The Puna plateau sits at an elevation of 4,000m, stretches for 1800 km along the Central Andes and attains a width of 350–400 km. The Puna covers a portion of Argentina, Chile and Bolivia and hosts an estimated 70 - 80% of global lithium brine reserves.
Perseus Mining Limited (ASX/TSX: PRU) is pleased to announce that the US$85 million Project Finance Facility provided to Perseus’s 90%-owned subsidiary, Central Ashanti Gold Limited (“CAGL”), by Macquarie Bank Limited and Credit Suisse AG has been drawn down. To date, approximately US$152 million of the estimated US$174 million capital cost of Perseus’s Central Ashanti Gold Project in Ghana has been funded by equity capital raised by Perseus. The balance of construction costs will be financed using funds drawn under the debt facility.
Australian energy company, Blackham Resources Limited (Blackham) (ASX:BLK) is pleased to announce a significant increase in the coal resource at its Scaddan Energy Project in Western Australia. Scaddan and Zanthus combined resources now contains over 10,000 petajoules (PJ) of energy and has the potential to produce approximately 860 million barrels of oil equivalent, consisting mainly of a clean diesel product.
Gemcom Software International Inc., the largest global supplier of mining software solutions, today announced it will open an office in Almaty, Kazakhstan on June 24, 2011. Gemcom’s software solutions, including Surpac, GEMS, Minex, MineSched and Whittle are already widely used by exploration and mining operations throughout Kazakhstan and Central Asia.
First Point Minerals Corp. (TSX VENTURE:FPX) ("First Point" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that Cliffs Natural Resources Exploration Inc., an affiliate of Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. (NYSE:CLF)(PARIS:CLF) ("Cliffs"), has assumed management of, and is starting the 2011 exploration program on the Decar nickel project in central British Columbia. Cliffs has hired Caracle Creek International Consulting (CCIC), a professional geological, geophysical and engineering services consulting company, to supervise the 2011 exploration program at Decar.
ECU Silver Mining Inc. (TSX:ECU) is pleased to report the results from developing a new vein on the Nazas property which included assays grading up to 6.18 grams per tonne (g/t) gold (Au) and 2,755 g/t silver (Ag). The Nazas property is under option to ECU Silver with the possibility of ECU Silver acquiring a 100% interest for payments totalling US$1,100,000 over the next two years.
Mongolia may share its Tavan Tolgoi coal mining project between a majority of the six bidders shortlisted by the government and ask them to work together, Prime Minister Sukhbaatar Batbold told Bloomberg in an interview adding that the final decision is “very close.” Coal production in Mongolia doubled last year to become the nation’s top export earner, spurring the government to push through development of one of the world’s biggest unexploited deposits of the mineral. Peabody Energy Corp., a Shenhua Group Corp.-Mitsui & Co. venture, Vale SA, a Russia-Japan-South Korea group, ArcelorMittal, and Xstrata Plc were all shortlisted.
Lithium One Inc. announced on Wednesday the commencement of a pumping test program at its flagship Sal de Vida lithium-potash brine project in Argentina (pictured), one of the largest and the highest-grade lithium and potash brine projects in the world. The TSX Venture-listed company traded little changed on the news and like shares in other juniors in the sector is very volatile. Lithium One is down over 10% so far this year and has not been able to reach the record high it hit back in August 2009 when the Argentina project was first acquired.
In April/May, Peel Mining Limited (ASX:PEX) undertook an 18 line kilometre IP survey over the historic Tulloch silver mine and Rockvale arsenic mine areas in preparation for an upcoming drill programme. Peel is pleased to report that multiple zones of strong shallow chargeable anomalism have been identified, many of which are coincident or proximal to known historic workings. These chargeable IP responses are interpreted as areas of possibly concentrated sulphide mineralisation and will be high-priority targets for future drill programmes.
Astra Mining, an Australian diversified mining company, has received an independent expert opinion from Hungary’s University of Miskolc confirming the potential of its revolutionary new steel manufacturing process. The end product, T-Steel, is significantly stronger than regular steel and provides vast production, operational and environmental benefits.