THE BOURSE WHISPERER: Iron Ore Holdings has received the final $21 million payment in cleared funds for the sale of the Lamb Creek and Yandicoogina Creek satellite tenements to Mineral Resources.

The sale of these tenements was part of a transaction with Process Minerals International (PMI), a wholly owned subsidiary of Mineral Resources.

The transaction included the Phil’s Creek tenement in the Central Pilbara region of Western Australia.

PMI paid a $5 million deposit in October last year leaving the remaining $37 million to be paid in two stages when the Phil’s Creek Mining Proposal was approved by the Department of Mines and Petroleum.

That approval was given, resulting in IOH receiving a $16 million payment from PMI for the transfer of the Phil’s Creek tenement in March 2012.

The remaining payment of $21 million for the Lamb Creek and Yandicoogina Creek tenements was then required within 30 days.

IOH has been busy of late having now completed three transactions in the past seven months.

In other transactions the company divested the Koodaideri South tenement to Rio Tinto and acquired the Mardie coastal tenement in the West Pilbara.

“The completion of this transaction reinforces IOH’s transactional abilities and takes the IOH cash balance above the $120 million mark, which is more than 40 per cent of our current market capitalisation,” Iron Ore Holdings managing director Alwyn Vorster said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

“IOH will now focus its development activities on the Western Pilbara, with a pre-feasibility study of the Bungaroo South project and the ongoing exploration programs at Maitland River, Western Satellite deposits and Mt Dempster which will deliver resource announcements during CY2012.”

THE BOURSE WHISPERER: Perth-based clean power company Enerji Limited has completed the installation of the second of the three heat recovery units (HRU) at Horizon Power’s Carnarvon power station in the Gascoyne region of Western Australia.

The HRUs incorporate an Airec heat exchanger to capture the heat from the engine’s hot exhaust using the recycled energy to create electrical power.

When the waste heat to power system (WHPS) is operational, engine exhaust is diverted through the Airec heat exchanger and then channelled back to the original exhaust stack.

The system is designed to allow the engine exhaust to take its usual path when the WHPS is not in operation.

Following installation of the WHPS, Enerji said revenue will be generated through selling the electricity created by the Opcon Powerbox.

Lifting the second unit into place over the top of the existing power plant. Source: Company announcement

“The Opcon Powerbox cogeneration technology transforms waste heat into electricity and therefore creates significant energy cost savings and reduced CO2 emissions for its customers,” Enerji Limited said in its announcement to the ASX.

“The Powerbox has the capacity to increase the power station’s energy output by up to 700kW without burning additional fuel or creating emissions.”

Installation of the two HRUs was undertaken during a recent burst of clear weather at Carnarvon after delays caused by recent inclement weather.

Enerji said installation of the third and final HRU is scheduled for next week, barring any delays.

Commissioning at the Carnarvon project is now expected at the end of April.

THE BOURSE WHISPERER: Canada-focused gold exploration play Coventry Resources is set to bank $5 million having received commitments for the placement of 41.67 million new shares at a price of 12 cents per share.

The shares will be placed to North American institutional investors that are clients of Casimir Capital, which acted as lead broker for the raising as well as Australian institutional and sophisticated investors that are clients of Blackswan Equities.

In a company release to the Australian Securities Exchange, Coventry said it intends putting the funds to good use by completing a prefeasibility study at its 1.4 million ounce Cameron gold project in Ontario, Canada.

The company will continue mine permitting activities at Cameron while it continues to conduct further drilling programs at the project in order to evaluate potential extensions of the Cameron gold deposit.

It also intends checking out a number of regional prospects it has delineated within the project to be of high priority to its progress.

Coventry also flagged its intention to carry out an inaugural diamond drilling program at the Rainy River project to follow-up anyn geochemical anomalies that may come out of a current RC drilling overburden sampling program.

The placement will be completed in two tranches, the first of which will comprise the issue of 25.92 million shares (approximately 62 per cent of the placement) under the company’s 15 per cent capacity. This tranche will settle sometime in April 2012.

A shareholder general meeting will be held in May where the company will seek approval for the second tranche for the remaining 15.75 million shares.

THE BOURSE WHISPERER: Northern Star Resources has increased resources at its Ashburton project in Western Australia by 50 per cent to over the one million ounce mark.

The increased Resource inventory for the Ashburton project now totals 11.6 million tonnes at 2.7 grams per tonne gold.

It comprises 318,000 ounces in free-milling ore and 689,000 ounces in sulphide ore.

The free milling ore from Ashburton will be trucked to the expanded processing plant at Northern Star’s neighbouring Paulsens project to supplement ore feed from the Paulsens mine.

The company expects this to increase output at Paulsens from its current level of around 80,000 ounces per annum to 100,000ozpa from the end of this year.

The Ashburton sulphide will be processed at a new onsite facility to produce a further 100,000ozpa, lifting the group’s overall production to 200,000ozpa.

Location plan of Ashburton gold project prospects. Source: Company announcement

The 53,000oz Ashburton Reserve comprises of 42,000oz at Mt Olympus, 8000oz at Peake and 3000oz at Zeus.

All of the reserves comprise of free-milling ore and the company currently has a maiden reserve calculation on the sulphide ore in progress.

The combined metallurgical results and the 50 per cent increase in Resources have prompted Northern Star to speed up its plans to establish a stand-alone operation at Ashburton by accelerating the resource and reserve drill out as well as further metallurgical test work and development studies.

“The fact that our drilling program has already resulted in such a significant resource increase highlights the enormous upside at Ashburton,” Northern Star Resources managing director Bill Beament said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

“There is huge potential to grow resources at the half-a-dozen deposits we currently know of and then there are numerous other walk-up drill targets which we are confident will add significantly to the inventory.

“The combination of this increased resource, the encouraging metallurgical results and the exploration upside shows why we are so confident about the production and cashflow which Ashburton will bring to Northern Star as it helps underpin our growth to 200,000 ounces per annum.”

THE BOURSE WHISPERER: Precious Metal Resources has entered into a cooperation and investment agreement with Jiangsu Geology and Engineering Co. Ltd. (SUGEC) of Nanjing, China.

The agreement will result in the Chinese company spending $2 million toward exploration on one of Precious Metals exploration licences (EL 7679) located 80 kilometres southeast of Armidale in New South Wales.

The Precious Metals Resources tenements in New South Wales. Source: Company announcement

SUGEC will fund exploration to be carried out on the exploration licence before 31 March 2014.

After this time SUGEC will then be entitled to a 30 per cent stake in the tenement.

“We are impressed with the geological and mineral potential of this project,” SUGEC general manager, professor Zhengyou Yu was quoted as saying in Precious Metal Resource’s announcement to the ASX.

“Working with PMR we are confident that we will develop a strong understanding of the geological structures and advance this project through to production.

“It will assist us in understanding overseas mineral exploration and development, which will promote the development of SUGEC and China’s mining industry.”