Matt Birney

Impact Minerals looks to be tugging on the tail of a tiger with recent geochemical sampling at Apsley in NSW outlining a sizeable anomaly that flaunts all the hallmarks of a classic ‘text-book’ porphyry copper-gold deposit according to the company. Sampling at the company’s Apsley project has highlighted three priority targets for immediate testing with geophysical surveying expected to commence later this month.

King River Resources is targeting high-grade gold in the Northern Territory as drilling kicks off at the Lone Star prospect at Tennant Creek. The company is targeting a series of coincident magnetic-gravity anomalies that it is interpreting as potentially the geophysical signature for the high-grade copper-gold rich ironstone ore bodies found in the Tennant Creek mineral field.

Having made the successful transition from explorer to producer, Horizon Minerals has taken advantage of soaring gold prices to rack up a quickfire $2.93 million in revenue from the first 1,050 ounces of gold produced from its Boorara mining operations 10km east of Kalgoorlie.

ASX-listed gold hopeful, Middle Island Resources, looks to have struck paydirt at one of its new satellite deposits at its historic Sandstone gold project in WA, returning bonanza RC drill hits from the Ridge prospect that appears to be shaping up as an open pit ore source in its own right.

ASX-listed gold developer Calidus Resources has taken multiple steps towards gold production at its flagship Warrawoona project in WA’s East Pilbara region with environmental approvals clearing the way for early construction items to be built at the planned $116 million development. The company plans to commence early capital works – including an access road and a 240-person accommodation village – as soon as next month.

Great Southern Mining continues to churn out the high-grade drill hits at its historic Cox’s Find gold project near Laverton in WA, this time outside of the interpreted main lode extension. Better assays from recent RC drilling at Cox’s Find included 9m going 5 g/t gold from 142m, within a broader zone of 16m at 3.7 g/t from 138m, and 2m at 14 g/t from 146m.

ASX-listed aspiring manganese developer, Element 25, has ticked a major box at its proposed low-CAPEX Butcherbird project in the Pilbara, this week declaring the site has sufficient process water supply to support production. The company says it successfully pump tested a water bore within a shallow aquifer and determined the project has enough water for proposed production operations.

ASX-listed Lithium Australia, via its subsidiary, the Very Small Particle Company or “VSPC”, has refined the process for the production of its lithium ferro phosphate battery cathode powders, reducing the chemical input costs by 20 per cent in the process. Lithium phosphate raw materials produced using VSPC’s optimised process returned excellent electrochemical results, according to the company.

Neometals has joined forces with multi-billion-dollar German metallurgical powerhouse, SMS Group, to develop the company’s proprietary lithium battery recycling technology. Under the terms of the joint venture, the companies will form Primobius GmbH to commercialise Neometals’ lithium-ion battery recycling technology with the recovered product set to be used in the growing battery supply chain.