Morning News Bites – November 4

Neometals Completes Mini-Pilot Test Work.

On top of Neometals (ASX: NMT) yesterday announcing its venture into battery recycling it has released details of the successful completion of its mini-pilot test work campaign on the Company’s Vanadium Recovery Project. Results confirmed excellent vanadium chemical product purity (>99.5% V2O5), strong recoveries (>75%) and reduced residence time for Neometals’ patent pending hydrometallurgical process for recovering vanadium from Slag.

Neometals executed a collaboration agreement with Critical Metals, to jointly evaluate the feasibility of constructing a facility to recover and process high-grade vanadium products from vanadium-bearing steel by-product in Scandinavia.

The Mini-Pilot was constructed, commissioned and operated continuously through the campaign without any safety incidents or process challenges. Of particular significance was the achievement of chemical-grade vanadium pentoxide at high recovery rates and low residence times. Passing this major technical milestone is important and gives Neometals the strong confidence to continue its project development by commencing the PFS.

Neometals Managing Director Chris Reed commented: “We are very pleased with the results of the Mini-Pilot campaign. This substantially de-risks our patent-pending processing flow sheet and gives us the confidence to commence the PFS. We now shift our attention to the design phase of the larger proposed pilot plant which will leach material from three of SSAB’s steel operations in a mild carbonate solution at moderate temperatures and atmospheric pressure. The beauty of our process is that the main reagent is carbon dioxide, which we plan to capture from third-party emission to sequester some 65,000 tonnes in our leach Residue rendering it inert and available for secondary use.”

Marmota Strikes it Rich.

Marmota (ASX:MEU) has announced that the drilling program completed in September 2020 at Aurora Tank has achieved multiple successes.

Marmota Chairman, Dr Colin Rose, said: “ This has primarily been an extensional program, testing out new ground. It is also Marmota’s eighth drilling program at Aurora Tank. We are very fortunate that every one of those programs so far has been a success.

This program has yielded new high-grade extensions to the North, West and at depth, significantly extended the NW flank, and yielded our current highest 4m intersection. I am delighted that Aurora Tank keeps on growing, that underlying fundamentals are strong, and so too the potential rewards to shareholders.

Aurora Tank is fortunate to combine high-grade intersections that are close to surface, with excellent metallurgy, making Aurora Tank potentially amenable to low-cost low capex open-pittable heap leach methods, which are our clear focus. ”

Drilling yielded outstanding high-grade gold intersections including: 4m @ 70 g/t gold (from 64m downhole) and 4m @ 25 g/t gold (from 52m downhole).

Marmota has intersected very high grades close to surface [typically just 20m to 50m from surface], this program is also the first time that Marmota has also intersected high grade gold at depths below 80m. In particular, a reconnaissance hole designed to test for an extension to the west of the NW flank intersected 4m at 7.3 g/t at a depth of 120m downhole with follow up drilling required to prove it up.

Strandline to Power Up with Contract Power.

Strandline Resources (ASX: STA) has released details of its development of its Coburn mineral sands project in Western Australia by appointing Contract Power Australia as preferred contractor to build, own and operate the power generation facilities for the project.

Coburn’s purpose-designed power facility is based on a low-cost, low-emission solution integrating natural gas fuelled generation with state-of-the-art solar and battery storage technology. The proposed power solution will enable Strandline to capture energy supply cost savings relative to the DFS published in June 2020.

The power station is designed for a maximum demand capacity of 16 MW and average consumed power of ~10 MW. Natural gas will be supplied by others under an industry standard long-term LNG supply agreement and trucked to an on-site storage and re-vapourisation facility supplied by Contract Power. The LNG then feeds a set of efficient engine generators on an N+1 basis and has ~30% solar (renewable) penetration for the major stable loads.

Generation is at 11kV with step up to 22kV for power transmission to the project loads across the mine site.

Strandline Managing Director Luke Graham said the appointment marked another key step in its strategy to bring Coburn into production and establishes an important relationship with Contract Power, a leader in sustainable clean energy generation in Western Australia.

Pantoro Confirms Two High-Grade Lodes.

Pantoro (ASX:PNR) advised that further drilling and initial level development have confirmed the presence and continuity of two additional high grade lodes at the Wagtail Underground Mine at their Halls Creek Project. Both lodes extend the mineralisation at the Wagtail Underground Mine and are located in the hanging wall of the current Rowdies ore system.

Development and drilling defined a North East oriented splay lode (REV Lode) developing off of the current Rowdies lodes. The new REV Lode currently has a strike length of 50 metres and vertical extent of 100 metres. The lode remains open at depth and drilling is ongoing.

The REV Lode interacts with the newly discovered high grade North Striking Lode in the hanging wall.  The sulphide rich REV Lode appears to be a direct analogue to the Mother/Darcy lodes at Nicolsons, where significant upside was realised in the early stages of the projects development.

Managing Director, Paul Cmrlec said: “The discovery of these new lodes is great news for the Wagtail mine, and for the Halls Creek Project as a whole. The splay lodes at Nicolsons provided significant value to Nicolsons mine, and this discovery has the potential to provide the same upside at Wagtail.

The deepest drilling in the lode has returned some of the most exciting results to date, and the team at Halls Creek eagerly awaits the development of additional drilling platforms to enable the full drill out of this lode.

In addition to REV Lode extensions, we continue to test the existing lodes outside of the current Mineral Resource envelope and look forward to reporting extensions to mineralisation which may further increase the mines life.”

Horizon Cracks Good Grades at Crake Project.

Horizon Minerals (ASX: HRZ) announced further excellent high-grade drilling results from the 100% owned Binduli gold project area located 9km west of Kalgoorlie-Boulder in the heart of the Western Australian goldfields.

The announcement comes off the back of a 29-hole, 2,460 metre drilling program that drilled to a depth of 144 metres at their Crake and Coote projects.  In particular the Crake project showed encouraging results with grades nearing 20g/t in some holes. The current Mineral Resource Estimate for Crake stands at 1.27Mt @ 1.82g/t Au for 73,820oz at a 1g/t Au lower grade cut-off and remains open to the north, west and at depth.

Commenting on the latest drilling results, Horizon Minerals Managing Director Mr Jon Price said: “Binduli has become an outstanding emerging gold camp with Crake continuing to grow in scale and quality and the adjoining Coote deposit now firming up to have similar potential. Both projects remain open with extensional RC drilling underway and we look forward to further drilling results this quarter from multiple rigs currently operating across the wider project area.”

Morning News Bites – September 3

In Today’s Morning News Bites for September 3. Tax relief on the cards for employees and businesses as Australia records a recession. 92 per cent of West Australians backing Mark McGowan on his hard border policy. BHP will pay investors around a 76.6c dividend on Sep 22.

Gold and base metals explorer Carawine Resources Limited today announced the acquisition of a major new gold exploration project in the world-class Tropicana region of Western Australia’s north-eastern goldfields. Managing Director Mr David Boyd said the acquisitions will create a dominant landholding in the northern Tropicana region of Western Australia, marking the start of a new and exciting stage in the Company’s history. “On completion of these two acquisitions and assuming all Phantom and Carawine tenement applications are granted, Carawine will have secured a large, highly prospective ground position in one of Australia’s premier gold exploration addresses and further strengthened its position in the emerging
Fraser Range nickel province,” Mr Boyd said.

Macarthur Minerals Limited is pleased to provide an update on its continued progress towards completing its route to market for the flagship Moonshine magnetite deposits at Lake Giles. Macarthur and RCR Mining Technologies have completed a site visit to the Port of Esperance in conjunction with representatives from Southern Ports Authority and Arc Infrastructure. Subject to approval by Southern Ports Authority, RCR MT’s cutting edge ‘Helix Dumper Wagon’ (“Helix Dumper”) transport solution for Lake Giles Iron Project can be developed within the Port envelope at Esperance. Macarthur’s market-lead proposal for the development of the Helix Dumper solution will allow optimisation of existing Berth 3 ship-loader capacity at the Port of Esperance, enhancing its current performance from the current 2,220tph throughput to over 4,500tph capacity.

An update on RC drilling activities at the Bulong and Fingals Gold Projects has been provided by Black Cat Syndicate Limited. The first 18 holes (~1,904m) at Fingals Fortune have been completed, targeting shallow extensions to the Fingals Fortune open pit. Results were encouraging with almost every hole intersecting multiple mineralised veins, with highlights including; 3m @ 17.81 g/t Au from 69m (extensional) and 3m @ 40.99 g/t Au from 79m (extensional). Managing Director, Gareth Solly said: “Early results from Fingals Fortune are looking good and provide confidence in the potential for rapid growth of the existing Resource and extensions to the Fingals Fortune open pit.”

Marmota is pleased to provide an update on the current drilling program at Aurora Tank. The first batch of drilling assays from the July/August drilling has yielded an excellent 4m intersection averaging over 25 g/t gold (from 52m downhole). Marmota is expanding this program from approximately 7500m to over 11000m
(still being finalised), with extra holes added at a number of locations including the NW flank and eastern
extensions. Drilling is expected to be completed next week.

Kaiser Reef Limited announce that it has commenced the company’s inaugural drilling programme at the Stuart Town gold project. The drilling will initially test several targets, including the Rockdale mine and the Specimen Hill mine and will commence with RC drilling with some diamond drilling later in the programme. The programme has been targeted with the assistance of geophysical investigation and will initially investigate a few of the prospects within the prolific numbers of historic gold workings in the region. The project has enjoyed very little modern investigation since the main gold mining periods commenced in the mid 1850’s, with the geological model and source of the gold remaining a subject of conjecture.

Morning News Bites – July 20

Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s popularity has increased to its highest level in 12 months in the latest Newspoll, COVID-19 spread in New South Wales attracting more concerns and interest around Newmont and Northern Star Resources as NSR let lapse its exclusive purchase rights according to the AFR.

  • Classic Minerals has purchased a Gekko Processing Plant to use at Kat Gap 130km south east of Southern Cross. The gravity concentration processing plant has a capacity of 30 tph and is a flexible design for mobility is scaleable to a Gekko Python Plant with a processing capacity of 250tph. The Gekko plant is ideally suited to the Kat Gap ore which has a very unique high level of gravity gold concentration.
  • Kin Mining has announced a new Australian share holder who has subscribed for $1m in shares while Kin`s two largest shareholders (Delphi and Harmanis) subscribed for an additional $573,000. Kin has restricted the amount of new shares on offer after the recent rights issue. Phase 3 drilling is fully funded until the end of FY 2021 and a strong news flow from drilling is expected. Kin Mining’s Managing Director, Andrew Munckton, said “The additional funds raised through the placement of this Shortfall, together with the $6.066 million already raised from the Rights issue, gives us the capacity to complete our Phase III exploration program across the Cardinia exploration targets to the end of FY2021, as planned.”  
  • The new camp at Aurora Tank has arrived and has been installed at Marmota for it’s, Aurora Tank Gold Discovery. The camp is operational and drillers are expected on site tomorrow (July 21 2020). Marmota recently raised $6.5M and received a $225,000 grant from the South Australian Government as part of the Accelerated Discovery Initiative. 
  • South32 has achieved record production in Australia with its Australia Manganese Ore Joint Venture in the FY20, alongside record results at its Brazil Alumina and Hillside Aluminium operations. Australia Manganese saleable ore production increased by 4% as Manganese ore sales increased as market conditions were favourable. S32 saw saleable production increase by 2% at its 86% share Worsley Alumina, where improvement initiatives are expected to support a sustainable increase in production to nameplate capacity.  While Cannington in Queensland has reduced its run of mine stocks and a further improvement in underground mine performance helped push a 14% lift in ore processed. According to South32 CEO Graeme Kerr,  “Our priority remains keeping our people safe and well, maintaining reliable operations and supporting our communities through the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the health crisis, we delivered a strong operating result, highlighted by annual production records at Brazil Alumina, Hillside Aluminium and Australia Manganese ore. We have continued to see good demand for our products, with sales exceeding production at the majority of our operations. With uncertainty remaining in global markets we continue to manage our financial position to ensure we retain the right balance of flexibility, efficiency and prudence. Looking forward we remain focussed on reducing controllable costs, managing counterparty and supply chain risk and optimising working capital to ensure the business remains resilient during a potentially extended period of volatility and lower commodity prices.”
  • Drilling for Thomson Resources at their Harry Smith gold prospect on the Lachlan Fold Belt in New South Wales, has been put on hold due to wet ground. However drilling is being undertaken and has commenced at Yalgogrin gold project while waiting for ground to dry at Harry Smith. Wet weather, fog and the ground conditions around Harry Smith has meant the suitability of drilling is not conducive and the time for the ground to dry will take a number of days. This has resulted in the AMWD drilling rig being mobilised to Yalgogrin. Once ground is suitable, drilling will recommence at Harry Smith.

 

 

Quick Notes –

Legend Mining has added Oliver Kiddie to its board as an Executive Director. Mr Kiddie will commence August 10 2020 as Derek Waterfield will move away from his board role and take up the role of General Manager Exploration.

Halloysite confirmed across the Eyre Pennisula for Archer Materials. Greg English, Archer Chairman said “We have directly identified halloysite, which is a high value form of the alumina-silicate clay kaolin, at Kelly Tank, Bunora and Bunora East prospects. This is an excellent result that confirms reports of the [kaolin] mineralisation by historic explorers, as well as the presence of halloysite across a large geographical area with all samples tested being close to surface.”