project near Merredin in WA, with a shallow air-core drill program underway following solid results from last year’s campaign. It is targeting ionic absorption clay mineralisation in the top 20m of the project across a strike of 1km and a width of 800m, with some 90 air-core drill holes planned.

Classic Minerals has forecast a start to gold production in June after completing bulk earthworks for the tailings storage facility at its wholly-owned Kat Gap gold mine, which is under construction 170km south of Southern Cross in WA’s Central Wheatbelt. The facility will be ready for use in May after the company installs a liner and monitoring bores.

Venture Minerals is keen to get its drill bits spinning in search of rare earths elements in WA after adding two new Mid West projects to its portfolio and identifying two new targets at its existing Kulin deposit, south-east of Perth. The diversified minerals explorer has developed a strategy to expand its exposure in the rare earths space with a bias for clay-hosted mineralisation.

Buru Energy is pressing the pedal to the metal on its Rafael gas discovery in the Kimberley following a tick of approval on introducing a floating liquified natural gas (FLNG) facility into the processing chain. But Buru believes the value of its prefeasibility study extends wider than just a nod to the FLNG, claiming an innovative partnership could bring Rafael to reality.

Everest Metals has completed a swag of deals to formally acquire 51 per cent of the Mt Edon lithium project and the Revere gold project. The package includes joint ventures across both projects with the privately-owned Entelechy Resources, along with farm-in deals and royalty agreements. The arrangements allow Everest to move towards 100 per cent ownership.

Surefire Resources is one step closer to obtaining a mining licence at its Victory Bore vanadium project in WA’s Mid West with a baseline environmental study revealing no hurdles in the approvals process. The junior mineral explorer is sitting on one of Australia’s biggest undeveloped deposits of vanadium with a resource of 321 million tonnes averaging 0.39 per cent vanadium pentoxide.

Allup Silica has etched out an exploration target of five to seven million tonnes grading between 98 and 99 per cent silica at its Sparkler C sand project in WA’s Great Southern region. The freshly-minted JORC-compliant exploration target adds weight to the company’s nearby Sparkler A mineral resource estimate of 70 million tonnes at 96.84 per cent silicon dioxide.

Lindian Resources has tabled some of its best assays from drilling at its Kangankunde project in Malawi, with results going up to 13.89 per cent TREO. The company says the average grade of the rare earths critical metal elements, neodymium and praseodymium, was 20 per cent TREO. Three holes went more than 3 per cent TREO across intersections running 150m or more from surface.

Airborne magnetic and radiometric surveying at Venus Metals’ Mangaroon North rare earths project in WA’s Gascoyne region has identified high-priority rare earths carbonatite rock targets along a crustal structure. Eight ironstone-hosted rare earths targets, considered similar to Hastings’ Yangibana and Dreadnought’s Mangaroon-Yin projects, were identified over a 10km strike by the survey.

Javelin Minerals has highlighted a slew of follow-up drill targets at its Husky project in NSW after receiving geochemically-elevated results for multiple minerals from a recent air-core program at the site. The company has already started an RC drill campaign of 10 holes at the project to test the new geochemical features at depth.

BMG Resources has delivered an impressive 518,000-ounce maiden gold resource from an 11.1-million-tonne haul at 1.45 grams per tonne gold at its Abercromby gold project near Wiluna. The company says mineralisation at its Capital gold deposit starts at surface and continues along strike outside the resource footprint, adding considerable potential. The project is on granted mining leases, providing an expedited pathway to mining approvals.

ASX-listed biotech Radiopharm Theranostics has secured the supply of a valuable isotope that will enable the company to soon kick off a human trial of a treatment designed to tackle brain cancer. Management says the isotope, Therbium-161, boasts great promise in helping to expand treatment options for patients living with cancer – but it is in short supply.

ChemX Materials has started building a maiden resource foundation with impressive first assay results from drilling at its South Australian deposit, including a 6m hit grading 18.5 per cent manganese from 9m. The company says it has now received data from 39 holes of its 94-hole campaign, which targeted the high-grade manganese that can be efficiently converted to high-purity manganese for the electric battery market.

Altech Batteries has unveiled a stunning first look at its cutting-edge Silumina Anodes pilot plant in Germany after completing the construction of its laboratory, power supply and wet-circuit infrastructure. The company’s patented high-capacity and high-purity alumina-coated silicon and graphite anodes are designed for use in lithium-ion batteries. Its pilot plant is due to be scaled up to a 10,000 tonnes per annum production facility.

WA-focused explorer Kairos Minerals has become a multi-listed trader after joining the United States’ OTCQB venture market. The company started trading at market opening on April 6 under the ticker “KAIFF”. Created in 2010, the OTCQB is the middle tier of the over-the-counter market for US shares. The company says the move will provide exposure to US investors without impacting its ASX listing.

Auric Mining has drilled widespread sulphides and quartz veining over a 500m-long trend around an intensely-worked alluvial gold mine at Miitel South, near the abandoned WA town of Widgiemooltha. The best result in assays from three RC holes was 2m at 2.84 grams per tonne gold from 39m. It was part of a zone of widespread quartz veining and disseminated pyrite.

Xanadu Mines has begun a massive 30,000m, four-rig infill diamond drill campaign at its Kharmagtai copper-gold project in Mongolia, with results set to support the company’s upcoming prefeasibility study. The aim of the exploration program is to update the current open-pit mineral resource areas to an indicated category and deliver a maiden ore reserve estimate for the operation.

Venture Minerals has unveiled hopes of supplying boron to global markets after identifying large-scale borate-hosted tin and boron zones throughout its Mount Lindsay skarn mineralisation system in northern Tasmania. Venture appraised 102 historic diamond drill intersections to identify borate tin-boron zones not previously assessed in any mining studies at Mount Lindsay. Boron is critical in the solar panel and electric vehicle industries.

Lithium Australia is one step closer to bringing its lithium ferro phosphate cathode powder pre-qualification plant to reality after results from independent testing confirmed its product proved more stable than the two leading commercial brands. The combination of commercial grade graphite and LFP demonstrated the potential to support long-lifetime cell designs. The testing was undertaken by NOVONIX Battery Technology Solutions as part of a customer joint materials selection program.

Kairos Minerals is poised to drill-test a recently discovered 1km long light and heavy rare earths anomaly which has produced early results going up to 553 parts per million total rare earths oxide. The pending RC drilling program at its Roe Hills project, 100km east of Kalgoorlie also includes some tantalising results for neodymium and praseodymium reaching up to 126ppm, heavy rare earth oxides grading up to 154ppm and light rare earth oxides running up to 420ppm.

Askari Metals has stepped up its aggressive exploration strategy across two tenements at its Uis lithium project in Namibia where it is targeting previously identified pegmatites. The dual RC campaign forms part of a recently expanded phase 1 program at tenement EPL 8535 from 3000m up to 4000m where it has pinpointed at least four different target zones.

Venus Metals Corporation subsidiary Redscope Enterprises will increase its net smelter royalty from the Youanmi Gold Mining leases to one per cent after signing a deal with St Claire Resources. Redscope currently holds a 0.7 per cent net smelter royalty for the Youanmi leases that will increase to one per cent following the completion of the deal with St Clair handing over its 0.3 per cent share.

ASX-listed Codrus Minerals has kicked off its maiden hunt for critical minerals with 2000m of RC drilling at its niobium-rich Karloning project in WA making the company a first mover to explore exclusively for rare earths in the area. After a successful reconnaissance exploration program last year, Codrus is keen to push deeper into the earth and test the potential of the Karloning project.