Andrew Duffy

88 Energy has earmarked the middle of this year to begin shooting a 200-line-kilometre 2D seismic survey over 10 prospective oil and gas closures picked up by airborne gravity data in Namibia’s Owambo Basin. Management says the closures are also supported in part by existing 2D seismic data, in addition to soil gas sampling that validates the existence of a hydrocarbon-producing source rock.

Gold Mountain has run the rule over its Wabag project in Papua New Guinea, with a data overhaul uncovering the core of at least three porphyry systems that may host substantial copper-gold deposits. The company says the review suggests there may be multiple centres of porphyry-style mineralisation through 7km of strike in an arc parallel to the direction of its main copper anomalies.

Phase one drilling at Chariot Corporation’s Black Mountain hard rock lithium project in Wyoming has wrapped up, with all holes hitting highly-fractionated pegmatites and high grades expected to soon emerge. Buoyed by the fractionated nature of the drill intercepts, the company is prepping the drill bit for phase two efforts to follow grades as high as 1.12 per cent lithium oxide from the first three holes.

Si6 Metals will assume a more commanding role in its Brazilian critical minerals joint venture with Foxfire Metals after lifting its stake in the partnership to a 70 per cent interest in any future licences – up from its 50 per cent share in the existing 10 licences. It signifies Si6’s commitment to its already massive Brazilian ground-holding, which is prospective for rare earths and lithium.

This week’s Bulls N’ Bears Runner of the Week is … Osteopore. Its share price hiked up more than 478 per cent to join mining movers and shakers Base Resources, Orion Minerals and Rincon Resources.

Perth-based explorer Estrella Resources has uncovered another manganese prospect in Timor-Leste, with pXRF grades from float going as high as 27.9 per cent manganese. The company’s new Sauro prospect sits just 12km south-east of its Lalena prospect that just last week threw up pXRF results from grab samples going up to 57.2 per cent and 48.1 per cent manganese.

Triangle Energy will be hunting a 279Bcf resource in ground south-east of Geraldton in WA’s Mid West when it launches drilling for oil and gas at its Booth prospect in the onshore Perth Basin in late June. The Booth-1 well is expected to cost less than $1.5 million and will be followed by the Becos-1 well as the search for hydrocarbons intensifies in the region.

Empire Energy will pay down its US debt to Macquarie and put a bit over A$3m in the tin to chase gas in the Northern Territory’s Beetaloo basin after offloading its US oil and gas assets for about A$14 million. The company is poised to take on the Australian east coast gas supply dilemma with its Beetaloo ground modelled to generate a project net present value for phase two of $2.5 billion and $14.5 billion for phase three.

DiscovEx Resources will takeover a private company that has racked up a 650,000 ounce gold resource in Finland in addition to Europe’s second largest undeveloped cobalt resource. It also has some stellar exploration hits including a 22m intersection grading 98 g/t gold. The Finnish turf is currently owned by Australian company Latitude 66 Cobalt, which the DiscovEx board proposes to acquire by way of an off- market takeover.