Public Company News

Buru Energy continues to maintain a stable production base of between 960 and 1000 barrels of oil per day from its Ungani oilfield in the Canning basin in WA’s Kimberley region. Work to upgrade the fluid handling capacity of the production facility is also on track and the company has signed a new oil sales contract on more favourable commercial terms with Petro-Diamond Singapore.

TNG Limited has signed a binding heads of agreement with Genesee & Wyoming Australia for the provision of rail haulage services for its Mount Peake vanadium-titanium-iron project in the Northern Territory. The two companies will work together to develop an optimised rail haulage strategy for Mount Peake and finalise an agreement for the transport of magnetite concentrate from the mine to the processing plant in Darwin.

King River Resources has kicked off a 31-hole drilling program that seeks to define additional vanadium resources for its giant Speewah specialty metals project in WA’s Kimberley region. The company has also tasked Perth-based engineering firm Como Engineers with seeking indicative pricing on alternative sulphuric acid plants suitable for the Speewah project and has started to develop a strategy to deal with project waste.

Hawkstone Mining has received more high-grade lithium assays showing wide intersections up to 52m @ 1,953 ppm lithium, from its Big Sandy clay project in the US. The company recently accelerated its exploration and development activities at the project, which will assist in the estimation of a maiden JORC mineral resource and the completion of definitive metallurgical test work programs.

TNG Limited has put in place funding arrangements for engineering and design work on its flagship Mount Peake vanadium-titanium-iron project in the Northern Territory. The company is looking to raise $4.98 million through a rights issue of one share priced at 9.3 cents for every 20 shares held by eligible shareholders, which is fully underwritten by German investment company Deutsche Balaton Aktiengesellschaft.

Geopacific Resources has acquired 100% direct ownership of the Woodlark gold project in PNG after buying out Kula Gold’s remaining share for a cash and scrip transaction worth about $3.29m. The deal represents exquisite timing for the company, with the gold price nearly 25% higher than that assumed in November’s DFS for Woodlark, which already outlined robust economic metrics and strong margins to develop the project.

88 Energy has all but sewn up the farm-out of the conventional rights at its project known as “Project Icewine” in the famed North Slope oil province in Alaska after its as yet unnamed partner completed all internal approvals. The farm-out is now subject to the execution of closing documents and the transfer of working interests while well planning and permitting is ramping up for drilling in 2020.

Spectrum Metals’ Phase II drilling campaign at the Penny West project near Youanmi, WA, has returned further high-grade gold intersections, with mineralisation now defined over 650 metres of strike to a vertical depth of 230m. Preliminary metallurgical test work from the Penny North ores have been encouraging, with gold recoveries up to 99.2% and free-milling gold potentially amenable to a conventional processing circuit.

Lithium Australia plans to commence drilling to evaluate the potential and geometry of lithium pegmatites at the prospective Youanmi project near Sandstone in the Murchison region of WA, before the end of this month. The company will also carry out work on the higher-grade sections of a defined vanadium resource, which it believes to be amenable to direct leaching to produce vanadium sulphate.

Venus Metals and Rox Resources may be sitting on a high-grade gold deposit at their Currans Find JV gold project near Youanmi, WA, after re-sampling of recent holes turned up a spectacular intersection of 1m @ 72.67g/t gold from 39m within a wider zone of 3m @ 27.5g/t gold. This is significantly higher than the initial assays, which returned 6m @ 9.82g/t gold from 36m.

Volt Resources has secured USD$1 million in working capital from European investor Mr Lars Bader to help finalise the USD$40 million note issue on the Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange. The notes will underpin the Stage 1 development of the company's Bunyu graphite project in Tanzania that has an ore reserve of 127 million tonnes grading 4.4% TGC, most of which is in the Super Jumbo, Jumbo and Large flake categories.

Sovereign Metals has outlined encouraging preliminary metallurgical test work results for its Wofiira rutile prospect in Malawi, East Africa, generating a potentially premium high-quality product, with low impurities, from conventional mineral sands processing. The concentrated ore product contained 96% titanium dioxide at a recovered grade of 1.1% rutile and is on par with many of the world’s leading rutile producers.