Galena Mining Drills High-Grade MRE Follow-Up Results

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THE DRILL SERGEANT: Galena Mining (ASX: G1A) reported results from recent drilling undertaken at the company’s 60 per cent-owned Abra base metals mine in the Gascoyne region of Western Australia.

Galena Mining explained the result had just missed out on inclusion of a recently released Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) of 33.4 million tonnes at 7.1 per cent lead and 17 grams per tonne silver (5% Pb cut-off grade).

The total MRE includes:
Measured 0.3 million tonnes at 7.3 per cent lead and 32g/t silver;
Indicated 16.2 million tonnes at 7.3 per cent lead and 19g/t silver; and
Inferred 16.9 million tonnes at 6.9 per cent lead and 15g/t silver.

Latest drilling results include:
18.9m at 17.1 per cent lead and 30g/t silver;
38.3m at 12.1 per cent lead and 15.4g/t silver;
26.4m at 11.9 per cent lead and 28.6 g/t silver;
35.7m at 11.7 per cent lead and 53.4g/t silver;
10.4m at 11.4 per cent lead 29.9g/t silver; and
38.9m at 10 per cent lead and 40.9g/t silver.

“These strong results complement our mine plans over the next 12 months,” Galena Mining managing director Tony James said in the company’s ASX announcement.

“Geologically they show the importance of the interface between the Core and Apron zones and the potential extension of the deposit to the Northeast.

“As mining progresses in these areas on multiple fronts and levels, it will generate enormous opportunity for us as we continue improving our production profile.”

 

TO READ THE FULL ANNOUNCEMENT: CLICK HERE

 

Global Lithium Resources Gets Drilling Underway at Manna Lithium Project

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THE DRILL SERGEANT: Global Lithium Resources (ASX: GL1) is back doing what it does very well with the recommencement of drilling at the company’s Manna lithium project near Kalgoorlie in Western Australia.

Global Lithium Resources is undertaking a 50,000 metres combined RC and diamond drilling program with the aim to further expand the Manna lithium project resource that currently stands at 36 million tonnes at 1.13 per cent lithium oxide (Li20).

The company anticipates a con-current infill drilling campaign will also lead to considerable resources in the Measured classification to assist with mine planning.

Global lithium expects to update the Manna project Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) after the current drilling campaign is completed and all assay results have been received.

This final resource estimate will be added to the completed DFS program potentially enhancing the projects economics and life of mine.

“I am pleased to see the drill rigs spinning again at the Manna lithium project after completing a significant amount of development and planning work throughout the first half of 2023,” Global Lithium Resources head of geology Stuart Peterson said in the company’s ASX announcement.

“To complete the heritage surveys over the entire mining lease application area is a big step forward for the further development of the project and I am looking forward to seeing how large this resource can grow now we have a clear path for exploration and resource expansion.”

 

TO READ THE FULL ANNOUNCEMENT: CLICK HERE

 

Dreadnought Resources Continues Thick, High-Grade Rare Earths Encounters at Yin

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THE DRILL SERGEANT: There appears to be nothing ‘rare’ about the rare earth elements (REE) potential of the Yin Ironstone Complex within Dreadnought Resources’ (ASX: DRE) Mangaroon project in Western Australia.

Dreadnought Resources reported assays results for 59 holes of extensional and infill drilling at the Yin Ironstone Complex that encountered high-grade neodymium and praseodymium (NdPr), which the company declared to further demonstrate the “global significance” of the rare earths at Mangaroon.

The company said the recent infill drilling at Yin includes some of the thickest and highest-grade NdPr intercepts to date including:

YINRC289
36m at 2.75 per cent total rare earth oxide (TREO) (31 per cent NdPr:TREO) from 3m, including 12m at 6 per cent TREO (31 per cent NdPr:TREO) from 15m;

YINRC295
28m at 2.6 per cent TREO (31 per cent NdPr:TREO) from 10m, including 12m at 4.73 per cent TREO (31 per cent NdPr:TREO) from 18m; and

YINRC297
19m at 3.37 per cent TREO (30 per cent NdPr:TREO) from 30m, including 6m at 6.05 per cent TREO (31 per cent NdPr:TREO) from 36m.

“The high-grade NdPr or ‘payable’ results underscore the global significance of Yin,” Dreadnought Resources managing director Dean Tuck said in the company’s ASX announcement.

“We are also seeing the effectiveness of Dreadnought’s regional geology model; the likely conversion of the large-scale Exploration Target; and the Resource intensity of Yin.

“The addition of high NdPr:TREO mineralisation north of the current Yin Resource remains highly encouraging as we look to include that material in our next Resource update.

“With Resource drilling nearly complete, we have returned to the C1-C5 carbonatites in search of further zones of high-grade rare earths and niobium and we look forward to additional discoveries within this highly prospective and fertile intrusive complex.”

 

TO READ THE FULL ANNOUNCEMENT: CLICK HERE

 

American West Metals Continues Copper Hits at Storm

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THE DRILL SERGEANT: American West Metals (ASX: AW1) continued its impressive hit rate from diamond drilling activities at the company’s Storm Copper project on Somerset Island, Nunavut, Canada.

American West Metals boasts a 100 per cent drilling success rate so far into the current program with latest results confirming a sediment-hosted copper system in an, until now, untested area of the Storm project.

Drill hole ST23-04, the fouth hole of the program, intersected a thick 18.5 metres zone of visual copper sulphide (chalcocite and chalcopyrite) between 339m and 357.5m downhole, which correlates with the prospective sediment hosted copper horizon American West has intersected in all diamond drill holes this season.

The company said ST23-04 now extends the apparent strike of the prospective copper horizon a further two kilometres to the west of previous drill hole ST23-03.

American West explained the most recent drill hole was targeting a large gravity anomaly located south of the Southern Graben Fault, as well as the fault itself, validating the effectiveness of gravity in identifying copper sulphide mineralisation.

“This exceptional strike rate across a very broad area is further evidence of a truly regional scale copper system,” American West Metals managing director Dave O’Neill said in the company’s ASX announcement.

“The drill hole was designed to test a dense gravity feature in an untested area between the high-grade, near-surface 3500N Zone, and the other high-grade copper zones over three kilometres to the east.

“The drill hole was also designed to intersect one of the regional-scale graben faults for the first time.

“The drill hole hit both targets and has confirmed the presence of significant volumes of sediment-hosted copper sulphides south of the graben fault, whilst also confirming the main fault system as a productive plumbing system for copper mineralisation and a target for additional copper mineralisation.

“The Reverse Circulation (RC) drilling also continues to progress rapidly with the planned drilling of the 4100N, 2750N and 2200N Zones completed.

“The drill rig has now moved onto a number of high-priority ‘Thunder’ style exploration and geophysical targets to continue to define additional areas of copper mineralisation and demonstrate potential resource upside.”

 

 

TO READ THE FULL ANNOUNCEMENT: CLICK HERE

 

 

 

Caprice Resources Retrieves TREO Rock Chips from Mukinbudin

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THE DRILL SERGEANT: Caprice Resources (ASX: CRS) has identified a new exploration prospect at the company’s Mukinbudin rare earth element (REE) project in Western Australia.

Caprice Resources reported identification of the Colosseum prospect via a rock chip sampling program consisting of 20 rock chip samples, 13 of which returned values greater than 1,000ppm total rare earth oxide (TREO), with a peak value of 5,038ppm rare earth oxide (REO) (0.5% REO).

The prospect measures around 500 metres, encompassing a coarse granite outcrop.

On the back of recent activity, Caprice considers Colosseum to be a walk-up target for a pending drill program.

Other work carried out at Mukinbudin included follow up soil sampling at the Hadrian’s and QC3 prospects, which has confirmed REO anomalism.

The anomalism at Hadrian’s has been extended to over three kilometres and remains open with results highlighting a series of northwest trending anomalies within a broader north-south trend.

Recent sampling has been undertaken to infill the higher-grade areas and extend laterally.

Caprice declared its next phase of exploration is aimed at firming up targets ahead of the maiden drill program planned for this quarter.

“Exploration at Mukinbudin continues to deliver outstanding results, with the delineation of a three kilometres long REE soil anomaly at Hadrian’s and the identification of the high-grade Colosseum prospect via regional rock chip sampling,” Caprice Resources managing director Andrew Muir said in the company’s ASX announcement.

“Combined with the +1km Gadolin prospect, Mukinbudin is emerging as a very promising REE project.

“Given the success to date, we were very pleased to be able to lodge applications for two new tenements, which significantly boosts our landholding in this emerging area to almost 600 square kilometres.

“With applications well advanced for RC drilling of both Gadolin and Colosseum, we look forward to systematically testing the two most significant anomalies delineated to date in this exciting project.”

 

TO READ THE FULL ANNOUNCEMENT: CLICK HERE

 

Gold, Gold, Gold for Lithium at Diggers & Dealers Awards Night

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THE CONFERENCE CALLER: If the mining industry was a dysfunctional family, then sibling rivalry reached new heights at Diggers & Dealers this week.

Gold traditionalists were feeling pushed to the side at this year’s Diggers & Dealers Mining Forum in Kalgoorlie, and then the awards at the Gala Dinner left them in no doubt lithium is the new favourite.

Walking around the Big Top, The Roadhouse bumped into many old gold-focused chums who couldn’t hide their chagrin at the attention being heaped upon the family’s younger sibling lithium.

For the first time ever, lithium companies outnumbered the usual gold presentations and the exhibition area basked in a bluish haze as the spruiking from the battery essential permeated the atmosphere.

If there had been any rhinoplasty surgeons in attendance at the Gala Dinner, they would have been kept busy throughout proceedings as gold noses were put out of joint when all company awards went to companies that had achieved lithium greatness throughout the past 12 months.

First electric cab of the rank was the 2023 Dealer of the Year Award, which went to Allkem (ASX: AKE) for striking a 16 billion dollar merger with Livent Corporation to create a global lithium chemicals producer to be known as NewCo.

Livent comes to the pairing as a global leader in lithium processing technologies with nearly eight decades of experience producing a diverse range of lithium chemicals for energy storage and other specialty applications.

Allkem brings complementary expertise in conventional brine-based lithium extraction, hard rock mining, and lithium processing.

With Livent’s technical and commercial capabilities and its deep customer relationships, and Allkem’s large and diverse resource base and significant growth pipeline, NewCo will be well-positioned to capitalize on the expected growth in lithium demand from electric vehicles (EVs) and energy storage solutions.

The Digger of the Year Award is presented each year to a company considered by the judges to have achieved exceptional results from its operations over the past 12 months.

The winner of the 2023 Digger of the Year award was Pilbara Minerals (ASX: PLS) on the back of a healthy year at the company’s Pilgangoora lithium project near Port Hedland.

In the 2022/23 financial year, Pilbara Minerals increased its sales volumes by 68 per cent, which when factored into strong lithium prices, saw revenues increase 238 per cent to a lazy 4 billion dollars, giving the company a cash balance of 3.3 billion dollars.

In the last quarter alone, Pilbara increased production of spodumene concentrate by 10per cent to 162,8000 tonnes in Q4 FY23, the highest quarter it has achieved since commissioning.

The gold bugs sat with trepidation for the announcement of the Dealers Emerging Company award, hoping for a bone to be tossed their way, but alas it was not to be with lithium enjoying a D&D clean sweep.

The Emerging Company award recognises the venture the judges deem to have the greatest potential to develop into a substantial project.

This year the 2023 Emerging Company award went to Patriot Battery Metals (ASX: PMT).

Patriot Battery Metals is a hard-rock lithium exploration company focused on advancing its Corvette Property in northern Quebec, Canada.

The project currently boasts a maiden mineral Resource estimate of 109.2 million tonnes at 1.42 per cent lithium oxide, which is the largest lithium pegmatite mineral resource in the Americas and the 8th largest globally.

 

 

Golden Mile Resources Achieves Nickel Upgrading of Quicksilver Mineralisation

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THE DRILL SERGEANT: Golden Mile Resources (ASX: G88) followed its appearance at The Resources Roadhouse Steak Sandwich Showdown in Kalgoorlie by announcing results of Stage 3 Metallurgical testwork at the company’s 100 per cent-owned Quicksilver nickel-cobalt deposit in Western Australia.

Golden Mile Resources conducted the Stage 3 metallurgical testwork on the Quicksilver project to test front end physical separation processes aimed at upgrading the nickel mineralisation to support the development of a stand-alone process flowsheet for the project.

The testing produced highlights that included:

• Nickel upgrades of 111 per cent to 226 per cent achieved from low energy scrubbing and screening tests;

• Assays of mica concentrate at 2 to 3 per cent nickel demonstrate potential for further concentration;

• Magnetic concentrate has been generated from all composite samples supporting the case for pursuing a specialised iron, chromium and nickel containing product; and

• Elevated grades of cobalt often associated with manganese exist within the Quicksilver mineralisation and offer potential for generation of a cobalt rich nickel concentrate.

“These results are a huge verification of the previous results and have demonstrated the value of obtaining the highest quality of samples for this testwork,” Golden Mile Resources managing director Damon Dormer said in the company’s ASX announcement.

“The scrubbing and screening results are extremely encouraging with the level of upgrading achieved and could result in a reduction to the size and associated costs of a beneficiation circuit.

“The high-grade nickel association with the mica has been a great discovery which opens up further processing opportunities with isolating this product.

“We will conduct further testwork to better understand why the nickel is associated with the mica without impacting our overall project timelines.”

 

TO READ THE FULL ANNOUNCEMENT: CLICK HERE

 

Cazaly Resources Completes Sundown Lithium Project Acquisition in Canada

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THE DRILL SERGEANT: Cazaly Resources (ASX: CAZ) kicked off lithium week at Diggers & Dealers by announcing it has finalised agreement terms to acquire up to 100 per cent of the Sundown lithium project, located in the James Bay lithium province, Quebec, Canada.

In the lead up to the company’s presentation at The Resources Roadhouse Steak Sandwich Showdown in Kalgoorlie, Cazaly informed the market of the Sundown project being an important acquisition.

The Sundown project comprises some 510 mining claims covering an area approximately 260 square kilometres and possessing over 200 documented outcropping pegmatites.

The large tenement holding is strategically positioned between Allkem’s (ASX: AKE) James Bay deposit with a lithium reserve of 37.2 million tonnes at 1.3 per cent lithium oxide (Li2O), and Patriot Battery Metals (ASX: PMT) Corvette lithium discovery, which is host to 70 lithium bearing pegmatites over a 214sqkm land package.

Further recent success in the region includes Critical Elements’ Rose deposit (37.2Mt at 0.94% Li2O), Nemaska’s Whabouchi deposit (36.6Mt at 1.3% Li2O) and Winsome Resources’ (ASX: WR1) Cancet exploration target with 15-25Mt at 1-2% Li2O.

“We are excited to be able to announce the completion of the acquisition of this special asset,” Cazaly Resources managing director Tara French said in the company’s ASX announcement.

“Through Sundown, Cazaly now possesses a major plot of land in an emerging lithium province with significant exploration potential courtesy of relatively untested, outcropping pegmatites.

“We are nestled in amongst some other major lithium projects and while our in-country exploration team have been delayed by the damaging forest fires, we cannot wait to get boots on the ground to start confirming targets once the area has been deemed safe for entry.”

 

TO READ THE FULL ANNOUNCEMENT: CLICK HERE

 

American West Metals Claims Two New Copper Discoveries at Storm

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THE DRILL SERGEANT: American West Metals (ASX: AW1) had delegates on the Diggers & Dealers periphery in a twirl by announcing a double copper hit from diamond drilling activities at the company’s Storm copper project on Somerset Island, Nunavut, Canada.

Before presenting at The Resources Roadhouse Steak Sandwich Showdown in downtown Kalgoorlie, American West Metals reported diamond drill hole ST23-03 encountered a new near-surface zone of mineralisation and a deeper sediment-hosted copper system in an underexplored area of the Storm project.

The hole intersected two zones of visual copper sulphide mineralisation the first being 76m of visual strong breccia to massive copper sulphide (chalcocite, bornite and chalcopyrite) between 32m and 108m downhole and the second a hit of 2m of visual breccia and dense vein style copper sulphide (chalcocite, bornite and chalcopyrite) between 273m and 275m downhole.

American West has given the new zone of near-surface copper the name Thunder.

The company has interpreted the as yet unnamed deeper intersection to correlate with the prospective sediment hosted copper horizon it intersected earlier this season, and is the first recorded occurrence south of the Southern Graben Fault.

“The diamond drilling at Storm continues to deliver, producing one of the best intersections ever seen at the project,” American West Metals managing director Dave O’Neill said in the company’s ASX announcement.

“Over 76m of near surface breccia copper sulphides with zones of massive sulphide have been intersected in the third diamond drill hole, ST23-03.

“The drill hole has also – for the first time – intersected copper sulphides within the deeper horizon close to the southern graben fault, confirming the presence of the sediment-hosted system in new and untested areas.

“The new near surface copper zone has been named Thunder, which highlights the strength and significance of the discovery. The mineralisation style and setting are very similar to the high-grade mineralisation within the 2750N Zone, including 2022 drill hole ST22-05 which hit 41m at 4.18 per cent copper.

“The 2750N Zone is located over 1km to the east of Thunder.

“The thickness of the near-surface intersection – which includes massive copper sulphides – suggests the potential for a substantial volume of copper in this area that could significantly add to the open pit resources at Storm.

“The deeper copper intersection is very significant from the perspective of understanding the overall copper endowment at Storm. This confirms the prospectivity of the whole area around, and to the south of the southern graben fault.

“With every wide-spaced hole encountering the same mineralised unit at depth, the scale potential of the copper system cannot be overstated.

“Given the success of the gravity modelling and targeting to date, we will roll out further ground surveys along the 10km of strike as a priority in spring.

“We look forward to providing further news flow and updates on both the diamond and RC drilling program in the coming days.”

 

TO READ THE FULL ANNOUNCEMENT: CLICK HERE

Azure Minerals Hits 209m High-Grade Lithium Intersection at Andover

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THE DRILL SERGEANT: Try getting anywhere near Azure Minerals (ASX: AZS) managing director Tony Rovira at Diggers & Dealers next week after the company’s announcement this morning of recent drilling activities at its Andover lithium project (Azure 60% / Creasy Group 40%) in the West Pilbara region of Western Australia.

Azure Minerals reported an encounter with the thickest zones of lithium mineralisation to date – reflecting some of what it claims to be “the best lithium drill intersections globally”.

Azure hit very broad zones of lithium mineralisation from two holes drilled in the project’s AP0011 pegmatite:

ANRD0017
209.4 metres at 1.42 per cent lithium oxide (Li2O) from 219.0m (~134.6m True Width), including 126.2m at 1.72 per cent Li2O from 219.0m (~81.1m True Width) which includes 56.1m at 2 per cent Li2O from 257m (~36.1m True Width) and 19.7m at 1.54 per cent Li2O from 401.6m (~12.7m True Width); and

ANDD0228
183.1m at 1.25 per cent Li2O from 170.5m (~123.3m True Width), including 58.9m at 1.46 per cent Li2O from 170.5m (~39.7m True Width) and 30m at 1.55 per cent Li2O from 284m (~20.2m True Width) and 11.2m at 1.85 per cent Li2O from 332.9m (~7.5m True Width).

“These broad, high-grade intercepts firmly entrench Andover amongst the best lithium exploration projects globally,” Azure Minerals managing director Tony Rovira said in the company’s ASX announcement.

“Encouragingly, the results suggest the mineralisation remains open along strike and to depth, providing Azure with the potential to produce similar, if not better, lithium intersections of such scale and tenor in future drilling.

“The Andover project is an exceptional discovery given the abundance of outcropping mineralised pegmatites and substantial widths of high-grade mineralisation intersected in the drilling.

“With multiple drill rigs on site testing the numerous pegmatite zones, we are only beginning to realise the full scale of the project’s potential.”

 

TO READ THE FULL ANNOUNCEMENT: CLICK HERE