Andrew Duffy

Toro Energy says it has expanded its uranium and vanadium resources at its Lake Way and Centipede-Millipede deposits near Wiluna by lowering the cut-off grade and creating new pit designs in light of the commodity’s booming global prices. The company says it is now using a 100ppm cut-off grade to bring it in line with its peers and to allow the expansion of resource envelopes.

Valor Resources is set to kick off its hunt for uranium in Canada’s world-renowned Athabasca Basin using an airborne electromagnetic survey – a proven technique in identifying nearby deposits of the silvery-grey metal. Results from the survey at the Cluff Lake project are expected in the second half of this year and will guide a drilling program planned to begin in the September quarter.

88 Energy is poised to start flow-testing two reservoir zones in its Hickory-1 well in Alaska as it takes aim at upgrading its prospective resources to the higher-confidence contingent category. The company says both zones showed strong hydrocarbon indicators during drilling and have a combined gross, unrisked best technical prospective resource estimate of 358 million stock tank barrels of oil.

Si6 Metals says it has mapped and sampled clay-rich saprolite outcrops prospective for ionic-adsorption clay rare earths up to 12m thick at its Caldera JV project it shares with Foxfire Metals in Brazil. Assays are now pending after the JV sent 16 soil, channel and auger samples to the SGS Geosol laboratory in the Brazilian State of Minas Gerais.

Horizon Minerals has moved to build further on its mission to become a mid-tier gold producer in Western Australia’s renowned Goldfields region through a proposed merger with Greenstone Resources. The merger would create a combined entity with a significant landholding containing 1.8 million ounces of gold near a toll treatment mill in the historic WA town of Coolgardie.

Si6 Metals and Foxfire Metals are poised to launch their joint venture search for rare earths and lithium at their Caldera project in Brazil that sits near Meteoric Resources’ colossus Caldeira play boasting 409 million tonnes at 2626ppm TREO. Geophysical studies are underway and surface sampling will begin this week, while lithium exploration will begin in this year’s second quarter in the “Lithium Valley”.

BMG Resources is planning to beef up its holdings in WA’s West Arunta region – known as elephant country for niobium and rare earths – with an option to nab a 90 per cent interest in 1470sq km of ground. The package sits 30km from Encounter Resources’ Crean project and its resource of 282 million tonnes at 0.54 per cent niobium oxide and 0.17 per cent TRE0.

Testwork on ore from Infinity Lithium’s San José project in Spain has confirmed recoveries of more than 90 per cent, a result that will support a definitive feasibility study and pilot plant design. The company says the results exceed recoveries assumed in the project’s scoping study and confirm consistent production of battery-grade lithium hydroxide monohydrate from the 111-million-tonne orebody.

88 Energy is eyeing up contingent resources in Alaska as it prepares to flow test two reservoir intervals in its Hickory-1 well, both of which showed strong hydrocarbon indicators during drilling. If the tests are successful, the company hopes the results will lead to the conversion of some of the prospective resource to the higher-confidence contingent category.