Public Company News

Blackstone Minerals has discovered new nickel sulphide mineralisation in the previously untested Taipan Discovery Zone within the Ta Cuong nickel-PGE-copper-cobalt massive sulphide vein prospect. Ta Cuong sits about 6km northwest of Blackstone’s dormant but modern Ban Phuc nickel mine and processing centre in Vietnam. The first diamond hole to test Taipan hit 39.7m of continuous fresh sulphides, including some massive sulphides after 15.5m downhole.

Surefire Resources is fast-tracking its Perenjori magnetite iron ore project in WA, with the aspiring producer tabling a massive resource for the deposit that now weighs in at 192 million tonnes grading over 36 per cent iron that the company says can be beneficiated up to a stellar 70 per cent iron concentrate.

Element 25 says it will be processing manganese ore by the back end of next month at its new Butcherbird manganese project in the Pilbara. The company says it will dry commission the plant in the first half of March and achieve wet commissioning and start processing ore by the end of the month, representing a significant milestone in the history of the company.

ASX-listed Chilean copper player, Hot Chili has fired up a third drill rig to accelerate its recently commenced 40,000-metre follow-up diamond and RC drilling program at its massive Cortadera copper-gold discovery. Cortadera forms part of the Perth-based company’s proposed Costa Fuego porphyry copper-gold super hub project development in Chile about 600 kilometres north of the country’s capital, Santiago.

After nailing its maiden gold drilling campaign at the Gnows Nest project near Yalgoo, Emu NL is opening up a second and third exploration front in WA with auger drilling now set to kick off in the South West and the Eastern Goldfields. A detailed auger campaign will drill test the company’s Viper, Graceland and 8-Mile Dam projects in the coming weeks.

ASX-listed explorer King River Resources says drilling has unearthed its richest, high-grade gold vein outside of the Trudi Main prospect at its Mount Remarkable gold project in WA’s north-east Kimberley region. The first high grade, reverse circulation gold hit at its Jennifer North vein returned 2m at 8.44 g/t gold which included 1m going 14.8 g/t, within an overall 5m zone grading 3.45 g/t gold.

Todd River Resources’ share price hiked more than 8 per cent in ASX trade after the company finalised a $3.3 million capital raise, landing high profile fund manager Acorn Capital as cornerstone investor in the process. The flourishing WA nickel explorer is set to kick off a raft of exploration in the coming weeks across its highly prospective targets throughout the nickel-bearing terranes of Western Australia.

Venus Metals has commenced a fresh round of RC drilling at its 90 per cent-owned Range View prospect as it hunts down more gold at the interesting looking target just 1.5kms north-east of its Bell Chambers gold deposit. Venus is testing the extension of high-grade gold mineralisation discovered late last year at Range View, just off the Paynes Find-Sandstone Road, east of Mount Magnet in WA’s Goldfields region.

Venture Minerals is chasing down both copper and zinc sulphides at its Golden Grove North project in WA, with the budding developer kicking off diamond drilling at the prospect. The program is following up on a quiver of targets generated from the company’s maiden exploration program over the prospect which included drill intercepts of 1.3 per cent copper, 6.1 per cent zinc and 22 grams per tonne silver.