Quarter Time Wrap
THE BOURSE WHISPERER: Quarterly reporting season is always a heavy burden on The Roadhouse’s virtual postman. The latest round was no exception. Here’s a random selection of what some companies had to say.
Ram Resources (ASX: RMR) reported an eventful quarter.
During the June 2014 quarter, Ram secured an option to acquire additional exploration leases covering 410 square kilometres in the Fraser Range belt, bringing its total landholding within the Fraser Range region to 850sqkm of tenements.
The new ground, named the Fraser Range South project, is located within 2km of Sirius Resources’ Centauri and Crux anomalies and covers the contact zone of the southern extension of the Fraser Range complex and the Birrup Zone
Ram’s first Fraser Range drilling program was started at the end of June.
The reconnaissance aircore drilling is hoped to help the company confirm stratigraphy and geological structure.
The next stage is deep Reverse Circulation (RC) drilling to follow up the strongest conductors and targets.
Preliminary assessment of Ram’s new tenements has highlighted a number of high-priority areas for exploration.
The tenements cover approximately 30km of the interpreted Fraser Fault zone, which hosts the Mammoth nickel prospect in the north.
Ram has a geo-chemistry program in progress targeting nickel.
This will include the Fraser Range Fault zone, Fraser Range Complex and 28 VTEM anomalies identified by previous explorers, Ashburton Minerals.
Geological reconnaissance has commenced, with geologists now in the field.
Further work including magnetics and additional soil sampling is scheduled to take place in the September quarter.
Papillon Resources (ASX: PIR) reported an outline of its activities for the recent June quarter.
Papillon entered into a merger implementation agreement with B2Gold Corp. to combine the two companies at an agreed exchange ratio of 0.661 B2Gold shares for each Papillon share held, subject to the satisfaction of certain conditions. The merger will be implemented by way of a scheme of arrangement.
If the Scheme is implemented, Papillon shareholders will hold approximately 26 per cent of the merged entity providing the opportunity to gain immediate exposure to a significant, growth orientated and profitable gold producer with diversified operations whilst still retaining material exposure to the upside potential of the company’s Fekola project located in south western Mali, adjacent to the border with Senegal.
Papillon commenced early site clearing of the plant site and mine services area at Fekola.
The company has identified a number of key areas, primarily in earthworks, to advance Fekola towards production prior to a formal final investment decision being made, following the release of the Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS).
The company completed additional metallurgical test work at Kekola as part of the DFS, which it said supports the previous decision to implement a conventional primary crush, semi-autogenous grinding and ball mill (SABC) circuit and a gravity concentration and a carbon-in-leach (CIL) on gravity tails processing flowsheet for Fekola.
The test work also indicated a number of improvements from the Pre-Feasibility Study (PFS).
New Australian Securities Exchange Listing Rules require Papillon to update its Mineral Resource holdings to comply with the new JORC Code 2012 Edition.
Accordingly, the company has re-estimated its Mineral Resource Estimates (MREs).
The updated Fekola Main Zone MRE of 5.15 million ounces at a lower cut-off grade of 1g/t gold remains unchanged since last reported under the JORC Code 2004 Edition, and the updated Fekola Satellites MRE is now 0.38 million ounces at a lower cut-off grade of 1g/t gold.
Follow-up drilling at the company’s Menankoto Sud project has continued to yield encouraging results.
Menankoto Sud is located approximately 13 kilometres to the north of the Fekola project.
Assay results included 10m at 4.61g/t from 12m, 30m at 2.01g/t from 13m and 7m at 3.22g/t from 40m.