Month: July 2020

Posted on

Morning News Bites – July 7

Bushfires burn on the Gallipoli peninsula, Chance of COVID-19 restrictions to return to NSW and AfterPay posts a record quarter

St Barbara Mines has announced its June 2020 quarterly production report which has shown 108,612oz for the quarter and pushes St Barbara over the 100,000 oz mark in the quarter for the first time in two years. The Quarterly figure also brought 20FY figure of 381,887 oz. Signature mine Gwalia produced 171,156 oz for the 20FY with 51,297 ounces produced in the quarter.  Overall for the FY20, The company’s Atlantic Gold deposit produced above guidance. While Gwalia was within and Simberi was just outside of FY20 guidance.  Managing Director and CEO, Craig Jetson, said, “The June quarter performance highlights the extraordinary efforts of our people and business partners in the midst of an ongoing global pandemic. We continue to adhere to our COVID‐19 management plan to care for our people and our partners, safely maintain our operations and manage this ongoing risk. This quarter reflects our strong focus on Gwalia’s production profile, the positive impact of the Atlantic Gold operations and the opportunity that remains at Simberi.  We are working hard to deliver on our current assets as we review our business and operating model to ensure an exciting future for St Barbara.  2020 marks a new era in the evolution of St Barbara.”  Mr Jetson also indicated that the production (of over 100,000oz in the quarter) shows the potential for the company and also pointed out Gwalia achieved its highest mill throughput since 2014.

Guidance for 2020 was achieved for Alkane Resources Tomingley Gold Operations in New South Wales. The company earmarked FY2020 production guidance of between 30,000 oz to 35,000 oz with the production of 33,507 oz. Alkane Managing Director, Nic Earner, said: “The team at Tomingley Gold Operations continues to perform very well, consistently meeting or exceeding guidance. With an updated mine plan soon to be released and the great potential being shown very close to the mine, through our exploration at Roswell and San Antonio, we remain buoyant about the longer-term prospects at Tomingley. The Board and management acknowledge and thank the team at Tomingley for their strong and continued safety and production performance.” Alkane also had preliminary all in sustained costs of $1357/oz produced which was within the $1250 and $1400 guidance.

Global mining tech company IMDEX, has acquired AusSpec in a deal worth $8.5m which included $3m in cash and $5.5m in IMDEX shares. AusSpec ia a leading provider of spectral mineralogy through its unique aiSIRIS platform – Artificial Intelligence (AI) Spectral InfraRed Interpretation System. IMDEX CEO Paul House, said “AusSpec is a strong strategic fit for IMDEX that is consistent with IMDEX’s acquisition and development strategies. The acquisition provides a compelling opportunity to build on our total rock knowledge offering for clients – from the rig to the core farm and the mill. Every mine in the world makes decisions on the four components of rock knowledge – location, texture, grade and mineralogy. Our technology stack currently addresses three of these components and aiSIRIS satisfies the fourth – mineralogy.”

Aruma Resources has applied for a bigger footprint for its Saltwater Gold Project. The 463km2 Saltwater Project is on the same structure as Northern Star Resources’ Paulsens Gold Mine and the Mt Olympus Gold Mine in the region. Aruma has applied for a prospecting licence which covers an area of 96 sqkm. There are now priority targets for Aruma and that includes the Saltwater Anomaly, the Atlantis Anomaly and the Monster Anomaly. The Nanjilgardy fault which runs through the project has enhanced the prospectivity of the Saltwater Project alongside the previous mining activities.

Downer Group has been awarded a South Australian contract valued at an estimated $420 million over a maximum term of 13 years. The contract is with the South Australian Government Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure (DPTI) for its road maintenance contracts. Downer CEO Grant Fenn said “Downer has been maintaining South Australian roads since 2003, Currently, Downer is providing maintenance and emergency road services to DPTI, but under these new contracts Downer will also deliver a range of other services including maintenance of intelligent transport systems, management of third party works and minor capital improvements. Overall, Downer will deliver reliable road networks to ensure efficient and safe journeys and also provide opportunities for local service providers and suppliers.”

Posted on

Morning News Bites – July 6

Labor picks up Eden-Monaro, Possibility the Melbourne CBD could be locked down as COVID-19 spreads in Victoria and ASX tipped for a weaker start.

  • Located around 20km from the Super Pit in Western Australia, Pioneer Resources Golden Ridge Project is set to spring to life again. Field reconnaissance programs are underway and the ongoing Gold Prospectively Review has identified other Company Projects with emerging gold potential. Managing Director Tim Spencer, said: “In recent years, the focus at our Blair Golden Ridge Project has been on nickel, however this has not always been the case – particularly for previous holders of the ground, including WMC Resources. “The thick historical gold intercepts outlined above were probably not as interesting for a company looking for big deposits in a sub-A$600/oz gold price environment, but they are certainly interesting with gold over A$2,500/oz. This ground has been intermittently explored and drilled for over 40 years so there is much work to be done in pulling together and interpreting all the historical data as one dataset. We are encouraged that compelling targets have been identified early in this work.”
  • Krakatoa Resources has announced it has expanded its landholding in the Lachlan Fold Belt in New South Wales through direct license application by taking on the Rand Project. Rand is prospective for multi million-ounce mineralisation-styles, including features similar to De Grey’s Mallina Gold Project. Historical data includes Drill results from a 1988 campaign where the program ended in gold mineralisation preserved near the base of an intensively weathered and leached saprolite at the Welcome Find Reef and Show Day Reef with no subsequent exploration work. The Company will undertake a comprehensive review of the historical work completed and publicly available datasets to generate targets for field reconnaissance.
  • A new exploration drilling program for Venturex Resources has been finalised for its Sulphur Springs Copper-Zinc Project in Western Australia. The program will follow up from the 2019 drilling which identified results such as 18m @ 7.75% Zn, 2.03% Pb, 0.25% Cu and 22.8g/t Ag. Venturex Executive Director, Anthony Reilly is looking ahead with the exploration project and its chance to strengthen growth for Venturex “Any new discoveries along the Panorama Trend will strengthen our growth pipeline and potentially either extend the life or increase the scale of a future base metal processing centre at Sulphur Springs, so we are really looking forward to what this next phase of exploration can deliver, We also plan to test several large EM targets highlighted in the 2017 HEM survey over the northern portion of the Panorama Trend. The first target, XA8, shows potential early-stage indications of nickel sulphide mineralisation quite distinct to the Sulphur Springs Cu-Zn orebody, 1,200m to the east.” He said. There is also a share purchase plan underway at $0.055 per share with free attaching options on the basis of 1 option for every 2 shares subscribed.
  • Results of 85m @ 11.6g/t Au from 7m and 8m @ 99.0g/t Au from 7m have highlighted results from Musgrave Minerals from its RC Drilling at Starlight. Results so far confirm and extend the near surface, high-grade gold mineralisation. Musgrave Managing Director Rob Waugh said: “Starlight continues to produce stunning gold results in near surface drilling. Further RC drilling is underway to infill and extend the Starlight mineralisation with the aim of completing a JORC resource update late in Q3 2020. Drilling is continuing with two rigs on site and we are confident we can extend Starlight and the new White Light lode and make significant new discoveries in the belt.” Follow-up RC drilling on the Starlight lode at Break of Day is continuing with further results to be known within a month.
  • Ausmon Resources has completed the field exploration work at Broken Hill. The logistics and soil sampling has been completed and drilling will test the PI2 pyrite/silica zone at 50 m below the surface and the cobaltiferous orthogneiss at 50 and 100 m below the surface. Ausmon have outlined a 1.5 km cobalt, gold and base metals target at the site.

 

 

Posted on

Morning News Bites – July 3

Federal Treasurer Mathias Cormann has suggested there will be further tax incentives for business in the October Budget, but also indicated he will step away from politics after the budget. Afterpay is closing in on an ASX Top 20 spot and reports quarantine hotels let guests out to go shopping in Victoria.

Civmec have been awarded a new contract with a Dry Plant Detailed Earthworks and Concrete package for the Iron Bridge Magnetite Project 145km from Port Hedland. Civmec’s Chief Executive Officer, Mr Patrick Tallon, said: “Through our current delivery of works for Fortescue in the Pilbara, we have formed a strong working relationship built on transparency, trust and collaboration and reliable execution. This is an exciting project of a very significant scale with a declared value for the overall project being US$2.6 billion. The Iron Bridge Joint Venture has demonstrated and refined each step of the magnetite ore processing system and conducted full-scale trials to ensure the effectiveness of the process and gain confidence in the overall project success”. The works will commence immediately and are expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2022. The works are to enable 22 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) of high grade, magnetite concentrate product to be produced.

Black Cat Syndicate, who yesterday announced the stake that Silver Lake has now in the company alongside some recent acquisitions, has announced drill results at Mhyree. Drilling intersected mineralisation  and recorded 6.45m @ 9.43 g/t Au from 228.51m, 1.97m @ 11.68 g/t Au from 155.06m and 2.14m @ 21.03 g/t Au from 95.06m. Mhyree is 100% owned by Black Cat Syndicate and continues to deliver strong results. Gareth Solly – Managing Director of Black Cat said “The geotechnical results and positive gold assays will be fed into the Myhree mining study. The recent RC drilling at Bulong has also now been completed and assays are expected in mid-July 2020. Additional diamond holes are currently being drilled at Myhree with results due in late August 2020. RC drill planning on priority targets at Fingals is now underway and will be announced in July 2020.”

Recent Exploration at the Sandy Creek and Tallandoon Goldfields has brought results for Dart Mining in an historical area in Northeast Victoria. Multiple occurrences of disseminated gold-sulphide mineralisation in hydrothermally altered granites have been identified at Sandy Creek. While high-grade gold occurring with antimony-lead-zinc-gold-silver silica-sulphide mineralisation identified at Tallandoon. Further drilling is required at Sandy Creek Goldfield with multiple targets and a workplan for 980m of drilling, which has been approved for first pass RAB or RC drilling of the primary targets identified.

Great Boulder Resources has announced drilling is scheduled to recommence mid July. Drilling will test priority areas within the large, coherent gold-in-soil anomaly identified earlier in the year by auger sampling at its Whiteheads Project north of Kalgoorlie. Great Boulder Managing Director Andrew Paterson said “We’ve been fairly quiet for the past couple of months, conserving cash while the Coronavirus pandemic played out. “Now that things are returning to normal in Western Australia we’re looking forward to testing these priority anomalies at Whiteheads. The bottom-of-hole geochemistry study is ongoing, and a lot more work is planned for the coming months.”

It’s been a big week for Ora Banda Mining. After announcements this week on it’s projects North of Kalgoorlie, including its Davyhurst Definitive Feasibility Study where Managing Director David Quinlivan said “The DFS confirms that the significant existing infrastructure will enable Ora Banda to pursue a rapid and low-capex path to production, with the first gold pour targeted for January 2021”, Ora Banda Mining has entered a trading halt pending a capital rising. It’s anticipated the halt will be lifted on or before Tuesday July 7 2020.

Posted on

Morning News Bites – July 2

Woolworths has been fined $1 million for continuing to send emails to recipents who indicated they no longer wanted to receive correspondence, Victoria goes in to postcode lockdown and Tesla overtakes Toyota as the world’s most valuable carmaker.

SRG Global has provided the market with an update on its operations and also outlined bringing forward a half year dividend which was originally posted as being due 29 October 2020. The first half Interim Dividend payment of 0.5 cents per share has been brought forward to 30 July 2020. As part of the market update, SRG announced the Financial Year 20 Underlying EBITDA expected to be $20m – $21m. SGR Global Managing Director David Macgeorge, “SRG Global’s focus has and will remain the safety and wellbeing of our people and accordingly we proactively implemented a range of safety, supply chain and cost mitigation measures to manage the company through the uncertainty caused by COVID-19. With the actions we have now taken, we expect FY21 EBITDA growth to be circa 50% from underlying FY20. We have a strong pipeline of opportunities in excess of $6b, with positive exposure to Government backed Infrastructure investment, high quality commodities, diverse industries and a tier one client base. This has us well positioned for long-term sustainable growth.” SRG has around  $707m as described as work in hand as at 30 June 2020. With this figure, approximately two thirds of work in hand annuity/recurring in nature. The Company continued to invest in growth capital in 2H FY20 including the commencement of five-year contracts with both Alcoa and Saracen Minerals.

Breaker Resources has announced a hit of 4m @ 21.79g/t Au from 172m from one of three RC drill holes as part of the maiden drilling at the Carbineer Prospect. All three drill holes intersected significant gold mineralisation at the project with assay results for another 11 holes pending. Executive Chairman Tom Sanders recapped the drilling results and also eluded to good results around the Kopai-Crescent area – he said “These two emerging discoveries have the potential to materially expand our shallow gold inventory and complement our success extending the Bombora gold deposit at depth, We are still gauging the extent of the mineralisation footprint in each area on very wide reconnaissance drill hole spacings. So to hit high-grade gold at the Carbineer Prospect on the first two single-hole sections 100m apart, is both exciting and unusual. Further drilling is planned to restart in two weeks. In the Kopai-Crescent area we are seeing significant gold up to 2-4g/t over a very large area. I think that the high-grade intersections will come once we finish scoping the areal extent of the mineralisation and then zero in on the structures controlling the gold.”

Black Cat Syndicate has completed the acquisition of the Fingals and Rowes Find gold project.  Fingals is located around 30 kms south east of Bulong and Rowe’s Find is located around 100 km east of Bulong. The transaction has increased Black Cat`s resource by 145%. Also Silver Lake Resources has emerged as a substantial shareholder (8.7%) in Black Cat and will have the first right of refusal on any toll treating arrangements relating to Fingals and Rowe’s Find. Black Cat’s Managing Director, Gareth Solly, commented: “We are extremely pleased to have completed this transformational acquisition and welcome Silver Lake as our largest shareholder. With the acquisition of Fingals and Rowe’s Find completed, we will now focus on converting the JORC 2004 Resources to JORC 2012 Resources, updating the JORC 2012 Resources and identifying our immediate drilling priorities. We will commence releasing the results of this work later in July 2020.”

The awarding of a the Corunna Downs Mining Services’ contract for Atlas Iron Pty Ltd has been awarded to MACA Limited. The project will consist of open pit mining services including drilling & blasting, and loading & hauling. The contract will generate approximately $230 million in revenue for MACA over the 62 month term. MACA CEO Mike Sutton said “We are pleased to have been selected as the Contract Miner for Atlas building on our workload in the Iron Ore Sector with an existing client. We look forward to being part of the successful development of this project”. MACA has previously worked on Atlas Iron projects at Pardoo, Mt Dove, Abydos and Wodgina operations as well as providing Crushing Services for Atlas at its Mount Webber Operations and Civil works at Corunna Downs.

A planned Financial Year 2021 exploration program has been announced by Australian Potash under the Earn-In & Joint Venture agreement by joint venture partner St Barbara Limited for the Lake Wells Gold Project. The exploration program will cover around 30,000m. Managing Director and CEO, Matt Shackleton said “The results of exploration to date by St Barbara generated compelling analogies to the richly endowed Kundana goldfield endowed with in excess of 8M ounces of gold. St Barbara has confirmed the details of the planned FY21 exploration program, including up to 30,000 metres across targets in the Yamarna and Lake Wells joint venture areas. Subject to access, the program is planned to commence in September and is likely to continue through to the end of Q2 FY21.”

Posted on

Morning News Bites – July 1

New financial year is HERE! A glimmer of hope after a horrid 6 months for world markets.

  • AMP has sold its Life Insurance business to Resolution life for $3 billion. Broken down that figure is $2.5 billion cash; and $500 million equity interest in Resolution Life Australia, a new Australian-domiciled, Resolution Life-controlled holding company that is now the owner of AMP Life. AMP Chief Executive Francesco De Ferrari said “The sale is a major milestone for AMP demonstrating our ability to execute complex projects including through the difficulties of COVID-19. “It is also a historic moment as AMP ceases to be a life insurer after 170 years. Our Life teams will move to Resolution Life and will continue to support clients who will see no changes in their policy terms or conditions.”
  • Chevron has completed its acquisition of Puma Energy via all shares and equity interests of Puma Energy. As part of this deal, 46 sites in the APN Convenience Retail REIT (AQR or the Fund) portfolio, representing 58% of AQR’s rental income are affected. Chris Brockett, APN Convenience Retail REIT Fund Manager, said: “The portfolio continues to be resilient, notwithstanding the COVID-19 pandemic, with all sites remaining open and trading and with minimal impact on rental income. The property valuation updates are a strong endorsement of the portfolio and reflect the enhanced credit quality of a Chevron lease covenant for 46 of our properties.” “We expect service station and convenience retail properties to remain highly sought after as a stable and defensive asset class due to their long leases and strong lease covenants.”
  • The key results of the Definitive Feasibility Study for BCI Minerals for its 100% owned Mardie Salt and Potash project have been announced. A positive business case established for production of 4.4Mtpa of high purity salt and 120ktpa of premium SOP fertiliser. There was a Direct capital cost estimate of $580M for all production and port infrastructure. Additional capital cost provision for detailed design, owner’s costs, project management, growth allowances and contingencies of $199M, resulting in total capital cost of $779M. Additional working capital and funding costs are expected to be incurred during construction. According to Managing Director Alwyn Vorster “The DFS delivered positive outcomes in all key project areas and indicates Mardie is technically robust and financially attractive with a potential net present value of more than one billion dollars. An investment of $20M has been made over the past 18 months to deliver the high quality DFS and we will continue to derisk and add value to the Project over the next few months. This should further increase lender and investor confidence, supporting funding solutions.”
  • A drill program has been finalised for Castillo Copper for its Mt Oxide pillar in Queensland. All of the appropriate approvals from the Queensland government has been attained and a up to 12 drilling contractors have been contacted regarding the project with priority given to a crew that is available on short notice at competitive rates. The program is expected to take around 6 – 8 weeks. As part of the proposed program around 3,432m over 14 drill-holes, within an area approx 1,500m by 1,000m, with targets near surface and deeper geophysical anomalies has been identified. Three deep vertical drill-holes, spaced approx 210m apart, will target an interpreted potential massive sulphide bedrock conductor.
  • Meteoric Resources has announced it has completed its acquisition of the Palm Springs gold project south east of Halls creek in the WA Kimberly region. The Palm Springs project contains 60 known gold occurrences over a 20km strike. Previous drill results have heralded 68m @ 2.5g/t Au from 44m and 19m @ 8.8 g/t Au from 56m. An extensive drill program for an area known as Butchers Creek Open Pit gold mine has been submitted to DMIRS with the expected start date to be August 2020.  Managing Director Dr Andrew Tunks said “With this acquisition Meteoric is hopeful of producing some stunning exploration results throughout 2020.  Previous work on  the Palm Springs Project indicates the potential for a substantial untested gold system plunging south, away from the Butchers Creek historic mine yet there has been no  active exploration in the  Butchers Creek area this century!”