Steve Kaless

Ora Banda Mining has unveiled a swag of new drilling results, including an 8.1m hit at 13.4 grams per tonne gold from 515m, expanding its Riverina project beyond its current resource boundaries to the south and at depth. Management says separate exploration at the company’s Siberia project is also targeting below the current pit floors of the Missouri and Sand King open-pit mines.

American West Metals’ stock touched an all-time high of 31 cents during today’s intraday trading, up from last night’s close of 20c after making a fresh copper discovery at its Storm project in Canada – including 45.5m of visual sulphides in one hole. It says the discovery exhibits similarities to many of the world’s major sediment-hosted copper systems.

Legend Mining believes it is getting closer to unearthing a “Nova-style” nickel-copper deposit after finding encouraging signs in its latest diamond drillhole at its Octagonal prospect within Western Australia’s rugged Fraser Range. Management says it identified visual sulphides at regular intervals between 848m and 1661m in the hole which ran to a depth of 1700m.

Cancer fighter Chimeric Therapeutics has expanded its patent protection in Japan for certain cell therapy clinical and preclinical stage applications using chlorotoxin, which is derived from deathstalker scorpion venom. Management says the patents will expand the company’s intellectual property portfolio and underpin important assets in its development pipeline. Japan has recently been dubbed the world’s third-biggest pharmaceutical market.

The natural hydrogen exploration program run by Buru Energy ’s 100 per cent-owned hydrogen and helium business, 2H Resources, has been substantially boosted by a new research agreement with the CSIRO. Management says the resulting study will focus on developing autonomous monitoring sensors to detect real-time surface occurrences of natural hydrogen in the same way mineral explorers use geochemical sampling.

Lithium chaser Gold Mountain plans to use a fresh cash injection of $2.25 million from the company’s latest capital raise to turbocharge its exploration efforts in the mineral’s burgeoning Brazilian hotspot. Management says its exploration to date has identified 250 pegmatites, with multiple soil and rock-chip sample results pending as it eyes a maiden drilling program by years end.

Horizon Minerals has revealed fresh mineral resource estimates for its Golden Ridge North and Monument gold prospects in Western Australia’s Goldfields region, to take its total resource to 23.22 million tonnes at 1.69 grams per tonne gold for 1.26 million ounces. Management says further drilling is now underway at its Monument prospect, while both deposits will soon be the subject of scoping studies.

Soil sampling by WA-based explorer Alma Metals at its Briggs project in Queensland has expanded its soil copper anomaly out to 2300m long and 1000m wide, with readings of more than 500 parts per million copper. Management says the work has allowed it to revise its target of 480 million tonnes to 880 million tonnes at between 0.20 per cent and 0.30 per cent copper.

Alma Metals was up 70 per cent after tabling a resource upgrade at its Briggs copper project in Queensland that smashed through the million-tonne contained copper mark and added molybdenum for the first time to the tune of 28.6m pounds. Alma says Briggs has now clawed its way into the top 10 largest undeveloped copper plays in Australia in terms of contained metal.