Public Company News

King River Resources has wrapped up the sale of its Speewah critical minerals project in WA's rugged Kimberley to NT resources firm Tivan Ltd. The sale was initiated two years ago for a mix of cash and shares worth $20 million. The deal was restructured in February last year, resulting in a $2.4m payment last December with no further shares to be issued.

St George Mining has bolstered its cavalry by appointing an ex-CBMM engineering manager from a neighbouring industry-leading niobium plant. Armed with a $20 million war chest and strategic alliance with global mining engineering firm Shandong Xinhai Mining, St George is assembling elite in-house expertise to fast-track the development of its Araxá niobium-rare earths project in Brazil.

Great Southern Mining and Gold Fields Limited have identified a second large-scale induced polarisation (IP) target at their Edinburgh Park gold and copper project in northern Queensland. The newly discovered Mt Dillon target follows a previous IP anomaly at Leichhardt Creek, located 10km northwest. The latest find reinforces the potential for significant mineralization within the jointly owned exploration area.

Lithium Universe has approved a final investment to progress its Bécancour lithium refinery in Canada and will now aim to secure US$549m (A$862m) in funding for the project, which has a net present value of US$718m (A$1.128b). The project is expected to generate EBITDA of US$148m from annual revenue of US$383m with a 3.9-year payback based on current price assumptions.

McLaren Minerals has launched an air core drilling campaign at the company's flagship McLaren titanium sands project in Western Australia's Eucla Basin. The program aims to refine resource estimates, expand high-grade titanium mineralisation and enhance confidence in the 280-million-tonne resource. A key priority will be to collect 5 tonnes of sample material for metallurgical testing at IHC Mining's laboratory in Queensland.

Kalgoorlie Gold Mining has etched out an under-explored 13km corridor along strike at its freshly minted Lighthorse gold discovery and is fast-tracking drilling to test the full extent of its prospective gold system. The company set tongues wagging and its share price bolting earlier this month when it pulled up a clutch of impressive intercepts including 17m running at 4.81 g/t.

Javelin Minerals is about to launch a 2500-metre reverse circulation (RC) drilling program at its newly acquired Eureka gold project, 50km north of Kalgoorlie in WA. The company has a program of works submitted and an RC rig secured through a drill-for-equity deal with TopDrill. The program, to target high-grade lodes, is expected to begin in early March and will take about three weeks.

88 Energy has sealed a deal with US partner Burgundy Xploration, signing a two-phase farmout participation agreement for its Phoenix oil and gas project in Alaska. The Texas-based Burgundy will tip US$39m (A$61.3 million) into the kitty to fully fund future works programs, including drilling a horizontal well and production testing in return for a 75 per cent stake.

Larvotto Resources' plans to run a dry tailings stacking process at its Hillgrove antimony-gold project in New South Wales have been accepted by the NSW planning and infrastructure department. The company decided to move away from a conventional wet slurry tailings dam because the dry storage solution offered significant low-cost design and eco-friendly benefits given Hillgrove's nature, scale and current infrastructure.

This week's Bulls N' Bears Runner of the Week is… Caprice Resources. The company's share price rocketed after unveiling gold results at its Island Gold project in the Murchison. EV Resources and its ultra-high-grade molybdenum in Peru surged thanks to China's export bans, Scorpion acquired yet more Murchison hot property and Latitude 66 is returning to test its high-grade gold projects in Northern Finland.

Neometals has scored another tranche of funding to advance its vanadium recovery operation in Finland. EIT RawMaterials will throw in an additional €0.494m (A$818) in grant funding, following an earlier €0.5m investment late last year to increase its minority shareholding in a Scandinavian special purpose vehicle to 2.2 per cent.

BMG Resources is poised to ramp up drilling at its Abercromby gold project near Wiluna in Western Australia, with phase one results expected any day and phase two drilling scheduled to begin next month. With the first-round results from December's 1076m diamond drilling campaign expected imminently, BMG is confident that visual observations suggest the project's existing 518,000-ounce gold resource is set to grow.