Public Company News

King River Resources has outlined an update on its PFS work for the Speewah specialty metals project in the Kimberley region of WA, where it recently flagged a potential capital cost reduction by USD$152m to USD$524m. According to recommendations by consulting firm Como Engineers, the reduction could be achieved by reducing mining rates that are more aligned with a standard-size acid plant leaching circuit.

Infinity Lithium has received strong support for its Spanish lithium project from the EU Commission’s VP in his keynote speech at the European Battery Alliance conference in Belgium. The EU is keen to capture some of the forecast €250b lithium market value and said that €20b would be made available for European lithium project development through the Battery Investment Platform.

Hawkstone Mining has produced a maiden mineral resource estimate for its Big Sandy lithium clay project located in Arizona State, USA, totalling 32.5 million tonnes grading 1,850 ppm lithium, for 320,800 tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent. Lithium Carbonate is currently selling for around AUD$15,500 per tonne. Hawkstone’s resources cover just 4% of the project area and the company said there is still excellent potential to expand these with drilling.

Australian Potash has revealed that a scaled-down version of its brine concentration and potash salt crystallisation pond system has underlined the expected low-cost of the pond construction at its Lake Wells SOP project near Laverton, WA. The company recently constructed a pre-concentration brine pond and declared the trial a success, saying it performed as expected with seepage rates that will result in higher salt crystallisation.

Okapi Resources has secured an option to earn a 50% equity right in the highly prospective and underexplored Tendao gold project, located adjacent to numerous multi-million ounce gold mining operations in central Africa. The project is situated in the highly endowed Kilo-Moto greenstone belt, less than 100km southeast of Barrick Gold’s world-class Kibali mine that produced 800,000 ounces of gold during 2018.

Adriatic has tabled encouraging metallurgical test work results from its impressive Vareš multi-metals project in Bosnia. Initial findings indicate metal recoveries and concentrate grades that exceed specifications, with the ores potentially amenable to smelting. The results will be fed directly into a scoping study and will underpin a future DFS for the high-grade project.

Strike Energy has attracted ex-FMG iron ore heavyweight, Nev Power, to its board as the company approaches its moment of truth in the Perth oil and gas basin with well testing of its West Erregulla-2 gas well all set to begin. The company expects to commence production flow testing at West Erregulla-2 in October and it is hoping to become Western Australia’s next gas producer from it.

Blina Minerals will take a 50% interest in unlisted Australian exploration company, Colour Minerals and will shortly commence exploration across a gold-copper project near Tennant Creek in the NT. The Barkly project includes two exploration plays, with the area well known for its large, magnetite-hosted gold-copper deposits. The best historical drilling intercept is 20m @ 8.17 g/t gold and 0.61% copper from 157m down-hole.

Rox Resources and Venus Metals have hit the highest gold grades seen to date at the Youanmi South prospect near Youanmi in Western Australia, with drilling returning a solid peak intersection of 12m @ 12.7 g/t gold from 80m down-hole. The companies have also been targeting the Plant Zone prospect, which is a potential bulk mining, open-pittable ore source, with gold mineralisation occurring right from the surface.

Kairos Minerals has now delineated coherent, gold-in-soil anomalies with associated pathfinder mineralisation exceeding 8km in strike, at its emerging Croydon gold project located near Port Hedland, WA. The company also revealed that it has geologically mapped a major structural fault system along the same trend, which could possibly control the extensive hydrothermal gold system it is seeking to exploit in the area.

Strike Energy has concluded its drilling and completion activities for the exciting West Erregulla-2 well in the Perth Basin of WA, where it has located three separate gas discoveries and possibly the deepest occurrence of hydrocarbons in Australia. Earlier this month, the company completed wireline logging that identified a significant pay zone of conventional gas, which it said could potentially support a low-cost development.

Existing Hot Chili shareholders, Taurus Funds Management and Kalgoorlie mining identity, Murray Black, have corner-stoned a $12m capital raise for Hot Chili that has also attracted a number of institutional heavyweights out of North America and Australia. The funds will see the Perth based, ASX-listed company turbocharge its efforts to commercialise the Cortadera porphyry copper-gold project in Chile.