The Drill Down
Monday 7 September 2026
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Developing High-Grade Gold & Copper in a Tier-One Belt
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670Koz
Au Eq Resource
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700km²
Serbian Landholding
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7,000m
Drilling Underway
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MinRex Resources is advancing a high-grade gold, silver and copper portfolio across 700km² of Serbian landholding in the West Tethyan Belt, anchored by a 670Koz @ 2.9g/t Au Eq resource at its advanced Tlamino gold-silver project.
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Lead Insight
Brazilian Court Suspends Licences for Sigma Lithium Mine
A Minas Gerais judge suspended all environmental licences and ordered mining to stop at Grota do Cirilo, Sigma's only productive asset, with nameplate capacity of 330,000 tonnes of lithium oxide concentrate a year. The Federation of Quilombola Communities put the Bau territory about 2.7km from the directly affected area, inside the 8km threshold that triggers free, prior and informed consultation. The state is barred from issuing new licences, a fine applies if operations continue, and an independent georeferencing review has been ordered.
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Our Take
This is a single asset producer with nothing else to carry revenue while the consultation process runs, and the court has closed the usual escape routes by barring new licences and attaching a fine to continued operation. Sigma maintains the project sits outside the impact zone, but the argument now turns on a georeferencing review it does not control, and 2.7km against an 8km threshold leaves little room to move. The company has overturned Brazilian rulings before, so the question is not whether it appeals but how many months of lost concentrate sit between the injunction and any restart.
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Commodity Prices
Precious Metals (USD/toz)
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Gold
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$4,405
-0.57%
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Silver
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$66
-0.48%
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Platinum
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$1,807
-0.71%
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Palladium
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$1,397
+1.05%
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Base Metals & Commodities
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Copper USD/t
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$14722.44
+0.01%
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Nickel USD/t
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$16802.50
-0.43%
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Zinc USD/t
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$3949.57
+0.52%
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Lead USD/t
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$1909.70
+0.72%
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WTI Crude USD/bbl
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$92.78
+1.42%
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Prices updated as of 7 Sept 2026, 3:48 pm AEST
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Market Movers
Winners & Losers - Australian Markets
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Australasian Metals Limited
Australasian resumed trading on a binding option agreement with Firering Strategic Minerals for up to 75% of the Atex lithium-tantalum project and 51% of the Alliance licence in Cote d'Ivoire, for a A$100,000 option fee and A$1.4 million on completion. Historical Firering drilling at Atex returned 67.97m at 1.23% Li2O from 68.4m and 20.77m at 1.65% Li2O from 79.48m. A A$1 million placement of 7,693,308 shares at A$0.13 settles around 10 September, alongside roughly A$2.3 million of existing cash.
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Iondrive Limited
An updated evaluation of a single 2,400tpa IONSolv module in the United States returned a post-tax NPV of US$243 million at a 10% real discount rate, with modelled EBITDA of US$62.1 million on US$121.8 million of revenue and development capital of US$11.9 million. The model assumes feedstock at 30.66% REO and produces about 624tpa of payable neodymium, praseodymium and dysprosium oxide, with dysprosium alone carrying 49.5% of base-case revenue. It supersedes the November 2025 study and supports a planned first commercial module in Oklahoma, though it is a study rather than an investment decision.
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AuKing Mining Limited
Carrying over from a 2 September supplementary release, the second diamond hole at Tundulu in southern Malawi was extended to 400.42m with carbonatite logged to end of hole and still open at depth, following a first hole taken to 510.6m. Visual logging estimated apatite-rich calcite carbonatite at roughly 50% calcite and 8% apatite near 368m, with assays expected in five to six weeks. Drilling is focused on Nathace Hill to support a potential maiden resource estimate later this year.
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TechGen Metals Limited
Drilling finished at Blue Devil, 40km northeast of Halls Creek in the East Kimberley, with BDDD002 completed to 416.5m and BDDD001 to 375.1m at Red Devil. The airborne EM conductors were explained by graphitic and pyritic black shale at Blue Devil and widespread pyrite at Red Devil, with chalcopyrite noted in a quartz-pyrite vein at 47.7m and no assays yet reported. Core goes to Perth for gold and base metal assays, with initial results expected in October, and the Blue Devil hole was co-funded under the WA Exploration Incentive Scheme.
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Taruga Minerals Limited
No specific catalyst identified, with profit taking after last week's rock chip results the likely driver. At the East Normanby Gold Project on Normanby Island in PNG, sampling at Wenasia and Sipupu returned 33.1g/t Au and 223g/t Ag, 26.8g/t Au and 349g/t Ag, and 25.2g/t Au and 867g/t Ag, with 14 of 44 samples above 0.5g/t Au. The 8km Weioko corridor sits across three granted licences covering 488km2, with a maiden diamond program at the Weioko deposit due to mobilise this month.
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Lithium Plus Minerals Ltd
No specific catalyst identified. The Lei deposit at the Bynoe project near Darwin holds 5.22Mt at 1.50% Li2O for 78.42kt of contained Li2O, a 34% lift in contained metal, with 55% now Indicated and mining lease ML33874 granted for a 20-year term. Lithium Plus reported a $412,765 loss and $2.38 million cash at 30 June, with a scoping study on a low-capex direct shipping ore operation still to be completed.
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Market data as of 7 September 2026, 4:10 PM AEST
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Presented By
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Sierra Nevada Gold
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ASX: SNX
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Emerging Saudi Arabian Developer & Explorer
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Sierra Nevada Gold is advancing As Safra, a large copper-gold system extending over more than 5.5km of strike in the Arabian Shield. Initial drilling has confirmed broad, continuous zones of mineralisation including high-grade intervals, with a major follow-up program now in preparation.
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Find Out More
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In-Country Operating Subsidiary
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Today's Stories
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Lawyerly
AVZ Minerals Has No Money for Lawyers in ASIC Case, Court Told
AVZ does not have the funds to defend itself in ASIC proceedings alleging it failed to disclose a critical legal dispute, including a forgery claim, over a $32 million lithium mine deal, a court has heard.
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Our Take
An unfunded defendant changes what a regulator can realistically extract, and a delisted shell with no cash is a poor target for penalties. The allegations are contested and untested, but the practical question now is who carries the legal bill and how long the matter runs before that becomes the constraint on the case itself.
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The Northern Miner
New US Lithium Mines Are Coming
CRU expects as many as nine new US lithium mines producing by the end of 2030, against Albemarle's Silver Peak as the only active operation today. Lithium Americas' Thacker Pass leads, with Standard Lithium in Arkansas, Hell's Kitchen targeting 25,000 tonnes a year by 2029, and Albemarle seeking permits to restart Kings Mountain in North Carolina.
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Our Take
Nine mines by 2030 is a permitting forecast running well ahead of anything financed, and the sequencing matters more than the headline count. Thacker Pass is funded and building, while most of what sits behind it still needs an FID and roughly three years of construction after that. The number worth tracking is how many reach commitment while lithium prices are only part way off the floor.
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Reuters
China Rare Earth Firms Halt Some US Shipments Over Geopolitical Worries
Chinese suppliers have refused to ship rare earths to US buyers since early August, when Beijing sanctioned the Responsible Business Alliance, leaving them wary of following its linked audit framework. Yttrium exports to the US sit at about half 2024 levels, some buyers have waited over six months for licences, and shipments to Japan are tighter again.
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Our Take
Beijing has moved the chokepoint from the licence to the supplier's own willingness to load a container, which no amount of approval activity around a summit repairs. That is the harder problem for Western buyers, because it cannot be verified or negotiated the way an export permit can. Xi arrives in Washington on 24 September, so actual shipment volumes into October are the only read worth having.
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Rare Earth Exchanges
Tungsten Supply Gap Persists Through 2030 as S&P Data Reveals Deeper Feedstock Squeeze
S&P Global sees about 34,000 tonnes WO3 of ex-China mine capacity by 2030 even if all 11 announced projects land, against roughly 50,000 tonnes of primary demand, a 16,000 tonne gap. APT CIF prices ran from $83/kg in January to $340/kg in July, while China holds about 79% of mining and 85% of refining and still imports around 30% of its own concentrate.
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Our Take
Ex-China refining capacity heading toward 70,000 tonnes against 34,000 tonnes of mine supply tells you where the scarcity lands, and it is concentrate rather than conversion. At $340/kg the price signal cleared the investment hurdle for essentially every project in the modelled pipeline, so the remaining variable is delivery. That puts a premium on the few developers with permits, funding and a defined feedstock route rather than an announcement.
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Resource Talks
6 Junior Mining Stocks That Spiked This Week and 6 That Crashed
Antonio and Scott North run the Week 36 movers, covering what drove each stock and the questions management should be answering. Names include KAO, DEC, VR8, FROG, PR2, ZNX, MKR, SLR, LRV, GPAC, WCE and MOG.
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Kamoa Capital
kamoacap.com
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This newsletter is for general information, education & entertainment. Kamoa Capital is not licensed and does not know your circumstances. Nothing here is financial, legal or tax advice. Seek professional advice and read any PDS before acting. We aim for accuracy but make no guarantees and accept no liability. Views are opinions only and may include forward-looking statements that may not occur.
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