Matt Birney

With rhodium and platinum touching record prices, Podium Minerals has revealed a swathe of notable rhodium assays at its Parks Reef PGM project near Cue in WA. Demand for the rare metal is forecast to soar ahead of its increasing use as a catalyst in automotive catalytic converters, a vehicle part that cleans up exhaust fumes. The company is now looking at rhodium as a potential “credit” metal, with re-assay results averaging about 3% to 4% rhodium within the platinum, palladium plus gold zones across the entire Parks Reef deposit.

AVZ Minerals is on the home stretch of its mammoth DFS, which is due to hit the market next month, with phase two metallurgical test work delivering another exceptional batch of results that reinforce the potential economic viability of its Manono lithium and tin project in the Democratic Republic of Congo. A bulk 2,000 kilogram sample yielded a 160-kilogram concentrate grading 6.1% lithium oxide at over 60% lithia recovery.

Lindian Resources' maiden auger drilling program at its Gaoual bauxite project in Guinea has confirmed that the company is sitting on a very high-grade conglomerate-hosted bauxite deposit, with drill holes encountering exceptional grades of over 60% aluminium oxide right across the Bouba Plateau. The thickness of the mineralisation varies and in some areas is over 15m according to Lindian.

Coziron Resources has recently vectored in on gold mineralisation at the Top Camp prospect at its Croydon project in the Pilbara with one 8m drill intercept going 10.2g/t gold, including 1m at 66.1g/t. Coziron’s technical team is now joining the dots from its Top Camp gold prospect to De Grey Mining’s new Hemi gold discovery, via a geological feature Coziron calls the Tabba Tabba shear zone.

Hot Chili is on track to deliver some exceptional drill intersections at its rapidly growing Cortadera porphyry copper-gold discovery in Chile with its first expansion diamond drill hole for 2020 still in mineralisation at 900m with 550m of mineralised porphyry already in the bag from the 350m mark. The company said it would extend the hole that is a 100m step-out from the largest porphyry to around 1,100m.

AVZ Minerals has executed a binding memorandum of understanding with the Congolese Government to create a “special economic zone” for the Manono Lithium and tin project in the Tanganyika Province of the Democratic Republic of Congo. A special economic zone has the potential to deliver significant economic stimulus to both AVZ and the local communities around Manono, with tax breaks high on the list.

Middle Island Resources has picked up an additional 1,363 square kilometres of prospective iron oxide-copper-gold, or “IOCG” ground in the Northern Territory after the Government there lifted an exploration moratorium over the East Tennant province. The company now holds ten exploration licence applications covering 3,253 square kilometres that combined are known as the Barkly Super-Project.

Aurora Labs has successfully completed a testing program of samples of corrosion-resistant, 316L stainless steel using the company’s patented multi-layered concurrent printing technology. The independent test results have exceeded ASTM standards in tensile and yield strength. The company said this was an important step towards demonstrating that its multi-layered concurrent proprietary technology is viable and efficient.

Agricultural asset development and management firm, Alterra, has appointed a new member to its team with Paul Good taking up the position of South West Regional Manager, bringing with him nearly 20 years’ of industry know-how. Alterra is looking to shake up the agribusiness sector with a business model that will see it co-invest with mostly institutional investors in managed crops with avocados looking like being the early opener.