Matt Birney

St George Mining is continuing a deep drilling program across its Mt Alexander nickel sulphide project in WA, with a recent diamond hole intersecting 30m of the fertile, basal ultramafic stratigraphy including 6m of disseminated sulphides. Encouragingly, the intensity of the sulphide intercept does not explain the booming anomaly now being targeted beneath the West End prospect suggesting the EM conductor has yet to be properly tested.

Lithium Australia’s 90 per cent-owned subsidiary, Envirostream Australia has applied for permission from the Environmental Protection Agency Victoria to allow one of its Melbourne battery recycling premises to operate above 500 tonnes per annum as it targets future volume growth in end-of-life battery collection. Envirostream has operated below 500tpa of specified e-waste at its Victorian sites so was not previously required to hold an EPA license to operate.

ASX-listed US helium player, Blue Star Helium, has upgraded the potential resources for two high-grade targets at its Las Animas helium project in Colorado ahead of a maiden drilling program. Perth-based Blue Star increased the combined prospective resources for the Enterprise and Galileo prospects by 16.5 per cent to 3.497 billion cubic feet of net recoverable helium in the 2U/P50 category.

Troy Resources is serving up a feast of high-grade gold intercepts at Karouni in Guyana, with drilling over the developing Smarts underground deposit continuing to deliver strong results. The company’s latest two drill holes, designed to test the extremities of the deposit, have returned assays of close to 13 g/t gold, with wider intercepts including 4m at 7.08 g/t gold from 172m and 3m at 6.58 g/t gold from 111m.

Blackstone Minerals’ aggressive drilling campaign continues across its Ta Khoa nickel-PGE project in northern Vietnam. The company has launched into diamond drilling at Ban Khoa, 1.5km north of its Ban Phuc operation, as it chases down new sulphide targets lit up by its geophysical team. Drilling also continues at King Cobra and Ban Chang in the wake of the company’s recently tabled scoping study.

King River Resources has successfully trialled its streamlined high-purity alumina processing route, utilising a readily available commercial aluminium feedstock to create an HPA precursor product. Metallurgical test work is currently underway on both this new precursor and the original precursor, manufactured from the company's Speewah ores, to create 4N HPA products at 99.99 per cent pure alumina.

ASX-listed West Africa bauxite player, Lindian Resources, has been given the all-clear from the Guinean Government to finalise the acquisition of a 75 per cent interest in the massive, undeveloped Lelouma bauxite project in Guinea. The Perth-based junior will assume the 75 per cent stake in Lelouma’s overarching ownership vehicle, Sarmin Bauxite, and take over operational control of the project.

ASX-listed explorer, Oakdale Resources, has kicked off a maiden aircore drilling program at its Gibraltar halloysite-kaolin project on SA’s Eyre Peninsula aimed at confirming the extent of the mineralisation that was detected by historic shallow drilling. The company plans to drill 50 holes totalling an estimated 2,500m over its target area 15km north of Andromeda Metals’ Mount Hope kaolin-halloysite project.

ASX-listed Victory Mines is off to a flying start at its Coogee gold project in Western Australia, with initial drill results from its maiden program over the prospect returning a bevy of high-grade gold hits including an eye-catching 8m at 13.53 g/t from 92m and 2m at 13.82 g/t gold from 102m down-hole.