Rox Resources and Arafura Resources Restructure Bonya JV

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THE BOURSE WHISPERER: Rox Resources (ASX: RXL) has restructured its Bonya Joint Venture with Arafura Resources (ASX: ARU) in the Northern Territory.

Rox Resources explained the JV has been restructured to simplify the current arrangements between both parties.

Back in 2014, Rox earned a 51 per cent interest in certain minerals, (copper, lead, zinc, silver, gold, bismuth and PGE’s), collectively known as the ‘JV Minerals’ on the joint venture tenement.

Arafura held 49 per cent of these minerals plus 100 per cent of other minerals, including the highly prospective tungsten and molybdenum mineralisation known to outcrop -referred to as ‘Other Minerals’.

The restructure of the joint venture interests has resulted in Rox divesting 11 per cent of its interest in the JV Minerals to Arafura, with Arafura to transfer 40 per cent of its interest in the Other Minerals to Rox.

“Each party will then own an interest in all of the minerals, with the percentage interests of the parties in the joint venture being Rox 40 per cent and Arafura 60 per cent,” Rox Resources said in its ASX announcement.

“This simplifies the structure and operation of the joint venture.

“Rox will continue to be operator of the joint venture.”

In 2014 Rox discovered high-grade copper mineralisation at the Bonya Mine prospect, including:

11 metres at 4.4 per cent copper from 30m, and
38m at 4.4 per cent copper from 60m.

Recent exploration has outlined a gravity anomaly at the northern end of the Jervois line of mineralisation, which has been interpreted to suggest that the Jervois copper-silver-zinc-lead system may extend into the joint venture tenement.

Further exploration is planned this year to define suitable targets for drilling.

 

Email: admin@roxresources.com.au

Website: www.roxresources.com.au

 

Global Geoscience Progressing PFS at Rhyolite Ridge

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THE DRILL SERGEANT: Global Geoscience (ASX: GSC) provided an update on progress of a Pre-Feasibility Study (PFS) underway at the company’s 100 per cent-owned Rhyolite Ridge lithium-boron project located in Nevada, USA.

The recent S&P/ASX 300 Index-invested company is working with Amec Foster Wheeler on the PFS.

Global Geoscience explained the current work is being carried out in two phases.

The first being a definition phase, including trade-off studies, to identify the major process and infrastructure components required.

The second is a pre-feasibility phase involving both design and estimating.

According to the company the PFS work is progressing well and in accordance to plan and it expects to provide further updates on its progress over the coming weeks regarding:

PFS trade-off studies;
Preliminary site layout and environmental permitting;
Further optimisation of the acid-leach process; and
Crystallisation and purification of the lithium and boron end products.

“We are delighted with the rapid progress of our unique Rhyolite Ridge lithium-boron project in Nevada, and this has now been reflected in our inclusion in the S&P/ASX 300 Index,” Global Geoscience managing director Bernard Rowe said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

“The Rhyolite Ridge PFS is progressing well under the direction of Amec Foster Wheeler.

“The unique mineralogy and chemistry of the Rhyolite Ridge mineralisation continues to provide many attractive options which consistently point to low-cost processing and high recoveries of lithium and boron.

“Phase one of the PFS includes trade-off studies to select the most favourable processing and infrastructure alternatives.

“Key aspects of this work have been to evaluate and compare the various leaching options – heap, vat and agitation (tank) leaching and on-site production of sulphuric acid.”

Global Geoscience declared the Rhyolite Ridge mineralisation is ideally suited to open pit mining methods as it is shallow, thick and gently dipping, resulting in a low strip ratio.

Simple, low-cost acid leach processes can be used to extract lithium and boron at high recovery rates into a Pregnant Leach Solution (PLS).

Lithium and boron can then be removed from the PLS through crystallisation and purification steps to produce lithium carbonate or lithium hydroxide and boric acid at the mine site.

The company considers the ability to produce lithium and boron end products on-site from a hard-rock source makes Rhyolite Ridge a unique development opportunity.

 

Website: www.globalgeo.com.au

Blackham Resources Extends Golden Age Underground Mine Plan

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THE DRILL SERGEANT: Blackham Resources (ASX: BLK) announced it has extended the Golden Age Underground mine plan at the company’s Matilda gold operation in Western Australia for a further 6 months to December 2018.

Blackham Resources became owner operator miner in the Golden Age Underground in October 2017, and by doing so reduced mining costs and risk.

At the same time, Blackham commenced evaluation of the economics of the remaining Golden Age Underground resource of 0.9 million tonnes at 4.5 grams per tonne gold for 129,000 ounces of gold.

The company explained these mining studies have now added another 24,600 tonnes at 6g/t gold for 4,700 ounces of production it now has targeted between July to December 2018.

This additional targeted production is incremental to Blackham’s previously disclosed underground mine plan which finished in June 2018.

Blackham’s revised figures show production is now expected to continue to produce approximately 2,500 ounces of gold per quarter through to at least December 2018.

Historically, the Golden Age Underground has produced 160,000 ounces at 9g/t gold.

Since recommissioning this mine, Blackham has produced 19,500 ounces of gold at 4.7g/t gold.

Since moving to predominately airleg mining in October last year, Blackham has increased the average mined grade to 8.1g/t gold.

IN the past eight months, Blackham’s geology team has identified several priority targets.

Underground drilling will commence this week aimed at further extending the mine plan and potentially allowing an increased mining rate.

“Blackham has successfully added another six months to the Golden Age Underground mine plan and is aiming to maintain a six to 12 month rolling mine plan going forward,” Blackham Resources managing director Bryan Dixon said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities exchange.

“This week drilling with commence down dip and down plunge from where we are currently mining strong grades at Golden Age.”

 

Email: info@blackhamresources.com.au

Website: www.blackhamresources.com.au

 

St George Mining Kicks-off 2018 Mt Alexander Drilling Program

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THE DRILL SERGEANT: St George Mining (ASX: SGQ) has resumed drilling at the company’s Mt Alexander project, located near Leonora in the north-eastern Goldfields of Western Australia.

St George Mining informed the market that the majority of the planned program is earmarked to drill at the Stricklands prospect.

Drilling carried out last year at the Stricklands prospect of drill hole MAD71 returned the best intersection the company has achieved to date at the Mt Alexander project.

The 2017 drilling at Stricklands continued to intersect the mineralised ultramafic, with a further seven drill holes intersecting nickel-copper sulphide mineralisation while providing an indication that the Stricklands mineralised channel may extend up to 400 metres along strike, with large areas of the interpreted east-northeast oriented ultramafic channel remaining untested.

St George indicated the upcoming drilling at Stricklands will continue to test for extensions to the mineralised ultramafic.

The company considers the thickness and grade of the nickel-copper sulphides intersected at Stricklands to date supports the potential for further mineralisation at this prospect.

Elsewhere, at the Investigators prospect, a SAMSON EM (electromagnetic) survey identified large conductive areas over a one-kilometre portion of the mineralised Cathedrals Belt.

Planned drilling at Investigators will test underexplored areas of the SAMSON anomaly with the first-ever deep drilling of EM targets.

“St George, like other mining and exploration companies in the Goldfields, has been affected by heavy rains during February,” St George Mining executive chairman John Prineas said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

“At Mt Alexander, ground conditions have improved and we are very pleased to announce that drilling has finally begun.

“We have a number of outstanding nickel-copper sulphide targets to drill in this program and we are excited to be drilling again.”

 

Email: info@stgm.com.au

Website: www.stgm.com.au

 

Draig Resources Completes $8M Placement

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THE BOURSE WHISPERER: Draig Resources (ASX: DRG) completed a fully underwritten placement that received strong support from institutional investors to advance the company’s high-grade Bellevue gold project north west of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia.

Draig Resources completed the over-subscribed $8 million placement for 40 million shares at 20 cents per share.

The company noted the Placement received support from new institutional investors from Australia, Asia and North America as well as from existing institutions and sophisticated investors.

The funds raised via the Placement will be used to advance the Bellevue gold project and will be used for ongoing exploration activities including for a resource estimate which is expected to be released in the third qurater of this year.

“We would like to welcome a number of new institutional investors onto our share register and thank our existing shareholders for their ongoing support,” Draig Resources executive director Steve Parsons said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

“Our flagship Bellevue gold project is now well positioned to complete all medium-term exploration activities and for us to release a resource estimate in 3Q 2018.”

 

Email: admin@draigresources.com

Website: www.draigresources.com

 

Renewables Out-generating Fossils

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THE CONFERENCE CALLER: Delegates at the Paydirt 2018 Battery Minerals Conference in Perth heard that investment in renewable generation has eclipsed investment on fossil fuel generation in recent years.

Speaking on day one of the Paydirt 2018 Battery Minerals Conference, Future Smart Strategies managing director, Professor Ray Wills, told punters that since 2016, additions of renewable capacity in the power sector has been higher than coal, gas, oil and nuclear combined.

“Rapid, non-linear developments in and uptake of clean technologies – and even more rapid reductions in technology pricing – mean the nature of the global energy market, and in particular the electricity market, is changing both off-grid and on-grid around the world,” Professor Wills said.

“We are also seeing revolutionary shifts in how we do planning, project financing, and engineering for energy – and downstream into network and energy system management.

“A core difference to the technology now being deployed is its ability to be built quickly – and now more cheaply – than any other source of electricity generation.

“Add ever-increasing digitisation and integration for mobile applications – not just phones and tablets, but also power tools and gaming devices, and for personal mobility – also boosts demand for energy storage.”

According to Wills, the arrival of cost-competitive stationary storage offering network services as well as stored energy can deliver on-demand power provision from renewables.

He said a feature of mobile devices needing power is a perpetual pursuit of both energy efficiency in devices to prolong battery life, and battery density improvements to carry more solar and efficient appliances.

This includes lighting and storage that will demand smart energy management utilising AI and machine learning.

As battery technology improves so too does the falls in battery cost reductions, which continue to be consistently demonstrated with a high probability to continue.

Will said the emergence of electric vehicles, and the batteries that power them, has seen the automotive industry move from a “headline a year” to a “headline a day” in the car industry.

“Beyond the basics of all vehicles going electric, there are so many elements changing in the car industry – part of global mega trends in mobility and connectivity and autonomy and the internet of things,” he said.

“From the point of view of minerals for the storage revolution, it is crucial that action is taken quickly so Australia takes a share of the many new jobs (skilled and semi-skilled) in this two trillion-dollar value chain – an opportunity that might just double Australia’s GDP from a single new industry sector.

“In the age of a digital economy, Australia’s next major growth phase can be delivered by down-streaming and value-adding Australia’s lithium and other energy storage related resources.

“The key change with the new trends is that we have moved on from predicting what might happen in the future to measuring it, seeing it happen.

“The only question is just how fast the growth trend is – fast, very fast – or ludicrous?”

 

Western Australia Placed to Benefit from Technology Metal Rush

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COMMODITY CAPERS: Pundits speaking at the at Paydirt’s 2018 Battery Minerals conference in Perth have painted a rosy future for Western Australia as the country’s centre for battery technology commodity development.

Opening Day One of the conference, WA Minister for Mines and Petroleum, Bill Johnston highlighted the state’s potential to become a leader in the pending electronic resources boom.

“Strategic imperative for markets to not be overly exposed to single supplier systems has the potential to smooth out the customer base and increase demand for Western Australia’s resources,” Johnston said.

His expectations were echoed across the two days as speakers lined up to sing the praises of WA’s abundant technology metals resources.

According to Midas Engineering Group director/principal consulting engineer Damian Connelly, the expected demand for battery minerals will create a boom in Western Australia, “bigger and more sustained” than the state’s gold boom of the 1990s.

Speaking at day two of Paydirt’s 2018 Battery Minerals conference in Perth, Connelly said the sector was misjudging the full impact that demand for the precious commodity will have in the short to medium term.

“Make no mistake, the demand for battery minerals will create a WA boom bigger and more sustained than the gold boom of the 1990s,” Connelly said.

“The market and financial institutions are underestimating the huge disruptive change and the speed of change occurring in the technology of the battery market.

“The very demanding technical specifications for battery minerals will limit the suitability of some ores.

“With cobalt, nickel, vanadium and manganese, and exciting new technology will produce the demanding pure specifications required.

“Demand is currently exceeding supply and current expansions will still lag behind for a number of years to come.”

Connelly’s warning rang out the day after it was claimed Western Australia could soon become a global hub for battery manufacturing with the state expected to be the only jurisdiction in the country to produce all raw materials for lithium ion battery production.

Minerals Commodities Limited business development manager Daniel Hastings told the conference that with WA expected to become the only jurisdiction in Australia and possibly the world producing all raw materials for lithium-ion battery production – including nickel sulphate, lithium carbonate and hydroxide, and potentially battery anode material – the state will be well positioned to entice battery manufacturers to invest in infrastructure.

“We take the view – like most other companies – that the current energy revolution has just begun and the outlook for battery raw materials is extremely positive,” Hastings said.

Connelly basically agrees – and warned that sector and financial institutions need to act fast to ensure WA maximised this potential.

“The demand for high purity battery grade lithium carbonate is expected to grow significantly in the near term,” Connolly said.

“The lithium-ion battery sector is one of the fastest growing and largest consumers of lithium.

“Lithium-ion batteries have superior energy density, are more efficient and environmentally friendly than traditional acid batteries and the cost is falling based on innovation and technical development.

“Demand for battery minerals in WA is expected to grow at intense levels – plans and structures put in place now will heed well for the future.”

 

Musgrave Minerals Declares Break of Day Deposit ‘Still Open’

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THE DRILL SERGEANT: Musgrave Minerals (ASX: MGV) released further gold assay results from recent extensional diamond drilling undertaken at Break of Day gold deposit within the company’s Cue project in Western Australia.

Musgrave Minerals intends following up the results with an aircore drilling program on recently identified near surface targets.

The latest drilling consisted seven diamond drill holes (three infill and four extensional), assays have been received for all four extensional drill holes showing the high-grade mineralisation remains open at depth.

The Twilight Lode was intersected in all four drill holes with best intersections of:

18MODD004
16.3 metres at 1.2 grams per tonne gold from 258.7m downhole, including 0.7m at 9.9g/t gold from 258.7m; and

18MODD002
1.8m at 4.5g/t gold from 333.0m downhole.

18MODD002 also intersected the Velvet Lode returning:

2.1m at 2.6g/t gold from 362.8m downhole.

Musgrave Minerals said the drilling confirmed mineralisation continues at depth and down plunge at Break of Day adding that further drill testing is required to define the high-grade shoots and depth potential of the deposit.

The company is about to embark on another aircore drilling program to test 10 targets along a 20km long prospective corridor identified from a recently completed regional gravity survey.

“The upcoming aircore drilling program will add another exciting dimension to the project and provide the opportunity to test new, high quality gold targets under the salt lake and marginal dunes,” Musgrave Minerals managing director Rob Waugh said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

“The focus of this drilling is to discover another high-grade Great Fingal-style gold deposit.

“The targets are relatively shallow and have the potential to be game changers for the company if drilling is successful.”

 

Email: info@musgraveminerals.com.au

Website: www.musgraveminerals.com.au

 

Venture Minerals Commences Drilling of Greenbushes Lithium Target

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THE DRILL SERGEANT: Venture Minerals (ASX: VMS) has commenced drilling at the Odin prospect, located within the Greenbushes Mineral District of Western Australia.

Venture Minerals describes the Odin prospect as a, “substantial lithium target” situated just south of the world’s largest hard rock lithium mine that produces approximately 40 per cent of the world’s lithium.

Venture indicated the maiden drill program is being carried out with co-funding from the Western Australian State Government.

The company identified the Odin prospect from geological mapping and geochemical sampling undertaken approximately 12 kilometres east of its Thor VMS (Volcanogenic Massive Sulphides) prospect.

Results from the geological mapping and surface geochemical sampling identified the Odin prospect as a potentially lithium bearing pegmatite extending over 1.9km of strike and up to 150m wide.

It is covered by laterite, but geochemistry is analogous to Greenbushes with elevated levels of tin, tantalum and niobium in laterite samples.

“The company is excited about this rare opportunity to explore for a potential Greenbushes ‘look-a-like’,” Venture Minerals managing director Andrew Radonjic said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

“To have the World’s largest hard rock lithium mine be the only lithium deposit to be discovered within the geological district is unusual and highly unlikely, and this fact alone makes Odin a priority exploration target for Venture.”

 

Email: info@ventureminerals.com.au

Website: www.ventureminerals.com.au

 

Aruma Resources Adds Trojan Gold Project to Slate Dam

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THE BOURSE WHISPERER: Aruma Resources (ASX: AAJ) has struck a binding Sale and Purchase Agreement with Westgold Resources (ASX: WGX), under which it will acquire 100 per cent of the Trojan gold project (ML25/104), located south east of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia.

Aruma Resources described the deal as a “strategic acquisition”, saying it expands the company’s Slate Dam project area by 8.75 square kilometres.

The Trojan project includes a JORC 2012-compliant Indicated and Inferred Resource estimate of 2.8 million tonnes at 1.61 grams per tonne gold for 144,800 ounces of gold (at a 0.70g/t cut‐off) at the Trojan Open cut extension.

“The acquisition demonstrates the viability of the company’s exploration model for Slate Dam to host large sediment-hosted gold deposits similar to Gold Fields Limited’s (JSE: GFI) world class Invincible Deposit at the nearby St Ives Gold Mine,” Aruma Resources said I its ASX announcement.

“Numerous significant geochemical anomalies and prospects have been delineated across the Trojan project area by previous project owners.

“A complete and up to date base has been supplied by the previous owners and will be evaluated by Aruma in the coming months.”

Aruma declared its belief that potential exists to generate cash‐flow should mining operations be resumed at the Trojan project.

To that end the company indicated it will undertake further evaluation of the gold mineralisation under and around the Trojan open pit in addition to planned targeted exploration at the project.

 

Email: info@arumaresources.com

Website: www.arumaresources.com