Matt Birney

Blackstone Minerals has unveiled its much-anticipated scoping study for the Ta Khoa nickel project in Vietnam, delivering a tantalising set of numbers headlined by a AU$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. The financials clearly support the case for a revival of its mothballed nickel operation in Vietnam.

King River Resources program of metallurgical test work has hit upon a simplified purification process to produce a high-purity precursor compound to streamline the manufacture of a 4N HPA end product. The test work forms part of the company’s PFS over its giant Speewah speciality metals project in WA’s Kimberley region.

ASX-listed InteliCare has achieved a significant milestone in its business-to-consumer strategy to expand its revenue streams in the aged-care and healthcare sectors following the launch of a new online platform and e-commerce marketplace that provides an internet-based mechanism for family members to monitor the wellbeing of their elderly or health-compromised loved ones.

Comet Resources has wasted no time at its Santa Teresa gold project in Mexico, unveiling a high-grade maiden resource for the project, tipping the scales with 369,000 tonnes at an impressive 7.47 g/t gold. This initial estimate perhaps understates the potential of the deposit which hosts a wealth of high-grade intercepts and has only been drilled to 300m depth.

Troy Resources has hit the jackpot with a four-ounce-to-the-tonne gold hit in its latest diamond drill hole at the Smarts Underground deposit at its operating, million-ounce, Karouni gold project in Guyana, South America. In just one of 16 hits in the 449m deep drill hole, the company returned 11m at 131.93 g/t gold from 223m, including 1m at an ‘off-the-chart’ 1,176.99 g/t gold.

Hot Chili has unveiled a massive new resource for its Costa Fuego project in Chile, with the company’s inventory in South America skyrocketing to a headline-grabbing 724 million tonnes at 0.48 per cent copper equivalent. The global resource now hosts an incredible 2.9 million tonnes of copper, 2.7 million ounces of gold and 9.9 million ounces of silver. These numbers are set to grow even further in the coming months as drilling continues across the fertile copper terrane.

ASX-listed budding manganese producer, Element 25, has ticked off two more elements that are crucial to the extremely low CAPEX development of its Butcherbird manganese mine in the Pilbara. The company is now firmly on course to achieve its production start-up target date of February next year after securing commitments totalling almost $10 million for a capital raise and signing up OM Holdings as its preferred offtake partner.

ASX-listed Proteomics International has published the findings of a major international, multi-centre clinical study involving more than 3,500 patients which provides the first-ever external support for the efficacy of its PromarkerD diagnostic test. Extraordinarily, patients identified by PromarkerD were 13.5 times more likely to develop Chronic Kidney Disease during a 4-year period.

AVZ Minerals is drilling below the Roche Dure pit floor at its giant Manono lithium and tin project in the Democratic Republic of Congo hoping to upgrade a portion of the pegmatite ore to an indicated from inferred mineral resource category, where previous drilling had defined more than 400Mt of potential ore at a startling grade of 1.65 per cent lithium oxide.