Matt Birney

ASX-listed Hot Chili cant put a foot wrong, with its ongoing drill program continuing to deliver blistering numbers at the Cortadera project in Chile. Latest results include 542m grading 0.5% copper and 0.2 grams per tonne gold from 422m at the Cupero 3 deposit. The most recent drill hits have extended the deposit’s high grade core to well over 500m in length and 200m in width.

Lithium Australia looks set to drill test an exciting swarm of stacked pegmatites at Lake Johnston that outcrop over 450m x 100m. The company previously said it is looking at an exploration target at its Medcalf project in the Lake Johnston region of between 5 million tonnes and 8 Mt at between 0.8% lithium oxide and 1.2% Li2O. Lake Johnston is exquisitely located near three major lithium deposits.

Blina Minerals’ new Barkly project near Tennant Creek in the NT has taken on a new complexion after the Perth ASX-listed company tabled some exciting drill results from its maiden drill program at the project. Best numbers include 20m grading 1.67% copper and 1.79g/t gold from 156m at the Bluebird prospect and 15m going 3.46% copper and 0.61g/t gold including 1m grading 4.8% copper and 3.9g/t gold at the end of hole.

Venus Metals has entered into a binding term sheet with ASX-listed eMetals for the sale of its Nardoo Hill lithium exploration tenement in WA’s Gascoyne region. Under the terms of the deal, Venus will receive $15,000 in cash, 25 million shares in eMetals priced at $0.014 cents per share and it will retain some upside to the project courtesy of a $0.50 cent per tonne royalty for any ore extracted from the tenement.

Buru Energy has received $1.9m cash for its share of the latest sale of crude oil from its Ungani oil field in Western Australia’s Canning basin. The sale rounds out a solid quarter of oil sales for Buru who previously predicted it would achieve $5.4m in oil sales for the March quarter – a prediction that is looking good despite the recent drop in oil prices.

Horizon Minerals has picked up a respectable $6M in a combined debt and equity that looks like it will be enough to see the ASX junior pour it first gold bar from the Boorara gold project near Kalgoorlie. As part of the package, Horizon made a $2M placement before costs at A$0.08c per share representing a 10% discount to its 15-day VWAP of $0.089c, an astounding effort in a terrible market.

Perth-listed lithium developer, AVZ Minerals, has achieved an impressive average of 69% fine lithia recoveries from stage two metallurgical flotation test work at its giant Manono lithium and tin project in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Elsewhere at the nearby Carriere de l’Este deposit, AVZ conducted initial test work and found randomly sampled high grade sections from diamond core that produced a 2.37% lithium oxide sample.

Spectrum Metals has followed up the highest grade drill results seen to date outside of its Penny North deposit in WA and made some further encouraging hits including 3 metres grading 9.62 grams per tonne and 2m grading 13.0g/t gold from its Magenta prospect. It looks as if the company may also be onto a new discovery with a “stratigraphic” hole at the Golden Hinde prospect returning 1m grading 54.9g/t gold from 77m downhole.

Alterra has tapped into the database, knowledge banks and networks of well-known Harvey avocado and citrus grower, Richard Eckersley. The parties have inked “Local Partner and Data Access” agreements that provide Alterra with access to the expert grower’s cropping data for 15 years and Eckersley will also act as something of a forward scout in the South West for Alterra who is on the hunt for investment grade crops.