THE BOURSE WHISPERER: Golden Rim Resources (ASX:GMR) has finalised an agreement to acquire an additional gold exploration permit at the company’s Sebba project in Burkina Faso.

The new Damkoko permit covers an area of 121.5 square kilometres and is located immediately south of the Nasoulou permit.

The acquisition has taken the entire area of the Sebba project to 1,909sqkm.

Location of Damkoko permit and soil anomalies at the Sebba project on aeromagnetics. Source: Company announcement

In its announcement to the ASX, Golden Rim said a previous magnetic survey has indicated a number of major structures within the permit area, totalling approximately 23km of strike length.

The company said there has been no previous exploration work carried out on Damkoko.

Golden Rim has also received new anomalous soil sample gold assays from another part of the Sebba project.

In the southern part of the Babonga permit it has identified a coherent gold-in-soil anomaly measuring approximately 2.1km long and 300m wide.

The company said the anomaly is coincident with a major regional structure with values up to 270 parts per billion gold.

Results from an infill geochemical sampling program at Sebba consisting of 1,986 auger drill holes and 6,676 soil samples have also been received.

The sampling was completed over existing geochemical anomalies, which Golden Rim said has provided better definition of the gold-in-soil anomalies.

A program of infill sampling was carried out over the Komondi gold-in-soil anomaly within the Komondi permit.

Golden Rim said the results of this sampling, which included new assays up to 1,730ppb gold, confirmed the robust nature of the anomaly.

Within the anomaly are several higher grade areas the company will be the focussing on for drill testing.

Further infill sampling was conducted over the Tyena gold-in-soil anomaly in the Gandi permit.

Results of up to 2,480ppb gold were obtained from this program, indicating a strike length for the Tyena anomaly of 4km and 1km wide.

Golden Rim is now in the process of ranking the anomalies and generating targets for a reverse circulation drilling program that is planned to follow scheduled diamond drilling on the company’s Balogo project, also located in Burkina Faso.

THE BOURSE WHISPERER: Rox Resources (ASX:RXL) has voiced its intention to commence further Rotary Air Blast (RAB) drilling at the Fisher East nickel prospect.

The Fisher East prospect is situated within the company’s Mt Fisher project, located north of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia.

Rox said the drilling is being carried out to follow up and better-define targets that it identified from recent RAB/ Air Core (AC) drilling.

The recent drilling intersected anomalous nickel geochemistry in an ultramafic unit, with one hole of the program intersecting 12 metres at 0.12 per cent nickel from 32 metres downhole.

Rox pointed out, what it considered to be of importance, is that the nickel geochemistry lies directly over a strong VTEM anomaly the company identified in 2011.

RAB/Aircore drill section, Fisher East, looking northwest. Source: Company announcement

The company said modelling of the VTEM anomaly that was completed by its geophysical consultants, Southern Geoscience had shown the conductor to conform to the enclosing rocks, dipping at 50 degrees to the east, and therefore indicating a bedrock source.

A second strong VTEM anomaly of similar size is present four kilometres to the north and will also be tested by the RAB drilling.

“Nickel sulphide mineralisation is known 25 kilometres further to the north where WMC drilled massive magmatic nickel sulphide (0.2 metres at 1.93 per cent nickel, 0.42 per cent copper) in 2003,” Rox Resources managing director Ian Mulholland said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

“That intersection also contained platinum and palladium up to 0.7 grams per tonne.

“At Fisher East, Southern Geoscience have modelled two strongly conductive bodies each up to 500 metres long and extending at least 500 metres deep.

“We only ran one line of RAB drilling over the original VTEM anomaly to see if we got any anomalous nickel.

“We have now got two very good nickel sulphide targets to chase.”

THE BOURSE WHISPERER: Lithex Resources (ASX:LTX) has executed a Heads of Agreement (HoA) for the acquisition of eleven graphite tenements located within Australia.

The acquisition of the tenements is via Lithex’s acquisition of Far North Minerals (FNM), pursuant to the HoA.

FNM owns the rights to 100 per cent of the tenements.

Lithex said the acquisition was consistent with its focus on strategic minerals.

“The tenement package delivers the company a major new opportunity in the graphite market, which has seen prices more than double since 2009 and which is facing future growth potential, with strong demand for corrosion resistant alloys and structural strength in castings; together with new and expanding demand for Li-ion batteries used in electric vehicles,” Lithex Resources said in its ASX announcement.

The graphite tenement package comprises eleven tenements with a total area of 533 square kilometres located in four Australian States.

Location of graphite projects. Source: Company announcement

Three tenements make up the Munglinup project in Western Australia, one comprises the Eyre Point project in South Australia, five cover various historical showings located in New South Wales, one covers the Furniss East project in Western Australia, and one covers the Emu Plain project located in Queensland.

The projects are located in the main known graphite provinces in Australia, including the Munglinup Region of Western Australia and the Eyre Peninsula of South Australia.

Lithex indicated that no recent or systematic exploration has been carried out for graphite on any of the acquired tenements, which it said are considered to be prospective for occurrences of graphite.

The HoA contains a number of conditions precedent before completion, including due diligence and review of the transaction in accordance with the ASX Listing Rules.

On completion of the transaction, to be approved by shareholders, Lithex will provide the vendors or their nominees the following consideration:

–    $150,000 in cash;

–    12 million LTX shares issued at six cents per share;

–    10 million options exercisable at eight cent with an expiry of 31 December 2015; and

–    10 million options exercisable at sixteen cents with an expiry of 31 December 2016.

Under the terms of the HoA Lithex has agreed to reimburse FNM exploration costs of up to $50,000 to the completion date to continue development work on the Munglinup project.

THE BOURSE WHISPERER: AusNiCo (ASX:ANW) Has had its tenement application granted for ERA 882 in western Tasmania near Heazlewood River.

The company said the Heazlewood River project is prospective for nickel sulphides, gold, copper, lead and platinum‐group elements.

The tenement area is located about 25 kilometres west of Waratah and the Mt Bischoff Tin deposit.

Southern portion of Heazlewood River Project with mapped geology, prospects and targets.

According to AusNiCo previous exploration work carried out over the project area has reported nickel sulphide breccia at Fenton’s Knob containing up to 1.4 per cent nickel sulphide (Avebury Style), surface rock chip values up to 18.3 gper tonne gold, 15 per cent lead, 8 per cent copper and 4.7 per cent nickel.

Costeans at Fenton’s prospect returned up to 6 metres at 6.7 parts per million platinum and 9 metres at 4.0ppm platinum.

The company said the area has been subjected to considerable exploration, however several prospective targets remain untested.

One of these is the Brassey North area, which has several areas of soil geochemistry greater than 3,000ppm and up to 5,600ppm nickel over a strike of one kilometre.

“Several Platinum and Osmium‐Iridium anomalies also require further investigation at Fentons and north of Fentons,” AusNiCo said in its ASX announcement.

“The copper and lead-zinc prospects in the south of the tenement have received little attention in the past and have not been tested for nickel or Platinum‐group mineralisation, and the north‐western part of the tenement remains largely unexplored.

“AusNiCo intends to design a work program to follow‐up previously reported historic results of third party exploration programs, and to exploit the other prospective, under‐explored areas of the tenement.”

AusNiCo also had its application for a large area adjacent to the Marlborough Mines nickel project in Queensland granted, subject to the company carrying out necessary public notification aspects.

The company said the Marlborough South project will target the nickel sulphide potential of the Princhester Serpentinite.

AusNiCo considers the geology of Marlborough South to be similar to its own Pembroke discovery, with a well‐defined quartz‐serpentinite contact along the northern boundary.

Historic geochemical sampling has delineated a nickel anomalous area in the centre of the tenement (including samples greater than 3,000ppm nickel) providing the basis for further exploration activity.

Once AusNiCo has met its native title notification requirements, the company said it intends to conduct preliminary field work with a view to developing a comprehensive work program to be undertaken in due course.

THE BOURSE WHISPERER: Metallica Minerals (ASX:MLM) has entered into a binding Heads of Agreement (HOA) with Bloom Energy for the sale of scandium oxide from the company’s wholly-owned SCONI Tri-Metals project  inland of Townsville in North Queensland.

Metallica said it would be working with Bloom Energy to ensure the SCONI project is designed and developed in a manner that will allow Metallica to supply Bloom Energy with its scandium oxide requirements for its future growth plans.

Bloom Energy manufactures unique on-site power generation systems called Energy Servers, which utilise an innovative new fuel cell technology that Metallica said has roots to NASA’s Mars program.

The Energy Servers are claimed to be among the most efficient energy generators on the planet, providing for significantly reduced electricity costs and dramatically lower greenhouse gas emissions.

Metallica Minerals MD Andrew Gillies and Bloom Energy CEO Gavin
Becker at site in Sunnyvale, California in front of continuously
operating Scandium Oxide Fuel Cells (September 2012). Source: Company
announcement

“We are delighted to welcome Bloom Energy as our first base load customer to acquire a substantial portion of our planned future scandium production from the SCONI project,” Metallica Minerals managing director Andrew Gillies said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

“The agreement with Bloom Energy calls for the sale of scandium oxide at a price and quantum which underpins the commercial rationale to develop the SCONI project.

“With Bloom Energy as a baseload customer, we can proceed with confidence throughout our Feasibility Studies and accelerate towards project development.”

Under the terms of the HOA, Metallica will supply Bloom Energy with up to 30,000 kolgrams of scandium oxide per annum (based on production output and Bloom Energy’s global usage) with provision to increase supply up to 60,000 kilograms scandium oxide per annum (at Bloom’s election) over the term of the HOA under terms that remain commercial in confidence.

The HOA is conditional upon Metallica meeting certain SCONI project development timing milestones.

Metallica said it believes the project development milestones to be reasonable and achievable and are broadly in line with its previously published development schedule with some allowance for delays.

The project is expected to be completed in 2016.

Whilst all the key commercial terms are binding and commercial in confidence, Metallica and Bloom Energy have agreed to replace the HOA with a more detailed Offtake Agreement within 120 days, however, if this is not achieved, the HOA will continue to govern the parties’ relationship.