Matt Birney

ASX-listed Blue Star Helium continues to build out its strategic land bank in the USA that surrounds the historic Model Dome helium gas field which once produced helium at good rates with awesome yields. Blue Star has increased its net acreage holding to 120,000 acres, recently adding 12,557 net acres, mostly within its highly ranked Galileo prospect, due west of Model Dome.

Primobius GnbH, a joint venture company owned by ASX-listed urban metals player Neometals and its 50 per cent partner, German industrial giant, SMS Group GmbH, has signed an MoU with European battery producer InoBat j.s.a. The intended JV plans to investigate the business case for sustainable recycling of lithium-ion batteries, InoBat production scrap and other, third-party feedstock in Central/Eastern Europe.

ASX-listed medical technology company, Proteomics International Laboratories’ coffers have been further boosted by a $1.1 million research and development tax rebate following a recent successful capital raise of $6 million. The Perth-based company, known for its predictive diagnostic tests, now has approximately $8.5 million in cash reserves including the funds from the share placement and the rebate of $1.13 million from the Australian Taxation Office.

A potentially lucrative base metals joint venture project between Classic Minerals and Independence Group in the revered Fraser Range nickel province of WA has been quietly bubbling away at the same time as the ASX-listed junior explorer looks to develop its flagship Kat Gap gold project about 170km south of Southern Cross.

Northern Minerals has launched a major drilling campaign at its Browns Range heavy rare earths project in WA’s East Kimberley region, with 8,000m of the 16,500m RC program planned for the financial year set to be completed before Christmas. It has also recently started building a $5.9 million ore sorter at the front end of the project’s pilot plant that is flagged as a low-cost method of potentially doubling the ore feed grade.

Novo Resources has completed a battery of test work on the bulk samples from its Karratha gold project, successfully recovering fine nuggety gold from the conglomerate ores found at both the Purdy’s Reward and Comet Well deposits. The recovery of this size fraction, via mechanical sorting, significantly enhances the potential economics of the operation and validates the process flow sheet being designed for the developing operation.

ASX-listed Lithium Australia’s 90 per cent-owned subsidiary, Envirostream Australia, has been allocated just over $200,000 in grant funding from the Victorian State Government for the further development of its “electrolyte management in rechargeable battery recycling” project. The battery recycling company’s electrolyte management process safely captures electrolyte components in liquid form from the recycling of spent lithium-ion batteries.

ASX-listed explorer, Oakdale Resources, has received regulatory approvals for a maiden aircore drilling program at its Gibraltar halloysite-kaolin project on SA’s Eyre Peninsula. The company says a drilling contractor has been locked in and the drill rig and geological crew are expected to be on site early next month.

Blackstone Minerals has moved quickly to put a mine-to-market management group in place to develop its Ta Khoa nickel-copper-PGE project in Vietnam. The appointments come just a fortnight after the company tabled a scoping study with a tantalising set of numbers including a A$1 billion present-day valuation and net pre-tax cash flows in excess of US$1.2 billion over the projected 8.5-year life of mine.