Category: Industry Link Media

Liontown to Roar After $12.5 Million Raising.

Liontown Resources (ASX: LTR) has confirmed it has accepted firm commitments for a $12.5 million capital raising to underpin the continued advancement of its 100%-owned Kathleen Valley Lithium-Tantalum and Moora Gold-PGE- Nickel-Copper Projects in Western Australia.

As a result of the raising the Company’s flagship Kathleen Valley Lithium- Tantalum Project will be fully funded through to completion of a DFS in Q4 2021, underpinning the next stage of its journey to become a significant second-generation Australian lithium-tantalum producer.

The capital raising was undertaken at $0.23 per share and comprises:

– A $10.33 million placement via the issue of 44,923,913 New Shares to institutional and sophisticated investors within the Company’s 15% placement capacity in accordance with ASX Listing Rule 7.1; and

– A $2.17 million placement via the issue of 9,423,913 New Shares to the Company’s Directors (and their associates), subject to shareholder approval.

The issue price of $0.23 per New Share represents a 13.2% discount to the last closing price of $0.265 on Monday, 26th October 2020.

Liontown’s Managing Director, David Richards said:  “This placement further de-risks Liontown’s development pathway and puts us in a great position to advance our high-quality Kathleen Valley Lithium-Tantalum Project rapidly towards completion of a DFS and project financing. The strong demand from investors is testament to the quality, grade, scale and location of the Kathleen Valley Project – which is now firmly established as Australia’s fifth largest spodumene-lithium resource.”

Breaker Encouraged by Results at Lake Roe Project.

Breaker Resources (ASX: BRB) has reported strong drilling results from three areas outside the 1Moz open pit Resource at Bombora, situated within the Company’s 100%-owned Lake Roe Project, 100km east of Kalgoorlie, Western Australia.

The drilling is part of a major program underway to grow the Resource, expand an extensively de- risked open pit mining option and realise the full potential of a 30km gold system outlined by regional aircore drilling.

Breaker Executive Chairman Tom Sanders said the new results continued to demonstrate the growth potential at Lake Roe, where a pattern of drilling and consistent discovery has been established each quarter over five years. This bears all the hallmarks of new gold camp.

“We are now starting to close the drill spacing at Bombora and Kopai-Crescent in preparation for resource delineation drilling. It is too early to put a timing on the next resource update as we are still firming up the geometry and extent of the gold mineralisation in several areas.”

Pilbara Minerals to Acquire Altura Lithium Project.

Following the appointment of KordaMentha as the Receiver of Altura Mining (ASX:AJM), Pilbara Minerals  (ASX: PLS) has entered into an Implementation Deed with the senior secured loan noteholders of Altura which provides it with a path to potentially acquire the Altura Lithium Project through the purchase of the shares in Altura Lithium Operations Pty Ltd (“ALO”) for approximately US$175 million, subject to completion of the receivership process.

The acquisition of the Altura Project would provide Pilbara Minerals with an opportunity to consolidate the two neighbouring projects into a single integrated operation. Of particular interest to the Company is the opportunity to mine that section of the Altura orebody that is otherwise sterilised without access being granted to Pilbara Minerals’ ground to undertake mining activities.

Pilbara Minerals’ Managing Director, Ken Brinsden, said:  “This potential acquisition represents a logical consolidation of two neighbouring operations to unite the greater Pilgangoora orebody, unlocking tangible synergies in both the short and long term”

If successful, Pilbara Minerals claims the acquisition will position the company as the largest pure-play ASX-listed lithium company by enterprise value and will provide strong leverage to the expected recovery in lithium prices, driven by the increasing demand for electric vehicles and energy storage applications evident across the world.

MACA and Carabella Place Mine in Care and Maintenance.

MACA Limited (ASX: MLD) in conjunction with Carabella Resources have agreed to place the Bluff PCI project mine on care and maintenance while the coal price remains below economic levels and uncertainty remains regarding Chinese Government policy relating to Australian metallurgical coal imports. The parties are working to fulfil current coal sales obligations with mining services expected to halt around the end of November 2020.

The carrying value of the receivable amount owing from Carabella for mining services performed and the working capital facility as at 30 June 2020 was $34.7M. Whilst the monthly balance fluctuates with the working capital cycle MACA expects the overall future recoveries to be materially in line with the carrying value of the receivable.

MACA CEO Mike Sutton said  “In conjunction with our client, Carabella, we believe it is prudent to cease operations until a sustained recovery in the PCI coal price occurs. MACA are able to redeploy the majority of the Bluff fleet to existing and new projects which are commencing shortly. A relocation of the Bluff fleet will reduce the expected capital expenditure for FY21 by $35M as a result.”

SOR Escalates Self-Charging Battery Development.

Further to an announcement they made earlier, Strategic Elements (ASX:SOR) subsidiary Australian Advanced Materials Battery has agreed to escalate development of the self-charging flexible battery technology under collaboration with the University of New South Wales . The team will fast-track ink scale up to achieve 1 litre of ink within the next 4 weeks. To provide perspective, 1 litre of Battery Ink has the capacity to produce more than 2000 printable battery cells.

SOR Managing Director Charles Murphy said: “It took years for our team to understand how to scale up our Nanocube Memory Ink to a 1 litre batch size. Achieving this within 4 weeks for the Battery Ink will provide strong evidence of the potential to harness our previous electronic ink experience. It’s an ambitious goal but it’s a challenge the team have taken on. We have also agreed with UNSW to pursue Federal Government ‘matching grant funding’ opportunities for integration of the Memory, Battery and Electronic Circuit ink technologies”.

The self-charging battery technology is being developed under a collaboration with the University of New South Wales and CSIRO partially funded by the Federal Government . The Battery cells generate electricity from humidity in the air or skin surface to self-charge themselves within minutes. No manual charging or wired power is required. They are created with a printable ink and are ideally suited for use in Internet of Things (IOT) devices.

Galileo Confirm Prospective Nature of Fraser Range Lantern South Project.

Galileo Mining has announced assay results from recent diamond drilling have confirmed the prospective nature of the Company’s Lantern area in the Fraser Range Nickel Belt of Western Australia.

Commenting on the assay results Galileo Managing Director Brad Underwood said; “These results are a very important step forward for the ongoing exploration programs at our Fraser Range project. For the first time we have identified a small section of primary massive sulphide with high levels of nickel, copper, and cobalt. This means we have identified a mineralised system that can produce high grade nickel and copper. Our job now is to focus on those areas that have the potential to hold large accumulations of economic sulphides. We currently have two advanced prospects at Lantern South and Lantern East where more drilling is required to follow up on the work completed to date. And, given that we have confirmed the fertility of the rocks on our tenements, we will also be increasing our efforts to build our earlier stage prospects into drill targets as we look to create a suite of high quality prospects for drill testing.”

• Assays received for disseminated sulphides in LARC013D from the Lantern South prospect include;
• 66 metres @ 0.19% nickel & 0.14% copper from 132.67m including 5.95 metres @ 0.36% nickel & 0.29% copper from 134.82m.
• First occurrence of nickel and copper rich massive sulphides over 7 cm section of drill core with assays of 4.6% nickel, 2.2% copper, 0.15% cobalt & 0.7 g/t palladium from 136.2m (LARC013D).
• Assays confirm the mineralised system at the Lantern Prospect is capable of producing high grade nickel-copper sulphide.
• Wide intersection of disseminated sulphides (pyrrhotite dominant) at Lantern East (LARC008D) may represent a halo zone to remodelled conductive target located 150 metres north of current drilling.

Dampier Gold Release High-Grade Results From Zuleika Project.

Dampier Gold has released results from its Phase 2 drilling on the Paradigm East Project in the Zuleika Gold JV with Torian Resources. The Aircore program was completed at the end of September and comprised 21 holes for a total 1055m of drilling. Results have been received for the entire program on 4m composite samples.

The Zuleika Gold Project sits within the gold rich Kundana/Ora Banda district of the Kalgoorlie Goldfield and consists of a 223sqkm land holding along significant regional structures within highly prospective stratigraphy which has been the host to more than 20 million ounces of gold production over the last 30 years (still producing), with scope for more discoveries.

Best intercepts within the composite sampling were.

24m @ 6.4 g/t Au from 28m incl 4m @ 34.7 g/t Au from 32m and 8m @ 2.2 g/t Au from 48m including 4m @ 3.3 g/t Au from 48m.

Dampier’s Managing Director, Ms Annie Guo, said:

“Our latest successful exploration results have vindicated Dampier’s strategy of maintaining an aggressive drilling campaign in parallel with our technical team’s increasing understanding of the mineralised systems within the project area. I wish to congratulate Dampier’s team for this outstanding result.

We have hit more high-grade mineralisation in previously untested areas. These results extend the known limits of mineralisation. This points to a larger mineralised envelope which in turn will give greater scale to the project.

The success at Paradigm East enforces the significant potential of Dampier’s asset portfolio and together with the technical ability of its committed team, Dampier is on track with its focus of rapidly defining JORC Resources at its Zuleika project area which forms part of our Menzies/Kalgoorlie exploration strategy.”

Navarre Secures Lease in Victorian Goldfields.

Navarre Minerals believes it has strengthened its growth pipeline in the historical goldfields of Victoria, with the state’s Earth Resources Regulation granting the Company an exploration licence over the main producing areas of the St Arnaud Goldfield (EL6819).

Acquired after a competitive bidding process, the new ground is enveloped by Navarre’s broader tenement package at the St Arnaud Gold Project.  The tenure covers the majority of historical workings within the goldfield, which has produced 400,000 ounces of gold in the past.  Navarre has also lodged three exploration licence applications to secure a strategic tenement package, adjacent to its fully-owned St Arnaud Gold Project.

Managing Director, Ian Holland said;  “The granting of the tenement validates Navarre’s aggressive exploration program at a time of record gold prices and intense interest in the Victorian gold sector,” said Navarre managing director Ian Holland.  The St Arnaud tenement package further strengthens the Company’s hold over some of the most prospective ground in Victoria’s so-called Golden Triangle.”

The historical workings covered by exploration licence EL6819 include the Bristol, New Chum and Nelson lines of reef. These auriferous reefs extend for approximately five kilometres and dive under Murray Basin cover to the north, where Navarre’s drilling on an adjacent licence and identified gold and silver mineralisation extending for at least another five kilometres.

Ioneer Sign Contract for Caterpillar Machinery.

Australian based mining company, Ioneer Ltd, an emerging lithium– boron supplier, has released details of a partnership with Caterpillar as its exclusive heavy equipment partner for its Rhyolite Ridge Lithium-Boron Project in Nevada.

Caterpillar will supply haul trucks, hydraulic shovels, wheel loaders, and other mine site support machinery like track-type tractors (dozers), excavators, and motor graders. All equipment will feature the latest in high-precision GPS and real-time analytics in order to maximise efficiency and accuracy in material loading.

The equipment and services supplied by Caterpillar during the first five years of operation is valued at approximately US$100 million. In addition, Caterpillar will offer the Company finance solutions for the equipment through Caterpillar Financial Services. Both the supply of equipment and services and finance solutions are subject to a final investment decision being taken on the Project and definitive legal documentation.

The partnership will operate through Cashman Equipment, and will support the Rhyolite Ridge Project with technicians to assemble and service the equipment, operator trainers to assist with the most efficient machine operations, and product support consultants to facilitate a comprehensive Maintenance and Repair Contract (MARC) agreement.

Ioneer’s managing director, Bernard Rowe, said:  “We are extremely pleased to partner with the world’s leading manufacturer of mining equipment, Caterpillar. Ioneer is at the forefront of the US strategic imperative to develop a domestic lithium battery supply chain.”

Jupiter To Demerge Iron Ore Assets – Become Pure Manganese Company.

Jupiter Mines has announced that the Board has unanimously approved a demerger of its Central Yilgarn Iron Ore assets and subsequently an initial public offering.  The demerger will create an ASX listed company, to be named at a later date, which will work to progress the development of the Mount Mason DSO hematite project as its primary focus in the near term.

The demerger will be achieved via a distribution of the new company’s shares in-specie to Jupiter shareholders, in proportion to their existing shareholding in Jupiter.

Jupiter shareholders will also be offered the opportunity to acquire further shares in the new company above their in-specie allocation. Jupiter will retain a minority holding in the new company. Subject to all approvals, the demerger and listing is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2021. Full details and timetable will be announced in due course.

Jupiter has appointed Greg Durack as the Chief Executive Officer to lead the IPO and implement the new company’s strategy.  Greg will also serve as an executive director. Other board appointments will be made shortly.  The new company will be headquartered in Perth, to maintain proximity to the CYIP assets.  Post the demerger, Jupiter will become a pure-play manganese company, with the aim to continue to maintain its strong balance sheet and high payout ratio.

The new Work Health and Safety Bill introduced and passed in the WA State parliament lower house in February and last week passed in the upper house, advances new industrial manslaughter laws that have been mooted for some time now. In essence it means that individuals and business entities can be held responsible for the death of a worker and face serious penalties of incarceration or hefty fines. Some amendments by the upper house will need to be ratified in the lower house but it is expected to go through.

After the death, earlier in the month, of a worker on a construction site in Perth, unions staged a protest to put pressure on upper house members to act on the stalled legislation. Whether this was the catalyst for the upper house to finally vote on the legislation is hard to determine.

What is important now is that it has passed. There has been an outpouring of relief in some quarters that this has finally come to pass. Families Left Behind spokeswoman Regan Ballantine welcomed the passage of the bill. She has been the passionate spokesperson for the group since losing her 17 year old son in a workplace accident in 2017.

Unions and Families left behind have been campaigning for sometime now for the legislation to pass as they believe it will make a big difference in the way business conducts itself in regards to safety.

However not everyone is happy with the new legislation that exposes businesses owners, management and directors to large fines and incarceration. Some groups are saying that the new legislation goes too far and exposes employers to penalties for things that happen that are not within their control. Unfortunately because there are employers or people who work under them that like to cut shortcuts or do other things that put themselves or others at risk we will need legislation like this. I hope that these are the people that the legislation will target and not those that place the safety and well being of their health as a priority.

Lets look at an example that highlight what I mean. There are two companies in the same sort of business operating the same sort of machinery – The Good People Company and the Bad People Company. Both companies receive an urgent memo from a machinery manufacturer that says a piece of machinery they are operating could lose a rotating part that could cause serious injury or death to the operator or someone in the vicinity.

The Good People Company immediately take the piece of machinery out of service and advise their employees through a memo and a follow up toolbox meeting that until the manufacturer rectifies the problem the machine is not to be used.

The Bad People Company, knowing the machine is integral to the production process says nothing and their employees are allowed to continue using it, oblivious to the fault.

An employee from the Good People Company, anxious to get the job done quickly, and without the knowledge of anyone else uses the machinery he knows he shouldn’t use. In doing so the rotating part comes off, strikes him and kills him.

Over at the Bad People Company, a worker oblivious to the fault of the machinery, uses it as he has done many times before and the rotating part comes off and kills him.

Now when it comes to the Bad People Company, providing it can be proved that the company new of the fault and advice from the manufacturer, it would be a fairly easy decision to charge those who concealed the fault under the new legislation. I think most people would say it is obvious that the employer has culpability in this situation.

The Good People Company, under the new laws would still come under a lot of scrutiny, even if they proved they did everything in their power to inform employees and take the machinery out of service. Unfortunately, you cannot legislate for stupidity, which is what happened here but some groups are concerned that the new legislation will not take stupidity into account when dealing with workplace deaths.

On the whole I think it is good legislation, I just hope that businesses that are doing the right thing aren’t caught up in a piece of law that is intended to stop cowboys causing so much suffering.

Dacian Hits High Grades at Mt Marven

Troubled miner Dacian Gold (DCN) has released drilling results from its initial drilling program along strike from the Mt Marven open pit at its 100%-owned Mt Morgans Gold Operation, located near Laverton in Western Australia.

The newly defined continuation of high-grade mineralisation is currently delineated over a length of approximately 800m beyond the limit of the current open pit design for Mt Marven, and remains open at depth and along strike.

Infill drilling to 40m x 40m spacing to assess the continuity of the structure will commence immediately with Mineral Resource estimate work to follow.

The Mt Marven open pit is situated in the Mt Margaret dome area and is currently in production. As part of a first-pass assessment into the prospectivity of the Mt Marven Shear Zone (MMSZ) south of the active Mt Marven open pit, a total of 44 Reverse Circulation holes were completed on an approximately 80m x 120m drill spacing.

The program was aimed at testing future open pit potential in the vicinity of an existing Ore Reserve. The drilling highlights a strong mineralised trend coincident with the strike of the MMSZ and linking with the active open pit.

This will be good news for Leigh Junk, who was brought in to turn the fortunes of the company around when it hit trouble about 18 months ago.

Gold Road Resources Paves the Way in Gold.

Gold Road (GOR) is still kicking goals with its Gruyere Gold Mine which it shares 50:50 with Gold Fields.  The mine approximately 200 kilometres North-East of Laverton produced 55,919 ounces of the precious metal which was in accordance with their guidance.

Average grade for the quarter was 1.03 g/t with a recovery rate of 91.5% which came from 1.9 MT processed ore.  AISC was higher for the quarter at A$1,488, but for the year to date sits at $1,276.  With average gold sales at A$2300 for the year the mine is a good earner for the companies involved.  Production for the year is still expected to be in the range of 250,000 to 270,000 ounces.

Although no exploration work was carried out on the joint venture tenements Gold Road was busy exploring other tenements it has around Gruyere.  There are 4,500 kilometres of tenements for Gold Road to explore at the Kingston, Hirono, Savo, Beefwood and Gilmour South sites.

The Gruyere joint venture has 6.6 million ounces in mineral resources with an ore reserve of 3.7 million ounces.  With a lot of exploration upside for Gold Road their current plans of 12 years of production will surely be very conservative.

King Island Scheelite Raises A$2.5 Million.

King Island Scheelite Limited (KIS) has received binding commitments for A$2,568,000, in its recent capital raising.

The Placement has been oversubscribed by a range of institutional and sophisticated investors including Director Chris Ellis and other large shareholders, including Elphinstone Holdings Pty Ltd.  The Placement will result in the issue of approximately 46.7 million new fully paid ordinary shares at A$0.055 per share, with one free attaching listed option for every two New Shares issued in the Placement.

Funds raised through the Placement will be used to further advance the Company’s 100%‐owned Dolphin Tungsten Mine located on King Island, Australia.  KIS is continuing discussions with the Critical Minerals Facilitation Office (“CMFO”) as well as other State agencies regarding support for the redevelopment of the Dolphin Mine, given its strategic and regional economic importance.

King Island Scheelite Executive Chairman, Johann Jacobs, said:  “We are delighted to welcome several new institutional investors to support KIS at an exciting stage of the Company’s story. Our strategy has positioned us well to move forward with our plans to redevelop King Island’s Dolphin Tungsten Mine. The capital we raise through this placement will empower us to see the project through to financial close.

“We thank our existing shareholders and incoming investors for their support and look forward to executing the Company’s growth strategy through what we expect will be a highly active FY21.”

TNT Mines Acquires Historic WA Gold Projects.

TNT Mines Limited (TIN) is pleased to announce that it has signed a binding share sale agreement to acquire 100% of Warriedar Mining Pty Ltd, which owns the Eureka Gold Project 50km north of Kalgoorlie in the Western Australian Goldfields and the Warriedar Gold Project in WA’s Murchison region.

Both Eureka and Warriedar have a history of gold production, are located close to established infrastructure including operating gold mills. Eureka, which is under granted Mining Leases will be the initial focus of exploration, containing an existing JORC2012 Indicated and Inferred Mineral Resource of 762,000 tonnes at 1.80 g/t Au for 43,100 ounces of contained gold.1

Further detail on the Eureka and Warriedar assets, the consideration to be paid for the acquisition, capital raising, proposed Board and management changes and next steps is provided below.

TNT Executive Director Brett Mitchell said: “Warriedar stands out as a unique opportunity to acquire two Western Australian gold projects with a history of production that are positioned with immediate access to infrastructure and operating gold plants. This presents a unique opportunity to join forces with a management team that has a very successful track record in the exploration and redevelopment of ex-production gold assets in WA. Given the outstanding value creation they delivered for Spectrum Metals shareholders, Alex and James have developed a strong and loyal following and we are excited by the possibility of recreating their Spectrum success with TNT.”

Aus Tin Mining to Acquire Mackenzie Coal Project in Bowen Basin.

Aus Tin Mining Limited (ANW) has signed a binding Term Sheet with Resources and Energy Investments Pty Ltd (REI) to acquire its interests in the Mackenzie Coal Project located in Queensland’s premier coal province the Bowen Basin. Mackenzie includes a previously announced Indicated and Inferred JORC Resource of 138.1Mt of potential low volatile Pulverised Coal Injection (PCI) quality coal, and is being acquired by REI from the liquidators of previous owner MRV Bowen Basin Coal Pty Ltd. The proposed acquisition of Mackenzie complements the previously announced proposed acquisition of the Ashford Coking Coal Project in NSW.

Mackenzie comprises Mineral Development Licence (MDL 503) and Exploration Permit Coal (EPC 1445) both located approximately 30km north-east of Blackwater in the Bowen Basin which is well serviced by road, rail and port infrastructure at Gladstone. Mackenzie is adjacent to producing coal mines at Jellinbah and Yarrabee  with collective coal production of approximately 8.4Mt in 2019, of which the quality is primarily a low volatile PCI for export markets. Mackenzie is also proximate to coal projects subject to notable transactions including Curragh (Wesfarmers sold to Coronado Coal in 2018 for $700M) and MDL162 (Peabody sold to Wesfarmers in 2014 for $70M).