Sirius Minerals PLC (LON: SXX) confirmed earlier this week that it will move to the main market late next month as it updated on progress at its Woodsmith fertiliser mine in North Yorkshire.
Work on routes in and out of the area has begun, while site preparation earthworks are slated to get underway in the second quarter.
Sirius in its update also said it was making “good progress” in clearing the conditions outlined in the project's planning agreements.
In short the £1bn first phase of the mine development is on time and on budget.
Elsewhere, Bushveld Minerals Limited (LON:BMN) secured the final funding needed to support its acquisition of a 78.8% stake in Strategic Minerals Corporation from Evraz Group.
The South Africa-focused miner’s wholly-owned Bushveld Vametco Limited has agreed a bridge loan facility of up to US$11mln with Barack Fund SPC Limited to fund the acquisition.
The Barack financing also includes an inventory facility of up to US$7mln to Strategic Minerals subsidiary, Evraz Vametco Alloys Proprietary Limited. The facility will fund Vametco's inventory of finished NitrovanTM , a vanadium-nitrogen product, ready for distribution to customers.
Bushveld also secured financing from Wogen Resources Limited to help buy the stake in Strategic Minerals, which owns the Vametco vanadium mine in South Africa.
In other news, Vast Resources PLC (LON:VAST) shares moved higher as it announced the maiden JORC-compliant mineral resource estimate for its Faneata tailings storage facility.
Faneata consists of more than 40 years' material from the proximal Baita Plai polymetallic mine in Romania.
The internally generated estimate puts the total mineral resource at 3mln tonnes, of which 2.4mln tonnes are attributable to Vast through its 80% stake in the facility.
Measured tonnes clocked in at 2.40mln; indicated at 532,460; and inferred at 85,477.
Kibo Mining PLC (LON:KIBO) has decided to implement a diversified production strategy for its Mbeya coal mine in Tanzania that could see it reach output earlier than planned.
The company said the strategy will develop the mine to produce coal for the Mbya power plant, its primary client, and for the domestic coal market, its secondary client.
The decision to adopt a diversified production strategy follows an integrated bankable feasibility study on the Mbeya coal to power project (MCPP).
The study investigated alternative commercial opportunities other than producing coal for the Mbeya power plant. It found there were sufficient additional coal resources at Mbeya to expand the power station to more than double the existing design size and plant life.
Revenues over the 25 year life of the project were forecast at between US$7.5-8.5bn while returns on the project were between 14.7% and 16% after tax.
And finally, Anglo Pacific Group plc (LON:APF) reported a surge in royalty income in 2016, mainly thanks to a significant increase in overall saleable tonnes from its Kestrel mine in Australia.
The group reported a 127% increase in royalty income for the full-year to December 31 to £19.7mln, up from £8.7mln in 2015.
The diversified royalty business also saw a significant increase in basic earnings per share to 15.60p, after a loss of 14.06p in 2015, with adjusted earnings per share jumping to 9.76p from 2.47p.
It pointed out that its earnings benefitted from upward revisions to coal prices and the weakening of the pound following June’s EU Referendum Brexit vote.