Matt Birney

Gold and copper explorer Orange Minerals has taken a stake of almost 7 per cent in Godolphin Resources spending $600,000 to snap up 7.6 million shares in Godolphin’s recent share placement. The two companies already had ties through their joint venture Calarie gold project, north of Forbes in Central NSW.

ASX-listed explorer 88 Energy has announced a maiden resource estimate of 1.03 billion barrels located on the central North Slope of Alaska. The Icewine East project is spread over an area of 185,320 net acres. The maiden resource estimate is based on well logs from the previously drilled exploration well Icewine 1, seismic data, data from other wells in the region, recent petrophysical analysis and geophysical mapping. 88 Energy holds a 75 per cent working interest in the project.

Richmond Vanadium Technology, which is 25 per cent owned by Perth-based Horizon Minerals, has struck an off-take agreement with emerging manufacturer Ultra Power Systems to supply vanadium for its patented energy storage modules. Under the agreement, Richmond will invest up to $5 million to shift Ultra into production of its battery technology and in turn secure a guaranteed buyer of vanadium pentoxide from its Queensland project.

Quantum Graphite has made a play for fellow SA graphite developer and explorer Lincoln Minerals. Under the off-market bid, the company is offering one Quantum share for every 40 Lincoln shares. Lincoln is the custodian of the 2.2Mt Kookaburra Gully graphite project grading 15.5 per cent total graphitic carbon and is located in a world-class flake graphite province on South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula.

Godolphin Resources’ maiden diamond drill hole from its Cyclops prospect on the Lachlan Fold Belt of central west NSW has returned multiple zones of shear-hosted high-grade copper with coincident gold, silver and molybdenum mineralisation. Godolphin describes the multiple intersections as “highly encouraging” with assay results greater than 1 per cent copper included within a broader low envelope of mineralisation.

ASX-listed gold explorer DiscovEx Resources is gearing up for plenty of Q3 activity after completing a 6000m-plus air-core drilling program at its Sylvania project, 15km south-west of Newman and launching a geophysical gravity survey at its Edjudina project, about 250km north-east of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia.

Coda Minerals has been given the green light to begin drilling at its highly prospective Cameron River copper-gold project near Mt Isa with final environmental approvals received from the Queensland Government. The company says the 30-hole RC drill campaign will kick off on August 23 and test a number of geochemical and induced polarisation survey targets.

Strickland Metals has identified a new prospect at its Iroquois zinc-lead project in Earaheedy Basin near Wiluna in Western Australia after rock chip samples and a trial induced polarisation survey confirmed anomalies. Recent rock chip samples at the new Malecite prospect about 1.5km south-east of Iroquois returned peak results of 7.3 per cent lead, 0.5 per cent copper, 4.8 grams per tonne silver, 0.4 per cent zinc and 25 per cent manganese.

Nickel-focused Estrella Resources is becoming increasingly bullish about shifting into production after receiving further high-grade assays from resource drilling at the company’s Spargoville nickel project near Kambalda in WA. Significant results from its latest diamond drilling include 3.45m going 5.46 per cent nickel from 70m, containing a high-grade 1.2m at a stunning 10.85 per cent, 11.12m at 1.68 per cent from 59m and 2.7m at 2.47 per cent from 74m.