Morning News Bites – September 22

Morning News Bites for September 22. Macquarie CEO to advise Federal Government on energy road map, global banks aim to contain damage over leaked documents showing they transferred more than $US2 trillion ($2.8 trillion) in suspect funds over nearly two decades and former Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett accuses the state leaders of not accepting responsibility for coronavirus second wave.

AIC Mines Limited has provided an update on drilling which has commenced at its Lamil Gold-Copper Project, located 30 kilometres west of the Telfer Gold-Copper Mine in the Paterson Province of Western Australia. The drilling will focus on high priority geophysical and geochemical targets centred on the Lamil Main Dome prospect area. This initial phase will comprise up to 7,500m of aircore and reverse circulation (“RC”) drilling and approximately 2,500m of diamond drilling. All the targets are under cover (up to 100m) and have never been drill tested before, with wide-spaced aircore and RC drilling to be used to gather litho-geochemical data over the prospect area and test the basement-cover sequence interface. Deeper diamond drilling will be used to gather information about the basement geology (i.e. the target horizon) and structure, with additional surface geochemical and geophysical surveys also underway.

Auroch Minerals Limited announced RC drilling has commenced at the recently acquired Firefly and Sinclair North prospects, part of the Leinster Nickel Project in Leinster in Western Australia. The 1,000m drill programme will be Auroch’s first phase of exploration on these prospects after entering into a binding agreement with Jindalee Resources to earn up to 70% of a four tenement package. Historic RAB drilling on both prospects identified fertile nickeliferous ultramafic unitsin the weathered and transition zones, with the best intercepts including  23m @ 0.53% Ni from 13m, including 1m @ 0.86% Ni from 22m, 5m @ 0.74% Ni from 44m and 4m @ 0.53% Ni from 16m.

Chalice Gold Mines Limited reported exciting preliminary results from a recently completed airborne electromagnetic (AEM) survey over granted tenure within the Julimar Project in Western Australia. Highlights include three new large EM anomalies identified (Hartog, Baudin and Jansz) in recent airborne EM survey. New Hartog EM Anomaly extends ~6.5km beyond the northern limit of drilling at the ~1.6km x 0.8km Gonneville Intrusion, where Chalice made a significant greenfield PGE-Ni-Cu-Co discovery in March. Results highlight the district-scale Ni-Cu-PGE potential of the ~26km long Julimar Complex. Four rigs continue the resource drill-out at Gonneville, with assay results pending for 50 holes. Commenting on the results, Chalice’s Managing Director, Alex Dorsch, said “We have speculated for some time that the area north of our recent Gonneville discovery is highly prospective. We have now supported that claim with major new, laterally extensive geophysical targets from the first airborne EM survey over the company’s granted tenure, which is a very exciting and important development.”

Established Australian copper and gold producer and explorer, Aeris Resources Limited has entered into further unsecured A$ copper hedges with Macquarie Bank Limited for approximately 5,000 tonnes, at a forward price of A$9,228 per tonne. The hedges will cover the period February to July 2021 in scheduled monthly deliveries of 833 tonnes and equates to approximately 40% of planned production during that period.

Emerging mineral and silica sands developer and explorer, Diatreme Resources Limited announced today the latest update for its Galalar Silica Project in North Queensland, with recent exploration drilling undertaken in late August and subsequent receipt of related sample testing highlighting its potential for further expansion. The drilling program comprised 44 air‐core drill holes for 835m, with some 2,000kg of bulk samples collected from the preliminary mine plan footprint (years one to five). The bulk sample is intended for use in detailed mine planning in anticipation of mining commencement. The program also completed exploration drilling to the north and east of the current resource. Significantly, new holes at the southern section encountered deeper sections of silica sand than anticipated, indicating the potential for an increased resource in this area. DRX concentrated bulk sampling within the year 1 to 5 mine plan at the southern end of the resource, with early exploration re‐drilled to confirm historic drilling and collect samples on 1m intervals to better define the resource

Morning News Bites – Jul 29

Rio Tinto is set to release it’s half-year profits after market close today, CIMIC Group are in advance talks for a potential sale of a 50% stake in Thiess and the banks instructed to reduce dividends.

  • St Barbara release its Q4 and FY20 report, indicating an increase in gold production from the previous financial year with 108,612 ounces (Q3 Mar FY20: 91,547 ounces), and a consolidated gold production of 381,887 ounces (in line with guidance of 370,000 to 400,000 ounces) for the year.

  • Alto Metals hit more high-grade gold at the Lord Nelson Sandstone Gold Project in WA, highlights from recent drilling include 12m @ 5.0g/t gold from 244m. A further five RC holes of the company’s initial 1,500m infill drilling program have been received, with highlights of 28m @ 3.1 g/t gold from 228m (including 12m @ 5.0 g/t gold from 244m). These latest results followed up on the previous high-grade gold results from the primary zone of mineralisation beneath the pit announced in late April of this year.
  • Pantoro Limited has commenced drilling at the Maybell Mining Centre, the last of the identified phase one start up mining targets. Initial results from shallow drilling from the Lord Percy Deposit (located to the northeast of the main Maybell Deposit) are extremely encouraging. It highlights a shallow high-grade lode system, the intercepts from surface to 60 metres depth include 4m @ 13.58 g/t Au and 1.10 m @ 13.40 g/t Au.
  • Middle Island Resources Limited announced significant assays from new McIntyre satellite gold deposit in WA. These results are emerging from the Company’s Phase 2 reverse circulation drilling campaign at the company’s Sandstone gold project in Western Australia. The new results complement those derived from Phase 1 RC drilling at McIntyre, including highlights of 24m @ 1.66g/t, 23m @ 1.40g/t, 11m @ 1.39g/t and 18m @ 1.35g/t Au.
  • Chalice Gold’s maiden diamond drill program at the Pyramid Hill Gold Project confirms a large gold system at the Karri Prospect, providing new drill targets for the next phase of exploration in Victoria. All six initial diamond drill holes at the Karri Prospect intersected tightly folded, upright stratigraphy and primary gold mineralisation and indicate that the potential for a tier-1 scale gold system.