Armadale Capital PLC (LON:ACP) has been making waves recently and shares surged on Friday as preliminary drilling at the Mahenge Liandu graphite project in Tanzania delivered “extremely encouraging” results.
The company is two weeks into a six week drill programme at Mahenge Liandu and already has been able to show intersections of high grade graphite.
And that comes on top of a share surge of 20% at the end of September after it divested its direct interest in the Mpokoto gold project into a new joint venture.
“This preliminary discovery of high grade coarse flake graphite mineralisation underpins our belief that Mahenge Liandu offers significant upside opportunity,” said the firm.
Armadale’s long involvement with Mpokoto isn’t over though, as it will still retain rights to follow its money on any future funding, and the first phase of the deal only signs over an initial 25%.
It was one of a number of stories from a fairly buy sector this week. Elsewhere, gold mine developer Galantas Gold Corp (CVE:GAL, LON:GAL) revealed it was looking to process ore earlier than previously indicated at its Omagh gold property in Northern Ireland.
It announced on Thursday it intends to bulk sample the Kearney stringer vein at Omagh to determine the commerciality of underground mining of the vein, after grab samples ranged from 52.9 grams per tonne (g/t) to 6.2 g/t gold.
On Monday, it emerged that the combination of two large nickel projects into one looks like it could pay off handsomely for Horizonte Minerals Plc (LON:HZM), which has just released the results of a pre-feasibility study for Araguaia in Brazil.
Previously, this had been two projects lying within a few kilometres of each other, but held by very different companies. Horizonte, backed by North American major Teck, held the southern section, while Glencore (LON:GLEN) held the north.
But a deal struck in September of last year saw the two projects combined under the Horizonte umbrella.
The plan is to produce 14,500 tonnes per year of nickel in ferronickel over a 28 year mine life, with pre-production capex set at a relatively modest US$354 mln.
The figure is comparatively low because Horizonte is using a tried and tested rotary kiln technology to process its ore, as opposed to some of the more expensive, and less reliable leaching technologies that have been tried elsewhere.
Meanwhile in other news, lithium project developer Bacanora Minerals Limited (LON:BCN, CVE:BCN) has completed its 4,000 metre infill drilling programme at its Sonora project in Mexico.
The programme is designed to enable a portion of the current resource to be upgraded from the indicated category to the higher confidence measured category.
Consultant SRK Exploration has now started to update the resource model and, all being well, an updated resource should be published before the year is out, sequential with the commencement of mine planning and open pit designs for the feasibility study, scheduled for delivery in the first quarter of next year.
In deal news, Mariana Resources Ltd (LON:MARL CVE:MRA) has snapped up an 80% stake in Awalé Resources, a fellow gold explorer based in the Ivory Coast.
Awale has substantial exploration acreage in three contiguous exploration licences in the eastern border area of Bondoukou and another four applications outstanding there and in another part of the country, Abengouro.
Glen Parsons, Mariana’s chief executive, said Awale operates in one of the most exciting gold jurisdictions in West Africa.
Conversely, AIM-listed junior Tethyan Resources PLC (LON:TETH) has pulled out of its joint venture with Balkan Minerals at the Cadinje polymetallic project located in Serbia.
Recent drilling results did not improve on historical assays from the area and gold assays were low.
In addition, the geological interpretation of the project has changed with the recognition of two thrust faults which cut the mineralisation off at depth, it said.
Tethyan recently took an option over the Suva Ruda project also in Serbia.
Through the option Tethyan, which changed its name from Aurasian Minerals in July, can purchase 100% of the licence, or alternatively buy its current owner Deep Research, for €6mln cash plus mine construction costs.
Finally, StratMin Global Resources PLC (LON:STGR) has made its first contribution to the funding of its Madagascar graphite joint venture Vatomaina.
It has put up US$50,000 for 1.48% of the enlarged issued share capital of TRM, the joint venture company, with a further investment expected to be made in around a month.
The joint venture, with Tirupati Carbons and Chemicals, is working on an environmental permit, which is the final regulatory requirement before on site development can be initiated.