Latest news with #Minerals260
West Australian
26-05-2025
- Business
- West Australian
Shire of Coolgardie to consider lowering proposed 2025-26 mining rates hike following backlash
The Shire of Coolgardie will consider lowering its proposed sky-high mining rates hike for 2025-26 after a severe backlash from mining companies, prospectors and community members. The shire had proposed to jack up its annual mining rates by 119 per cent to inject an extra $8.7 million into its finances. But it received 21 submissions objecting to the extraordinary increase from mining companies, junior explorers and community members during the ratepayer consultation period. Among the companies operating in the shire who objected was South African giant Gold Fields, which has the St Ives mine south of Kambalda, and Australia's second-largest ASX-listed gold miner Evolution Mining, which operates the newly expanded Mungari gold mine. Andrew Forrest-backed Wyloo, Chris Ellison-led Mineral Resources and Tim Goyder-chaired Minerals 260 also formally protested, along with smaller producers and explorers such as Auric Mining, FMR Investments and WIN Metals. The Eastern Goldfields Prospectors Association has come out hard against the move, too, calling for ministerial intervention to restore public confidence. The shire's proposed differential rates put out for public comment included an unimproved value mining proposed rate-in-the-dollar of 0.520300 and minimum payment of $514. However, Tuesday's meeting agenda revealed the shire was proposing a slight reduction to 0.468270 while retaining the minimum payment amount. The shire's UV mining rate in the 2024-25 financial year had a rate-in-the dollar of 0.236670, with a minimum payment of $476. Councillors will now consider the submissions and adjusted differential rates at Tuesday's council meeting. In a submission to the shire, Gold Fields St Ives general manager Vince De Carolis estimated the mining giant would shell out at least $3.9m under the proposed rates increase, compared to $1.6m in 2024-25. 'In the event of such considerable increases, there is a possibility that mining operations in the shire will become economically unviable for St Ives and other miners and explorers,' he said. Minerals 260 managing director Luke McFadyen said the rate hike would 'deter investment' and 'reduce exploration'. Wyloo Kambalda asset president Zoran Seat said the increase was a clear effort by the shire to dig itself out of a deep financial hole. 'We have serious concerns that the proposed rate hike is being implemented to raise funds to address the shortfall in finances the shire is facing, rather than as part of a fair or sustainable fiscal strategy or cost recovery for services provided to ratepayers,' he said. Prospector Ferdinand Gere labelled the 119 per cent increase as 'unrealistic and scandalous', while Widgiemooltha resident Jan McLeod noted the downturn in the region's nickel industry. 'Mining cannot sustain this increase. Only gold has increased its value,' Ms McLeod said in her submission. Association of Mining and Exploration Companies chief executive Warren Pearce called on the shire to 'reconsider' the move which 'undeniably places an undue financial burden on all operations' in the shire. Mr Pearce also raised concern about the 'one-size-fits-all approach' which placed both mining and mineral exploration in the same differential rating category. Tuesday meeting's agenda report said a rates hike would help the shire 'raise sufficient yield to try and maintain current services and future infrastructure renewal'. It said the revised estimated rate revenue yield for the shire was $20.57m, down from $21.4m, which would contribute to capital works, services and interest repayments. This was still $7.86m higher than the 2024-25 rates revenue yield of $12.71m. These included road renewal ($10.48m), landfill and waste facilities ($2.9m), interest repayments on loan and lease facilities ($1.58m), and finalisation of Bluebush Village stage two ($1.40m), among others. The shire said while it would receive $3.93m in funding towards the proposed road renewal program, there was a deficit of $6.45m. The report said a 30 per cent concession for prospectors and 25 per cent concession for mining explorers had been applied, which would reduce rate revenue by more than $480,000. It comes after a budget blowout of more than $6 million was revealed two months ago. A report at March's council meeting revealed the shire's 2024-25 budget closing deficit would not be $627,000 as initially forecast but almost $6.64m.
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Minerals 260 sells Aston lithium-REE project tenements to Delta Lithium
Australian miner Minerals 260 has signed a binding agreement with Delta Lithium to sell its Aston lithium-rare earth elements (REE) project tenements in the Gascoyne region of Western Australia (WA). The transaction includes a A$450,000 cash payment upon completion of the sale. It also includes a 1.5% net smelter return (NSR) royalty on future sales of lithium and associated minerals from the site such as tantalum, caesium, beryllium and rubidium contained within the lithium-bearing ores. The NSR royalty offers Minerals 260 shareholders long-term exposure to potential future exploration benefits at the Aston project. The Aston project is situated adjacent to Delta's Yinnetharra lithium project. The sale and purchase agreement stipulates 100% disposal of the tenements, which includes a total of 17 tenements listed under various codes. The completion of the disposal is set to occur within five business days following the receipt of Ministerial consent under the Mining Act to transfer two of the tenements, or within 30 days after executing the agreement. Until the completion of the sale, Minerals 260 is responsible for maintaining the tenements in good standing. The sale of the Aston project aligns with the company's strategy to focus on the exploration and development of the Bullabulling gold project, located 25km south-west of Coolgardie in WA. The Bullabulling gold project has the potential for an open-pit mining operation. The project has a JORC 2012 mineral resource estimate of 60 million tonnes at 1.2 grams per tonne gold, equating to 2.3 million ounces of gold. The project spans a contiguous 570km² tenement package and offers significant exploration prospects. In April 2025, Minerals 260 raised capital before costs of $220m to develop the Bullabulling project. "Minerals 260 sells Aston lithium-REE project tenements to Delta Lithium" was originally created and published by Mining Technology, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site.
West Australian
14-05-2025
- Business
- West Australian
Tim Goyder's Minerals 260 tears into unlocking huge gold potential hidden under woodlands of Bullabulling
The woodlands hiding a big gold resource south-west of Coolgardie are silent no more, with drill rigs now ripping into the earth so Minerals 260 can churn out the data to transform the Bullabulling project into a cash cow. The Tim Goyder-chaired company snapped up the 127sqkm project in January from Norton Gold Fields in a deal worth $156.5 million in cash and $10m in scrip, and has wasted no time since — raising $220m and getting the one diamond and three reverse circulation rigs on site on April 15. Bullabulling was mined in the late 1990s and early 2000s — when the gold price was much lower than the current $5000/oz — but has been largely a scene of inactivity since 2014 when Chinese company Norton bought the project. Now Liontown spin-off Minerals 260 has started an 80,000m drilling campaign focused on multiple resource extension targets at depth and along strike, and also infill drilling of the existing resource to upgrade classifications. The company said the 2.3-million-ounce mineral resource estimate was based on extensive historical drilling of 12,000 holes for 530,000m. The overall grade is 1.2g per tonne, with 60 per cent — 39Mt at 1.1g/t for 1.4Moz — being in the indicated category, and 40 per cent — 21Mt at 1.3g/t for 890,000t — inferred. At an investors and analysts site visit on Monday, managing director Luke McFadyen said the company was now undertaking its own studies to expand the resource, and believed there was another '1.6Moz still in the ground'. Bullabulling has several deposits that are the focus of Mineral 260's exploration — Dicksons, Phoenix, Bacchus, Kraken and Gibraltar, with Bacchus and Kraken rated the highest priority for grade and mineralisation. The distance from Dicksons in the north to Kraken in the south is 8.5km. The Phoenix MRE is mostly indicated — 25Mt at 1.1g/t for 850,000t out of a total 27Mt at 1.1g/t for 930,000t. Bacchas has a total MRE of 22Mt at 1.3g/t for 890,000t, with 8.5Mt at 1.2g/t for 330,000t being indicated. Dicksons has 7.7Mt at 0.9g/t for 220,000t and Kraken 2.8Mt at 1.7g/t for 160,000t, all of which is inferred. The company said drilling at Phoenix and Dicksons would focus on depth extensions, and infill drilling would take place at Phoenix. It said the resource was open at depth in multiple locations, and Bacchus remains open along strike to the south. Minerals 260 said there was no MRE as yet for Gibraltar — which is to the east of Kraken — but drilling would soon take place to test depth and strike extensions. The company is aiming to update the project's total mineral resource estimate in the December quarter to a 'reasonable prospects for economic extraction' pit shells standard. It estimates its studies of Bullabulling will take 15 months, with eyes on production in about three years. The operation would be a conventional carbon-in-leach process. Mr McFadyen said Minerals 260 acquired Bullabulling because the company saw a significant opportunity not only in the existing resource but also in the immense exploration potential. 'Our exploration strategy is designed to systematically test the targets we've identified both down-dip and along strike from known mineralisation,' he said. 'Drilling commenced a few weeks ago and we are continuing to ramp-up activity. 'It's an exciting phase for the company as we begin generating a steady flow of drilling results and have concurrently commenced the pre-feasibility study.' And Minerals 260 has added another 450sqkm to the project since picking up Bullabulling, the latest being last week's Belararox option agreement for 26 tenements across 50sqkm. It said the two-year agreement gave it the option of exploring the wider area in a phased approach after the Bullabulling drilling program.
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Belararox grants Minerals 260 exclusive option to acquire tenements in Australia
Australian miner Minerals 260 has entered into a binding option agreement with Belararox to acquire its Bullabulling gold project in Western Australia. The agreement grants Minerals 260 an exclusive option to acquire Belararox's Coolgardie tenement package, which includes 26 tenements within the Eastern Goldfields. Under the terms of the agreement, Minerals 260 will pay A$150,000 upon execution of the agreement and has the discretion to exercise the option to acquire the tenements within two years for A$600,000. Minerals 260 will assume all responsibilities for the tenements, including management obligations and funding all work programmes and exploration commitments during the option period. The tenements involved in the agreement are highly prospective for gold and lithium discoveries. This deal provides Minerals 260 with the opportunity to consolidate the region and conduct exploration aimed at making significant discoveries. In April this year, Minerals 260 raised capital before costs of $220m to acquire and develop the Bullabulling gold project. The transaction aligns with Belararox's focus on advancing its Toro-Malambo-Tambo (TMT) copper project in Argentina and the Kalahari Copperbelt project in Botswana by decreasing its holding costs in Australia. Belararox managing director Arvind Misra said: 'We are very pleased to have executed an option agreement with Minerals 260, a new player in the exciting and prospective Eastern Goldfields, for the acquisition of Belararox's Bullabulling Project Tenements. 'The option agreement will enable the early development of the Bullabulling Tenements, reduce BRX's costs in Australia and enable BRX to concentrate on its primary project, the exciting TMT copper project in Argentina, as well as its recently acquired strategic interests in Botswana.' The TMT project, located in Argentina's San Juan Province, is an unexplored area between the highly mineralised El Indo and Maricunga Metallogenic Belts. Additionally, Belararox has acquired several prospective exploration licences in the Kalahari Copperbelt region. These licences are in proximity to successful exploration and mining activities by companies such as Sandfire, MMG and Cobre. Belararox also holds a 100% interest in the 643km² Belara Project in the Lachlan Fold Belt of New South Wales (NSW). The project, consisting of three exploration licences, is situated between Wellington and Mudgee in central-Western NSW, offering good road access and infrastructure. "Belararox grants Minerals 260 exclusive option to acquire tenements in Australia" was originally created and published by Mining Technology, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
News.com.au
12-05-2025
- Business
- News.com.au
Timing is Everything: Gold price reignites historic Bullabulling mine for Tim Goyder's Minerals 260
Gold prices have surged this year, sparking M&A and fast-tracking new developments in Australia Tim Goyder's Minerals 260 is looking to revive the 2.3Moz Bullabulling gold mine 80,000m drill program has started ahead of resource upgrade and PFS ASX mining's Midas character Tim Goyder says we are in the best market for new gold developments in "70 to 80 years" after pulling off an "audacious" deal that could create WA's next mid-tier gold producer. One of five ASX vehicles where the money man behind Liontown Resources (ASX:LTR) and Chalice Mining (ASX:CHN) has made his fortune, Minerals 260 (ASX:MI6) has begun an 80,000m drill campaign to improve its confidence in the 2.3Moz Bullabulling gold project ahead of modern project studies. The mine west of the historic Goldfields town of Coolgardie – where gold was first discovered in 1892 – has famously missed a string of gold booms, after being folded into the global portfolio of $100bn Chinese gold, copper and lithium giant Zijin Mining. Previously an unheralded junior explorer, minnow MI6 wrapped up one of the deals of the year in January 1, beating out larger players with a $165 million deal to acquire the mine. The catch? MI6 was worth just $30m at the time. It would take close to three months to lock up the $220m of fresh capital needed to get the deal across the line. In the interceding period, Donald Trump's tariff policy sent investors flocking for safe haven, pushing gold to record highs. A major backdown from both the US and China on the scale of their reciprocal tariffs (from 145% and 125% to 30% and 10% respectively) sent bullion over US$100 down last night to a touch over US$3200/oz. That's still 28% higher over the past six months, with handy exchange rates seeing Aussie dollar gold lifting a remarkable $700/oz since the deal was announced. "Clearly this is the most exciting period for gold for the last 70 or 80 years, so I'd say the way it's gone. It's risen since we've done the deal about $700 an ounce in a matter of three months," Goyder said at Coolgardie's iconic Denver City Hotel yesterday. "So it is exciting. And the world has shifted. The central banks around the world are buying gold and that says something about the economy, doesn't it?" The upside Minerals 260 is chaired by Goyder, the firm's second largest shareholder with a 7.26% stake, and led by managing director Luke McFadyen, whose impressive resume includes four years as head of portfolio strategy and economics at OZ Minerals, a role which culminated with the copper miner's $9.6bn sale to BHP. This time on the other side of the deal, he saw the value latent in an unloved asset that didn't meet the investment hurdles and technical properties Zijin favoured. Studied as a heap leach, MI6 will pursue a conventional heap leach for the project, which has a resource running 60Mt at 1.2g/t for 2.3Moz. Around 55,000m of the drilling, currently being conducted via three RC rigs and one diamond, will consist of infill drilling to improve the confidence level of the resource, largely at the key Bacchus deposit. It's one of four bulk, low grade open pits along an 8.5km strike trending north to south across the tenement package. Another smaller pit, Gibraltar, runs east to west on the other side of the property, but is surrounded by potentially mineralised ground yet to be tested. Located 65km from Australia's gold capital of Kalgoorlie, Resolute Mining (ASX:RSG) mined out the oxide resources in the late 1990s to a depth of around 70m at Bullabulling when gold was fetching just $500/oz. Modern resources have been cut at a gold price of just $3000/oz Aussie and the deepest point of the resource is just 250m underground. Holes in the current program will extend as far as 500m deep. Aside from the raging gold price, that attention to detail is partly why McFadyen thinks MI6 can do what Zijin couldn't. "I think it sat in the wrong company. It's a $100 billion Chinese company that don't do exploration. And very similar to my experience in buying other projects from other big companies, they just ... don't see it how we see it," McFadyen said. " So to the cynics, we'll wait to prove you wrong and we look forward to it. "Ultimately, this has got 530,000m of drilling in it, so you can't fake that. Some of these drill holes are 20m by 20m. So it's been extensively understood, it's had multiple resource updates. "And so we're pleased to be able to prove these people wrong in the future." How big could it be? MI6 was capped at $270m on Monday, but exploration and study success could well move it into another strata of Aussie gold plays. McFadyen thinks it could become a regional play, with the development of the Bullabulling project to open up small satellite prospects that could be held on nearby tenements. An early sighter of that strategy came last week via an option deal over tenements to the north of Bullabulling owned by Argentine copper explorer Belararox (ASX:BRX), expanding its territory to 570km2. Analysts and brokers are already beginning to map out the long-term future for the project in a buoyant gold environment. Argonaut thinks a 5Mtpa open pit could produce a "base case" 140,000ozpa. Goyder told reporters the aim would be to become a company producing 'in the order of' 150,000oz a year. With a resource upgrade due in December, McFadyen noted it would be up to the pre-feasibility study results to show how big the mine – on a timeline to enter production in H2 2028 – would be. But he said Bullabulling was the "foundation of a fantastic company". "If you look at similar sized resources and what they produce, you've got a substantial production profile, both in annual production as well as length of production," he said. "This is a big project, you don't often see 2-plus million ounces one hour's drive away from Kalgoorlie Airport." New breed Euroz Hartleys analyst Michael Scantlebury said the rise in the gold price this year had the potential to underpin a new generation of gold developers. It comes with the large end of town cashing in. Euroz's quarterly gold review showed free cash flow generation across ASX gold miners bounded beyond $1bn for the first time in the March quarter. "You're seeing a lot of those once marginal producers generating strong cash flows, proving that this next round of developers really can make solid margins at today's pricing," he said. " As much as people ... may think that these assets have been tried and tested before, a lot of them, especially with MI6, are coming out of larger companies that just didn't make sense for them to spend the capital. "I think that at today's pricing you're going to see these developers actually come online and be successful." While the gold price is "anyone's guess", Scantlebury says easing inflation is on the side of the developers as well. M&A is also expected to continue. "I think the amount of cash that some of these these (miners) are putting on (means M&A will continue)," Scantlebury said. "Ramelius was adding $256 million bucks in a single quarter in underlying free cash flow. "When you're doing quarters like that, you can go and buy some of these juniors with one quarter of free cash flow and pick up a couple of these kind of small developers to, especially if you've got infrastructure already in place." Among the potential takeover targets in the developer space, Scantlebury says Magnetic Resources (ASX:MAU) could be a target for Laverton gold district neighbour Genesis Minerals (ASX:GMD). He also thinks Ramelius Resources (ASX:RMS), currently executing a merger with Spartan Resources (ASX:SPR), could look to mop up projects around its pre-development Rebecca/Roe site. Meanwhile, Scantlebury says Antipa Minerals (ASX:AZY) is a "screaming takeover target" for Greatland Gold, Scantlebury says. Its 2.8Moz Minyari Dome project sits in the neighbourhood of Greatland's Telfer plant, acquired for US$475m from Newmont last year and expected to be underfed when its primary ore feed switches to the underground Havieron deposit.
