Matt Birney

Cyclone Metals has started its maiden New Zealand exploration program at its newly-acquired Mareburn and Macraes South gold projects. The projects are located adjacent to OceanaGold Corporation's 10-million-ounce Macraes gold deposit currently producing 155,000 ounces per year. Geochemical sampling will target known gold mineralisation and favourable cross-cutting structures that may mimic the 80-million-ounce Carlin trend in Nevada.

St George has announced a major expansion of exploration for its four WA based projects. Work at Mt Alexander will test new nickel-copper-PGE targets and extensions to existing high-grade shallow deposits. The hunt for Winu style deposits at its Paterson project is planned to start in May. Whilst at the company’s Ajana and Broadview projects exploration will target Nova/Bollinger and Julimar style mafic intrusion hosted nickel-copper-PGE targets.

Gold-focused Horizon Minerals and joint venture partner Richmond Vanadium Technology have settled on the path forward for the development of the duo’s shared vanadium venture in central north Queensland. The pair have agreed Richmond will be the dedicated IPO vehicle to drive the project – that Horizon holds a 25 per cent interest in – to an ASX listing in September or October.

Strickland Metals says it has an emerging large gold system at its Millrose project as the explorer continues to find gold aplenty. The first hole north of known resources returned 54m at 1.8 g/t gold from 130m including 23m grading 2.4 g/t gold. Drilling beneath existing resources returned 95.5m going at 2.0 g/t gold including a high-grade intercept of 8m at 14.6 g/t gold from 215m.

Shares in gold explorer DiscovEx Resources vaulted more than 28 per cent on intraday trading following an announcement it had executed two binding-option agreements with Rio Tinto that allow the mining behemoth to acquire 100 per cent of the iron ore rights for four tenements within the Sylvania project, 15km southwest of Newman in Western Australia.

Panther Metals is continuing to keep its drill crew busy as it moves its RC rig from the 38 holes just drilled at the company’s Eight Foot Well gold prospect near Laverton in WA to the Merolia gold project where grab samples from the Burtville East target have yielded grades of up to 38.45 grams per tonne gold.

Allup Silica has listed on the ASX with an exploration strategy of targeting high-purity silica sand resources with economically viable road and port access. The company raised $5 million for exploration and evaluation of its three WA silica sand projects that include an inferred JORC mineral resource estimate of 73 million tonnes at an average grade of 96.6 per cent silica at its Sparkler prospect.

Alcore, an ABx Group subsidiary, has secured a $7.5 million modern manufacturing grant from the Federal Government to assist in the development of its world first aluminium smelter bath recycling plant. The facility aims to generate aluminium fluoride, an essential chemical for aluminium smelting, from smelter waste product bath. Australia currently imports its entire aluminium fluoride supply.

ASX-listed Image Resources says it has successfully navigated another challenging quarter at its wholly-owned Boonanarring mineral sands project, 80kilometres north of Perth in Western Australia. The company’s quarterly report shows the average realised price per tonne of its heavy mineral concentrate set a new quarterly record despite lower production and sales over the previous period.