Matt Birney

Blue Star Helium has continued to expand its project tenure at its Las Animas helium play in Colorado in the proven high-grade helium fairway adjacent to the historic Model Dome helium field, as the company prepares for a much-anticipated maiden drilling program. It has just secured leases for a further 6,720 acres to increase its overall lease holdings to 182,000 gross or 127,000 net acres.

Following up electromagnetic conductor results that lit up like a Christmas tree, ASX-listed Legend Mining has hit paydirt again after it rolled out an assortment of high-grade nickel intercepts at its Mawson project in the Fraser Range of WA. The geological feast included a strike of 14.45m at 2.63 per cent nickel and 2.09 per cent copper from 162.05m with ongoing drilling continuing to hit its mark.

King River Resources has elected to shift its strategic focus to its own recently identified leaching and refining process, utilising readily available aluminium chemical feedstocks, in what it says is a lower risk and faster path toward High Purity Alumina production. King River’s recent lab testing has now confirmed the production of a high-purity precursor compound suitable for calcining into HPA.

ASX-listed Alterra Ltd will sell the third tranche of its legacy Dambadgee Springs agricultural land in the town of Dandaragan, north of Perth, significantly progressing its efforts to become a major agribusiness developer in Western Australia. The sale, once completed, will allow it to accelerate its flagship Carpenters avocado project in WA’s south-east.

ASX-listed Podium Minerals has flipped the switch on an accelerated RC drilling campaign at its Parks Reef PGMs project in the Mid West region of WA as it looks to extend mineral resources across the entire 15km strike length within the company’s ground. While the drill rods start turning, the company is also nearing completion of a resource upgrade incorporating results from earlier RC drilling.

Adriatic Metals continues to successfully navigate penultimate regulatory approvals on the pathway to development of its flagship Vares silver-lead-zinc project in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The company secured an urban planning permit that now paves the way for it to seek the final approvals needed to allow it to proceed with construction of the proposed Vares project, which has a forecast CAPEX of US$173 million.

Impact Minerals has continued to build its portfolio of projects in Western Australia with its latest addition being an intriguing gold project to the east of the world-class St Ives gold mining centre near Kambalda. The Doonia project covers what appears to be a mafic intrusive with a similar geochemical and geophysical signature to the ground-breaking Hemi gold discovery in the Pilbara region.

ASX-listed West Africa gold explorer, Mako Gold, has been buoyed by the latest bonanza gold drill hits at its majority-owned Napie gold project in Côte d’Ivoire and says the exciting Tchaga prospect has the makings of a significant gold discovery. The stand-out assay result was 2m at 92.95 g/t gold from 36m including 1m at 143.6 g/t or 4.6 ounces of gold to the tonne.

Infinity Lithium continues to kick goals at its San Jose project in western Spain, with ongoing test work being developed as part of the company’s feasibility study, showing improved recoveries of lithium from the front-end of the proposed processing flowsheet. First-stage beneficiation shows a 10 per cent increase in lithium recovery, compared to the previous figures achieved as part of Infinity’s earlier pre-feasibility work.