Craig Nolan

Aurumin is looking to join the ranks of Western Australia’s coveted million-ounce gold club after completing its latest reverse-circulation drill program at its Central Sandstone project, 520km north-east of Perth. Drilling was completed for 38 holes and tested seven new open-pit targets, as part of the company’s bold push to extend its current 946,000-ounce gold resource.

Aurumin has kick-started its reverse-circulation drill campaign as it hunts for gold at its Sandstone project in WA. The program will consist of 40 drill-holes and test up to nine new open-pit targets. The existing resource is tantalisingly close to the magical one-million-ounce mark and the company will be looking for some solid results to help it burst through that all-important level.

Strickland Metals is ready to put its WA gold hunt into overdrive, as it prepares to drill a multitude of high-grade gold targets at its highly prospective Yandal project, about 85km north-east of the town of Wiluna. The company’s liquid assets are impressive, with $54 million in cash and Northern Star shares available to fund its exploration programs.

Novo Resources has boosted its recent gold drilling results by re-assaying larger sample sizes from its WA Nunyerry North project, using modern high-tech multi-pot photon-assays, due to the nature of its coarse-gold. The improved results highlight several significant intersections, including 6m at more than 6 grams per tonne at the project it has in joint-venture with the Creasy Group.

Si6 Metals has unveiled clay-hosted rare earths hits from surface sampling at its joint-venture Caldera project in the State of Minas Gerais in Brazil, in addition to discovering further nickel-copper-cobalt at its Maibele North deposit, part of the company’s base and precious metals play in Botswana. Si6 will now kick-off an auger drill campaign at Caldera to test for higher-grade rare earths mineralisation at depth.

Venus Metals is on a roll with the first drill campaign at its Deep South prospect within its Youanmi project in WA’s Murchison hitting lithium paydirt. High-grade lithium pegmatites were intersected at both the East and North zones, with strong tantalum enrichment also recorded. The best grade recorded in the maiden campaign came in at a significant 2.89 per cent lithium oxide.

Galan Lithium has continued to ramp up its Hombre Muerto West lithium chloride project in Argentina, with evaporation in its first pond continuing, a second now filling up and construction of a third well underway. The company says the first pond already contains about 500 tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent, with production planned to start in the first half of next year.

Tests conducted by rare earths metallurgical specialists ANSTO Minerals have validated Red Metal’s breakthrough leach results using chip samples from its new Sybella discovery near Mt Isa in North Queensland. Red Metal says ANSTO’s supplementary findings back up its phase-one testwork that showed high recoveries and low impurities using low levels of acid consumption for both valuable magnet and heavy rare earth oxides.

Larvotto Resources has identified multiple new copper-gold-cobalt drill targets following a recent induced-polarisation geophysical survey at its Mt Isa project, adjacent to the historic town of the same name in north-west Queensland. The company is now planning reverse-circulation and diamond drilling at three main targets in the tough and hilly terrain across its prospective project area.