Bulls N' Bears (Commercial Content)

ASX-listed base and precious metals explorer PolarX is gearing up to kick off a new round of diamond drilling at the Caribou Dome copper project, about 250km north-east of Anchorage in Alaska, USA. The company says it has locked in a drilling contractor for the program that is planned to start in August this year with an aggregate drill coverage of at least 1,500m.

Todd River Resources has expanded its footprint in WA, picking up close to 900 sq.km of ground in the Edmund Basin south of the Pilbara Craton. The company’s new Pingandy tenure covers a package of rocks similar to those hosting Rumble Resources Earaheedy lead-zinc discovery and prospective for copper, lead, zinc and silver mineralisation.

ASX-listed Venus Metals and joint venture partner Rox Resources are extending deep drilling at their Youanmi gold project near Mt Magnet in Western Australia. The pair have added 2,000m of diamond drilling to a program targeting depth extensions to high-grade gold shoots and seeking new ones. They are looking to add to the current 1.19-million-ounce resource at Youanmi as stellar gold hits continue.

ASX-listed Infinity Lithium Corporation has signed a consultancy agreement with Spanish mining outfit Promotora de Minas de Carbon as the Australian company looks to shore up its San Jose lithium project in Spain’s Extremadura region. Forty-five-year-old Promotora de Minas de Carbon has agreed to provide mining advisory services to Infinity for an all-options success fee comprising two tranches of 20 million options each.

Coda Minerals has pocketed $14.4 million from an oversubscribed capital raising, with the company now boasting more than $21 million in cash reserves to fund ongoing exploration in South Australia. Whilst the company has wowed the market in recent weeks with its Emmie Bluff IOCG discovery, Coda continues to build a substantial inventory of copper resources at its Elizabeth Creek project.

ASX-listed 88 Energy is cutting more than US$1 million of annual finance costs and adding US$2.6 million to its treasury with the US$18.7 million sale of oil and gas tax credits in Alaska. The balance-sheet reset strengthens the company’s position as it strives to expand oil and gas resources at its 100 per cent-owned Peregrine project in the US state.

Wiluna Mining’s development program over its namesake WA operation continues to come up trumps with reserve drilling across the Happy Jack deposit returning 1.78 metres grading a stunning 66.74 grams per tonne. Meanwhile drilling at East Lode has turned up intercepts of 13.12m at 6.89 g/t and 6.85m at 7.72 g/t gold, underlining the lucrative nature of the deeper sulphide mineralisation.

ASX-listed 3D metal printing company Aurora Labs has hit the ground running after moving operations to its new Canning Vale facility in Perth. The company’s Beta prototype printer has produced its first coupons since the relocation, marking the relaunch of Aurora’s 12-month “Technology Development Pathway” strategy with an end goal of commercialising its 3D printing technology.

Coda Minerals has stepped up exploration at its Emmie Bluff IOCG discovery in South Australia, with drilling now underway to further test the mineral-rich body, located 450 kilometres north-west of Adelaide. The company has now kicked off drilling of a series of daughter holes that splay off the original diamond drill hole to test the mineralisation at various levels within the stratigraphy.

ASX-listed Blackstone Minerals has launched a “green” hydrogen study as it continues to look at ways of developing a zero-carbon mining and downstream processing operation at its flagship Ta Khoa nickel-copper-PGE project in Vietnam. In relation to the proposed downstream processing plant, the company intends assessing oxygen production via the electrolysis of water that it says generates green hydrogen as a by-product.

ASX-listed mining technology company K2fly has turned in its first $1 million invoicing month and maiden $2 million quarter as industry demand for vital environmental, social and governance decision-making information continues to climb. A new sales deal with a US-based geospatial data specialist is expected to add to the Australian company’s prospects in a key growth market.

Hot Chili has launched feasibility over the company’s immense Costa Fuego copper-gold project in northern Chile, appointing expert engineers Wood to oversee a PFS over the greater Costa Fuego project area. The study will use the 2016 Productora pre-feasibility study to expedite a larger PFS over the project, which hosts more than 724 million tonnes in copper and gold resources.

ASX-listed explorer Oar Resources has landed an exploration licence at its Crown PGE-nickel-copper prospect just 9km west of Chalice Mining’s celebrated Julimar discovery in Western Australia. Initial reconnaissance works to verify 20 identified targets are now on the cards in preparation for a maiden drilling campaign planned for the second half of the year.

ASX-listed Oar Resources has laid the foundation for drilling programs on three fronts following a $2.3m placement. Funds will be used to advance the Crown PGE-nickel-copper project west of Chalice Mining’s renowned Julimar discovery in Western Australia, launch a maiden gold drilling program at Douglas Canyon in Nevada, and continue work at the emerging Gibraltar kaolin-halloysite project in South Australia.

Buru Energy is set to kick off its 2021 oil exploration program in the Canning Basin in the north of Western Australia where it is targeting 97 million barrels of conventional oil from back-to-back wells. A rig has been mobilised at Buru’s first Currajong 1 well with a second well, Rafael 1, to follow. A seismic survey to define new targets is also on the cards.

ASX-listed WA manganese producer Element 25 has dispatched the first shipment of manganese concentrate from its new Butcherbird open-pit mining and beneficiation operation about 130km south of Newman in WA’s southern Pilbara region. The Perth-based company says Pilbara-based AK Evans Group last week kicked off ore haulage from Butcherbird to Utah Point in Port Hedland in readiness for loading and export.

King River has its sights on a free cash deluge from its proposed $204 million investment in a cutting-edge high-purity alumina manufacturing plant at Kwinana, south of Perth, after tabling a stunning set of numbers in its recently completed project pre-feasibility study. The plant is expected to deliver more than $190 million per annum in free cash flow over an initial 25-year operation.

Horizon Minerals has reported a host of encouraging intersections from a follow-up RC drilling program at three prospects within its Binduli gold project 12km west of Kalgoorlie. The pick of the drill hits came from the Honeyeater prospect, which returned 4m at 11.45 g/t gold from 113m including 1m at 32.4 g/t and 4m at 5.15 g/t from 93m including 1m at 13.54 g/t.

Hot Chili has dished up a bumper-grade 144m intercept at 1 per cent copper-equivalent as it looks to grow the resource at the Cortadera deposit within its broader Costa Fuego copper hub in northern Chile. The company is eyeing a pre-feasibility study to fast-track Costa Fuego to production with the high-grade core at Cortadera to play a key part.

Wiluna Mining Corporation has wrapped up its US$42 million term loan from commodity trader Mercuria and says stage one sulphide gold expansion to more than 120,000 ounces per annum and feasibility study work on its next phase of growth are now fully funded. The FS on lifting annual output at Wiluna in WA past 240,000 ounces is expected to be completed this year.

Canada-focused Ardiden is set to shift its exploration efforts into higher gear at its Pickle Lake gold project in Ontario. The company is eyeing a maiden drilling campaign at the Esker prospect near Barrick Gold Corp’s historical Golden Patricia gold mine which produced more than 600,000 ounces of gold. Previous drill intercepts at Esker include 12.03m at 3.2 grams per tonne gold.

AVZ Minerals has locked in a long-term lease over an industrial site earmarked as an integral logistics hub for the transfer of concentrate for export from its proposed Manono hard-rock lithium project in the DRC. The company says the Kabondo Dianda “intermodal staging station”, where the Manono concentrate will be trucked, forms part of its logistics plan to export finished products to global markets.

ASX-listed Estrella Resources has dished up a 22.85m intercept of nickel-copper sulphides above a previous hit that returned 20.1m going 1.04 per cent nickel at its T5 discovery north of Kalgoorlie in WA. Results from the current phase-three drilling campaign are due soon as the company continues to advance its geological understanding of the prospect ahead of the next stage of its exploration.

Queensland-focused Superior Resources has kicked off a significant new drilling program that will look to build on its gold resource base and follow up intriguing copper exploration signals at Greenvale in the state’s north. Managing Director, Peter Hwang says the planned 8,000 metres of drilling is shaping up as a defining step for the company and its bold blueprint for a greater Greenvale gold-copper production hub.

CZR Resources has managed to punch its way through almost half the planned 5,000m reverse circulation drilling program being undertaken at its 85 per cent-owned Buddadoo gold project in WA despite heavy rain. The company recently completed 24 holes for 2,298m on the first of several priority prospects straddling the Salt Creek shear in its project area on the Gullewa greenstone belt.

Todd River Resources has outlined a three-kilometre-long nickel-copper target at its Berkshire Valley project, 150 kilometres north-east of Perth in Western Australia. Recent shallow aircore drilling, designed to test for mineralisation below the soil and alluvium that blankets the region, has consistently returned highly anomalous base metal values kicking as high as 4,800 parts per million copper and 4,000 ppm nickel.

South Australia gold explorer, Barton Gold is set to list its shares on the Australian Securities Exchange in a fortnight after receiving conditional ASX admission approval. It follows hot on the heels of the company’s recently oversubscribed IPO that closed early and gave the company a $15 million war chest to unleash in SA’s Gawler Craton.

Latitude Consolidated says it has unearthed a new auriferous trend near the former Andy Well underground mine at its Murchison gold project in WA’s Murchison Goldfields. An initial set of drill results from the company’s 10,000m phase-one RC program included an encouraging 7m grading an average 1.9 grams per tonne gold from 121m including 1m going at 9.59 g/t from the Suzie North prospect.

Legend Mining has returned further encouraging drill intersections from the Mawson nickel-copper-cobalt massive sulphide prospect within its Rockford project in WA’s Fraser Range district. Best of the latest results are 3m at 1.04 per cent nickel, 0.61 per cent copper and 0.09 per cent cobalt from 181m and 1.7m at 1.48 per cent nickel, 1.12 per cent copper and 0.10 per cent cobalt from 456.4m.

Victory Mines has returned to drilling at the Coogee copper-gold discovery, near Kalgoorlie in Western Australia. The company has launched into a 6,000-metre drilling program over the prospect as it looks to begin testing a large porphyry target with recent resampling returning 17 metres at 1 per cent copper and 1.98 grams per tonne gold from only 77m down-hole.

Neometals says vanadium recovery from its Perth pilot plant has reached steady-state production. Successful completion of the pilot campaign will support the technical feasibility of the company’s proprietary process at scale and generate data that will be fed into a definitive feasibility study. Its pilot plant trial will process about 13 tonnes of vanadium-bearing steel by-product from three Scandinavian sites over 22 days.

Valor Resources has continued to build its portfolio in the Americas, pegging 14 new mining concessions around its Picha copper-silver project in southern Peru. The staking spree comes in the wake of recent channel sampling that produced grades up to 6.04 per cent copper and 18 ounces to the tonne silver, pointing to the potential of the underlying mineral system.