ASX Quarterly Wrap: AX8 starts manganese drilling, DEG bolsters gold inventory at Hemi, and DY6 is hunting for REEs

It’s the quarterly season again as the ASX market announcements page becomes increasingly flooded with update lodgements.

To save you the trouble of trudging through it all, we’ve wrapped up the highlights from some of the reports that caught our eye.

Accelerate Resources (ASX:AX8)

During the June 2023 quarter, Accelerate started an extensive 8,500m reverse circulation exploration program at its Woodie Woodie North manganese project in WA to establish maiden JORC resources at the e Barra North, Barra South and Area 42 corridors.

This drilling will follows up on the success of its 2022 drill successes, particularly at Dale’s Patch and Nathan’s Flat, where drilling returned 11m at 21.5% manganese, within Area 42.

Accelerate will also test new opportunities in the recently discovered 5km Parson’s Creek Corridor where significant manganese outcrops including a 225m long surface enriched manganese target as well as assess the largely untested 7.5km Gum Creek Corridor in the north of Area 5 that has seen successful scout drilling.

Meanwhile, metallurgical test work has returned strong results with high purity (+99.9%) manganese sulphate monohydrate crystals produced from purified leach liquor.

Over at its East Pilbara lithium project, the company has expanded its footprint to about 800km2 after making four new tenement applications.

The company has identified and completed some initial evaluation at exploration targets across the new tenements using the same exploration model applied by Global Lithium Resources at their Archer project.

Other activity during the quarter includes the appointment of Dr Steve Bodon as its executive director – technical and the receipt of about $450,000 in funds from the sale of Currie Rose shares to support its manganese drilling and lithium exploration activities.

De Grey Mining (ASX:DEG)

The highlight of De Grey’s quarter was the addition of another 1Moz of contained gold to the already meaty Hemi resource, which now stands at 9.5Moz including 6.9Moz in the higher confidence Indicated category.

This has increased the global resource of the broader Mallina project up to 11.7Moz with the majority – 8.1Moz – in the Measured and Indicated categories.

This was achieved at a cost of just $10 per ounce at the Inferred level, with another $6/oz tacked on to convert that into Indicated status – well below the usual cost curve and no doubt thanks to said resources falling into planned open pit shells with depths of up to 390m.

While impressive, the company clearly believes there is still room for more growth and had recommenced discovery and resource extension drilling during the quarter after completing drilling requirements for the Definitive Feasibility Study at Hemi and its regional areas.

It also noted in its quarterly that it has expanded its exploration footprint by 70% to 2,500km2 by reaching an agreement to earn 50% in Novo Resources’ Egina project.

Meanwhile, work completed during the quarter such as hydrogeological modelling, geotechnical modelling and mining schedule will assist in the delivery of the DFS during the September quarter.

De Grey also continues to progress project financing options in parallel with completion of the DFS and has noted strong appetite from potential financiers.

DY6 Metals (ASX:DY6)

Despite having listed right towards the tail end of the June 2023 quarter, DY6 has already launched a maiden drilling program targeting the high-value heavy rare earth elements dysprosium and terbium as well as niobium and tantalum at its flagship Machinga project in southern Malawi.

Six targets have been identified to date at the Machinga North concession and drilling, which consists of both RC and diamond holes, will follow-up on previous high grade intercepts from a previous 2010 campaign undertaken by Globe Metals and Mining, according to its quarterly report.

To date, the company has 19 RC holes totalling 2,162m and has started diamond drilling in mid-July. The drill program will have a total of 5,000m of drilling.

Additionally, the first batch of RC samples has been cleared for despatch to Intertek’s laboratory in Zambia, prior to transit to Perth for analysis. First assays are expected late in the current quarter.

Latin Resources Limited (ASX:LRS)

Also on the resource expansion bandwagon is Latin Resources, which has increased Measured, Indicated and Inferred Resources at its expanded Colina deposit by over 241% to 45.2Mt at 1.32% Li2O.

Importantly, this reflects higher lithium tonnage and grade with 67% of the resource, or 30.2Mt at 1.4% Li2O, now in the Measured and Indicated categories, which in turn provides strong support for a positive Preliminary Economic Assessment that is scheduled for completion in the September 2023 quarter.

If that wasn’t enough, the Colina deposit remains open at depth and along strike to the southwest, where systematic step-out drilling is ongoing.

This provides Latin with the confidence that a single, continuous mineralised lithium system exists in the immediate project area.

Colina is also providing to be far larger than originally expected – a “problem” any resources company will be pleased to have – with its footprint now stretching out over a strike length of 2km.

Latin noted in its quarterly report for June 2023 that its aggressive 65,000m drill program is continuing with eight rigs on site testing the Colina extension and new regional targets.

Prospect Resources (ASX:PSC)

Prospect acquired the rights to a 51% interest in the Kesya rare earths project in southern Zambia through the execution of an option agreement with Antler Gold.

Kesya expands the company’s mineral focus in Africa and offers outstanding prospectivity to deliver a significant new rare earths discovery, a belief that it will test with a maiden 1,500m diamond drill program.

This program, which will commence in the September 2023 quarter, will test the subsurface expressions of mapped and sampled rare earth mineralisation at Kesya.

“Well located in southern Zambia, Kesya hosts excellent infrastructure and a potential world-class rare earth enriched carbonatite system that has historically returned significant values of neodymium and praseodymium,” managing director Sam Hosack noted in the company’s quarterly report.

During the quarter, the company’s Phase 2 diamond drilling program at its Step Aside lithium project in Zimbabwe returned promising assay results that generated encouraging extensional intersections of high-grade lithium mineralisation.

Geochemical sampling has also returned lithium-in-soil results which indicate the potential for further “blind” mineralisation.

Post the end of the June 2023 quarter, the company has started Phase 3 drilling to target strike and depth extensions of the defined lithium mineralisation and scout-drill key soil anomalies.

At the Omaruru lithium project in Namibia, Prospect completed Phase 1 drilling of 27 holes totalling 1,839m, satisfying the initial earn-in agreement and granting the company a 40% stake in the project.

This was designed to target strike and depth extensions at Brockmans, depth extension at Karlsbrunn, and test key regional soil anomaly targets.

Uvre (ASX:UVA)

In its June 2023 quarterly, Uvre noted that it had completed an airborne magnetic and radiometric survey across the entire East Canyon uranium and vanadium project in Utah.

This will assist to measure the indication of uranium by detecting the gamma-rays produced during the natural radioactive decay of potassium, thorium and uranium within the top circa 30-45cm of surface lithology.

It also completed ground scintillometer/field mapping across significant portions of the project with a focus on the None Such and Bonanza prospects where drilling in late 2022 had confirmed consistent uranium-vanadium mineralisation between drill holes.

Several surface samples with highly elevated radiation readings via hand-held scintillometer were taken for laboratory analysis and interpretation work is ongoing to understand the distribution of uranium, vanadium and rare earths at East Canyon.

The company has appointed a US-based geological technical advisor and is reviewing and evaluating several new assets and other strategic opportunities.

Data from the airborne survey is currently being interpreted and processed by Uvre’s contract geophysicist with the results to be evaluated along with the mapping, sampling and scintillometer work to assist with the planning of future work programs to test for uranium, vanadium and rare earth mineralisation at East Canyon project.

At Stockhead we tell it like it is. While Accelerate Resources, De Grey Mining, DY6 Metals, Latin Resources, Prospect Resources and Uvre are Stockhead advertisers, they did not sponsor this article.