Matt Birney

Trigg Mining has launched a gravity survey over its Lake Yeo sulphate of potash fertiliser project in WA. Via the survey, Trigg seeks to pinpoint drill targets and evaluate the project’s potential to represent a repeat of its nearby Lake Throssell potash deposit where a 21 year mine life generating $97m a year in EBITDA was recently estimated in a scoping study.

Image Resources will pay $24m for Sheffield Resources’ 211 million tonnes of mineral resources grading 3.0 per cent total heavy minerals for 6.3 million tonnes of contained total heavy minerals. Image now has a binding agreement to pick up around eight exploration licences, three mining leases and one retention licence from Sheffield that will see the mineral sands miner effectively double its existing resource.

Exploration company, Tambourah Metals is getting set to pump out the drill metres at its namesake gold project and its Cheela gold project in the Pilbara region after securing relevant ‘programme of work’ approvals from the WA Government. Historical drilling at the company’s Tambourah project returned multiple high-grade intercepts including a sublime 10 metres at 10.8 grams per tonne gold and an impressive 8m at 13.6 g/t gold.

AVZ Minerals has joined the newly established DRC Battery Council creating a strategic opportunity to promote battery, electric vehicle and renewable energy sector development in the DRC and Africa. AVZ was the only aspiring mining company invited to join the DRC Battery Council that is presided over by influential leaders including the President of the DRC.

Shares in Altech Chemicals soared by 50 per cent in intraday trading Thursday after the ASX-listed company delivered a breakthrough in utilising silicon in lithium-ion batteries. Altech says it has broken the “silicon barrier” by successfully applying its proprietary coating technology to produce a series of lithium-ion battery anode materials with a 30 per cent higher retention capacity than existing anode materials.

Valor Resources has extracted a handy $5.4m from the market to throw at its Canadian uranium projects as it ramps up exploration activities amid strengthening uranium prices. The Perth-based explorer is knee deep in a flurry of exploration activities as the uranium price is spurred on by increased global demand for yellow cake.

Great Southern Mining is ploughing nearly 8,000 metres of aircore drilling into the Amy Clarke gold prospect within its Duketon tenements in Western Australia. Drilling is aimed at seeking out the source of a 4km long gold in soil anomaly that the company says exhibits uncanny similarities in size and tenor to Regis Resources nearby 2.1 million ounce Garden Well gold mine.

Mineral explorer, Estrella Resources continues to hit nickel and copper sulphides at its enthralling T5 discovery located at its Carr Boyd project near Kalgoorlie in WA. A step-out diamond drill hole below the T5 discovery has intercepted three separate zones of nickel and copper sulphides, including a new mineralised zone where a 3m interval grading 1.76 per cent nickel and 0.66 per cent copper was returned.

88 Energy is gearing up to tap its Merlin-2 well at Project Peregrine in Alaska’s North Slope after pinpointing a spot from a trio of initially permitted locations. The Merlin-2 appraisal well is targeting 652 million barrels of oil with an independent geological evaluation giving it a better-than-even chance of success. The project stretches across almost 200,000 acres of land and is proximal to some bumper historic oil finds.