Previously announced Inferred Resource at Mt Carbine Prospect was 9.6Mt at an estimated grade of 0.2% WO3.

The reason for the increase? Independent consultant Geostat has revised the geological model for the tungsten mineralisation below the open cut, using an existing core library of 8,222m from 39 drillholes.

This target tonnage excludes the exploration potential in the hill abutting the north wall of the pit which contains numerous historical workings and identified mineralised zones. The company will focus on this area to double the target tonnage.

By all measures, Mt Carbine is developing into a world class resource and the scoping study underway will now incorporate the potential for block caving these new mineralised zones below the pit as well as extending the open cut.

Interestingly, Icon is in discussions with a number of parties with tungsten projects in North Queensland as well as potential international partners, providing upside in news pipeline for investors.

The financial terms are confidential. Australian News services cited Palmer as saying that the the purchase price was less than the A$2 billion replacement cost of the refinery.

BHP Billiton will write-down the carrying value of Yabulu by an estimated US$500 million and a further estimated US$175 million of unrecoverable tax benefits. These write-downs will be reported as exceptional items in the results for the full-year ended June 30 2009.

The company expects the sale to be finalised by July 31 2009.

BHP Billiton Stainless Steel Materials president, Jimmy Wilson, said: “The Premier of Queensland played a pivotal role in ensuring the change in ownership was feasible for both parties to this transaction, in affirming that the continued operation of the refinery was important to Queensland and that there would be no change in licensing or other arrangements from that currently prevailing.”

The placement follows the oversubscribed 1 for 3 non-renounceable rights issue at 7 cents per share to raise up to $1,474,251.

Funds raised will be used for further drilling and development at the flagship Blackbush Prospect within the wholly-owned Mullaquana Project, and exploration elsewhere within the project area.

Previously, Batten helmed Bannerman Resources (ASX: BMN,TSX: BAN).  At Bannerman, he developed a sizeable uranium resource in Namibia and steered the company to a listing on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX).

Under his guidance the market capitalisation of Bannerman increased significantly.  The Bannerman share price increased from approximately 7 cents after the 3:1 share split to over $4 at one stage.  Batten was also instrumental in the development of another ASX listed uranium company, Berkeley Resources (ASX: BKY).

White Canyon's Daneros Mine has recently received its Permit to Mine from the Bureau of Land Management and the State of Utah on 27 May 2009. Mine operations and decline development have commenced.

The next milestone would appear to be an agreement for treatment of ore produced from Daneros.

In a recent interview, Batten said his plan over the next 12 months was to grow the company through a combination of expansion through exploration of the current assets, new regional exploration of conceptual targets within the current tenement holdings, "and the pursuit and purchase of additional opportunities."

The new options will have an exercise price of 12 cents each and expire on 30 November 2010. The new options will be quoted on the ASX.

Based on full take-up by shareholders, the rights issue would raise approximately $3,814,900 before costs.

The Rights Issue is fully underwritten.

Funds raised will be used for exploration activities in the company's Golden Eagle Gas Field in Grand County Utah, and for working capital purposes.

Direct Shipping Ore (DSO) operations traditionally encompass the more volatile spot nickel market.  Activities in the DSO market had all but stopped in June 2008 due to low nickel prices. 

This will not affect Rusina's Nickel Heap Leach project plans.  These have not been impacted by prevailing nickel prices. The heap leach project is based on the long term production of nickel.  These have a low operating cost and remains very profitable at current and forecast nickel prices.

Rusina has a Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS) currently underway.  The trial heap leach pad and pilot plant - part of the DFS - is now substantially complete.

Over the coming months 3,000 tonnes of crushed and agglomerated nickel laterite ore will be stacked on the pad and acid leaching will commence.  The trial is based on full commercial operation parameters to prove the process on a full scale, environmentally friendly process.

Importantly, for the cost base, the Pre-Feasibility Study (PFS) of the project has been re-costed by China Tianchen Engineering Corporation, the construction engineers. 

The capital cost of the project is likely to be significantly reduced based on the PFS in November 2008.

Rusina is also aiming to lower the current forecast cash cost of US$1.60/lb (before refining charges) and increase the end payable product. This would be achieved by reducing costs in downstream processing - which is critical to economic processing of nickel laterites.

These accomplishments would enhance the project economics and returns to Rusina shareholders.

Finally, Rusina will undertake further drilling which seeks to move additional JORC resources from Inferred to Indicated status.  This will lengthen the proposed mine life and increase the Net Present Value from its present US$375 million.

Companies that are added to the index may encounter increased demand for the company's shares, as some institutional investors may re-weight their portfolio to align with the index constituent companies.

Managing Director Geoff Davis, said the  Company’s inclusion in the S&P/ASX 200 index was a major achievement.  "We believe the Company, with its world class asset in the Philippines, will continue to deliver positive results for many years to benefit not only shareholders but also for the many communities in which it operates.”

A total of 82% of shareholders took up their Entitlement. An endeavour will be made to place the shortfall of 5,586,743 shares.

Following the strong results received from the nickel sulphide drilling program at Lindeman’s Bore, Proto  will follow-up with drilling of the Mt Vetters project in July.

Targeting potential nickel sulphide mineralisation to the south of the Black Swan/Silver Swan nickel mineralisations, the project is also considered prospective for gold mineralisation.

Proto will drill approximately three Reverse Circulation holes at Mt Vetters to a depth of 300m, following up geophysical work completed earlier this year.

An update on the Lindeman’s Bore project will be provided as further work is done on the core prior to assays. A final drilling report will be submitted after compilation.

Interestingly, these were found along strike of the current resource. A new parallel structure was also identified where rock chips found graded 7.5g/t and 6.5g/t gold.

An ongoing drilling programme will test these new mineralised extensions over the coming weeks as well as along strike from the previously released drill intercept in BNRC823 of 24m @ 4.75g/t gold.

The current drilling programme will continue to target shallow high grade gold mineralisation (≈100 meters vertical depth) outside of the current inferred resources of 10.6Mt @ 2.4g/t for 820,000oz gold resource estimate. 

Gryphon will release a new resource estimate in the second half of 2009 at the Banfora Gold Project.

Investors may recall the Banfora Gold Project is located in the south‐west of Burkina Faso, West Africa in a major gold producing district.

This is host to such world class gold deposits as Tongon (4.2Moz) Syama (5 Million oz Au mined & 6.5 Million oz Au in resources) and Morila (6.5Moz).

Gryphon's project is owned 100% by Gryphon Minerals and contains contiguous exploration licenses covering approximately 1150km2 of a major gold district. The project is easily accessible by road and in close proximity to the town of Banfora and the major city of Bobo Diolasso. Grid power is located approximately 30km from the eastern boundary of the project.

Emergent raised $2.52 million via a placement of 6.3 million shares at 40 cents per share to sophisticated investors.  There is an attaching option for every two shares placed.

A non binding Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was struck between Emergent and (state owned) China Metallurgical Investment Co Ltd (CMIC) for the development of Beyondie Iron Project in WA’s mid-west iron ore region.

The deal provides for AUD$200m funding from CMIC to achieve commencement of mining operations at Beyondie Project on a 50:50 Development JV basis. A placement of shares and an options to CMIC will raise an estimated AUD$4.9 million.

The deal aims to achieve the commencement of mining operations at the Beyondie Magnetite Project with an initial targeted production of 3Mtpa of magnetite concentrate.

The Beyondie Project is located in the northern region of the Mid West Iron Province in WA, immediately adjacent to the Great Northern Highway and Goldfields Gas Pipeline. The Company plans to develop the project into a long life, large scale, high grade magnetite mining operation, with potential shared rail and port infrastructure.

There is a three month due diligence period to begin within the next month.

Geoff Wedlock brings a wealth of iron ore experience to Sundance. He was directly involved in the development of four iron ore mines, upgrades of two ports and two railways, and the development of iron ore processing operations.

He was also previously Managing Director of the successful Australian iron ore producer, Portman Limited.

Geoff Wedlock said, "Since George joined the Board as Chairman in late 2006, Sundance has secured over $90 million in capital from a range of strategic investors, including Talbot Group Holdings. This funding has underpinned our exploration program, which has so far defined a combined total Indicated and Inferred Resource of 2.5 billion tonnes of high grade and itabirite hematite at Mbalam."

Sundance Director Ken Talbot, whose investment company Talbot Group Holdings has a 21% stake in the Company, said he was looking forward to working closely with Geoff to maximise the potential of the Mbalam Project.

Gastar has entered into definitive agreements with Santos QNT Pty Ltd and Santos International Holdings Pty Ltd for the sale of its interest in Petroleum Exploration Licenses 238, 433 and 434 in New South Wales, Australia, along with the sale of the shares of Gastar Power Pty Ltd, the entity holding Gastar's 35 percent interest in the Wilga Park power station.

 Gastar expects to book a net gain of approximately US$175 million from the sale, and the transaction is expected to close on July 10 2009.

Gastar plans to use the money to repay outstanding debt under its secured revolving credit facility, to retire its C$25 million secured term loan and to pay in full Gastar's C$30 million convertible subordinated debentures upon their maturity in November 2009.

What remains is planned to finance an offer to repurchase any and all of Gastar's C$100 million senior secured notes, thus repaying substantially all of Gastar's debt and reducing its annual interest expense by as much as US$20 million.

President and CEO J Russell Porter said: "Gastar will maintain its current ownership in the East Texas Deep Bossier and Marcellus Shale plays (in the US) and plans to proceed with the development of those assets while limiting capital expenditures to excess cash flow generated by its producing assets.”

Following the completion of the transactions with Santos, Gastar intends to implement a 1-for-5 reverse share consolidation that was authorized by Gastar's shareholders in June 2008, and it will de-list its shares from trading on TSX.

In 2009 to date, less than 1 percent of the total daily trading volume in Gastar's common shares were executed on the TSX. Trading on two exchanges has become unduly costly and burdensome without providing any significant additional liquidity for Gastar's shareholders, the group added.

Cape Alumina owns the largest tenement holding, outside the Rio Tinto Alcan mining leases in the world renowned Weipa Bauxite Province in Cape York.

Cape Alumina has international support from Chinese alumina majors including Xinfa, one of China’s largest aluminium and alumina producers.

With the upgrade in resource to 130 mt, the Pisolite Hills  project would have a 12 to 15 year initial mine life. A Bankable Feasibility Study (BFS) is due to commence in September incorporating the revised parameters.

Cape Alumina CEO Dr Paul Messenger said “We see potential for an initial 12-15 year operation at Pisolite Hills at a target production rate of 7 Mtpa. There’s a growing market for the resource as the bauxite is suitable as a blending feed for the new breed of low-temperature Bayer-process refineries in China."

on a dry tonne basis, the expected yield after wet benefication is 86.1 Mt including Measured (20.1Mt), Indicated (37.9Mt) and Inferred (28 Mt) Resources at an average grade of 53.1% Al2O3.

Further drilling to upgrade resource categories planned for the 2009 field season.

Installation works on the Castello production field east of Milan have commenced.

Castello is 78% complete. First production is scheduled for late October 2009 - at an initial production capacity of 2.7 million cubic feet per day.

Italian contractor, Semat SpA, have commenced site activities today and expects to complete the civil works and plant installation within a target four-month schedule.

Po Valley Energy Managing Director, Michael Masterman said all production plant and equipment has been built, factory tested and awaiting completion of the 1st phase of civil works ready for installation.

"PVE is now in control of its development schedule for this field – a crucial hurdle for the Company,” Masterman said.

Rio rejected a $19.5 billion investment proposal from its biggest shareholder Chinalco of China last month and instead opted for the share sale and an iron ore joint venture with BHP Billiton Ltd. Chinalco, as the state-owned company is known, confirmed today that its took up its rights in the share sale.

Its major shareholder, China's state-owned Chinalco, later said it had taken up its full entitlement to the offer, which ranks as the fifth-biggest on record. It was a sign that Chinalco was far from severing ties with Rio Tinto.

Rio was trading at $52.28, up 1.32% on the ASX.

London-based Rio offered existing shareholders the right to buy 21 new shares for every 40 they hold at 1,400 pence for its London shares and A$28.29 for its Sydney shares.
 

Sixteen diamond core holes were drilled in May and assay results for half of the drill holes have now been received, including:

- 24 m @ 8.0 g/t from 117 m depth,
- 27 m @ 3.1 g/t from 63 m and
- 38 m @ 1.68 g/t from 44 m.

The Cochrane Hill Gold Project is located only 80 km east of the Company’s Touquoy Gold Project.

Atlantic's stategy in Nova Scotia is interesting in that it believes that the goldfields have not been systematically explored.  Given the Atlantic already has over 1 million ounces of gold resources under its control in the Touquoy district provides evidence to support its strategy.

The objective is to to develop open pit gold deposits in Nova Scotia, the Touquoy Gold Project being the starting point.

Directors of Atlantic were the principals behind Plutonic Resources Limited, which discovered more than 11 Moz of gold and operated up to five gold mines.

Atlantic Gold holds a nominal 60% interest in the Touquoy Gold Project. An additional 15% interest can be acquired in the property outside the general area of the known resource by securing project financing.

Apart from developing the Touquoy Gold Project, Atlantic is undertaking exploration, both regional and near-mine, to build the resource base. The target for Atlantic is additional Touquoy style deposits.

Atlantic Gold has now drilled a total of 39 diamond holes for 3102 m as delineation of the Cochrane Hill gold deposit.  Completion of all resource delineation drilling, will enable an estimate of a full inventory of Measured and Indicated Resources and likely to expand the resource particularly at depth where the resource is open.

Current resource for Cochrane Hill is 10 million tonnes at 1.7 g/t gold for 547,000 contained ounces of indicated and inferred resource.  This is based on historic data.

Atlantic has an option agreement over the Cochrane Hill project with Scorpio Mining (TSX: SPM). Depending on expenditure incurred by Atlantic it will own either a 60% JV interest or 100%.

The injunction sought to remove Eromanga from the Joint Venture with Silver Marlin and to prevent it seeking any share in the results of Blocks 138 and 59 in the Reconcavo Basin, onshore Brazil.

Eromanga has been vindicated as having clear title in Block 138 and 59.

The injunction was rejected by the Corporate Court of the State of Rio de Janeiro and was Brought against Mercury do Brasil; Eromanga’s subsidiary in Brazil. The court also ordered Silver Marlin to pay court costs and legal fees. Eromanga is a 50% participant in Blocks 138 and 59 in the Reconcavo Basin, onshore Brazil.

Drilling commenced at Block 138 to a depth of 850 meters before the operator Silver Marlin halted operations. A dispute over the contribution of each party to the drilling costs has not been resolved. The regulatory deadline to complete the wells at Block 138 and 59 has been extended by the ANP, Brazil’s oil industry regulator.

Eromanga recently signed a $10 million funding facility to further develop oil production at Blocks 330 and 430 in Brazil, and for other corporate opportunities.  Block 330 (ERH 40% interest) registered a 50% increase in mid-point resource estimate to 24 mmBbl.  PACA 1 is in production with over 11,500 Bbl (100% Basis) produced since Oct 08 PACA 2 has been completed for future production.

Fortrend has agreed to provide up to $10 million to Eromanga to be drawn down at Eromanga’s discretion by the issue of shares to Fortrend. Eromanga has the right but not the obligation to use the facility at any time over the facility’s 3 year term. Eromanga can determine the timing and amount of any drawdown within the provisions of the facility agreement.

Major AGS shareholder Abbotsleigh was a substantial participant in the shortfall placement.

Shortfall placement has been completed and raised over $8.5 million.  Total funds raised from the placement and rights issue including shortfall placement totalled $44.7 million.

Funds raised will be used for AGS's share of development and operating costs at the Four Mile Uranium Joint Venture Project in South Australia.  This is planned to commence production in 2010.

AGS believes it is now fully funded to receipt of first revenue from sale of uranium from Four Mile.

The Four Mile uranium joint venture project in South Australia will become the next major global uranium producer in January 2010. Alliance shares were up 10%.

At the Four Mile Project, the inferred mineral resource estimate has increased to 61 million pounds of uranium oxide grading 0.35% or 3500 parts per million uranium oxide - an increase of 90%.

Recently, a maiden resource estimate was released for the Four Mile East deposit.  It has an initial resource of 4.1 million tonnes grading 0.31% uranium oxide for 29Mlb of uranium oxide.

Alliance Managing Director Patrick Mutz said that the project had the potential to be the highest grade and largest in-situ recovery operation in the world.

Results from down-hole gamma logging of six diamond drill holes at the Thunderball prospect have revealed visual observations of significant uranium mineralisation in every hole.

The results indicate that near surface, broad (8 to 12 metre) widths of strong secondary uranium mineralisation exist and at depth, high grade primary mineralisation occurs over widths of 2 to 3 metres within a well defined shear zone.

The Thunderball uranium prospect is located in the Pine Creek region of the Northern Territory on exploration licenses EL23509 and EL23431. Thundelarra has an option to acquire a 100% interest in EL23509 and holds a 70% interest in the uranium rights on EL23431 in joint venture with unlisted Crocodile Gold Australia Pty Ltd.

Outstanding assays from the 6 hole diamond program are expected to be available within the month.  In the interim the gamma logs provide a good indication of the tenor of mineralisation present.

Polo acquired 4.48 million additional shares in Berkeley Resources in on-market purchases in June at an average price of $1.19 per share.

Polo has increased its stake from 11.44% to 15.07% of Berkeley. The share register is getting extremely interesting given Anglo American's acquisition of Berkeley shares in January.

Investors may recall that Berkeley will undertake the feasibility study over the Salamanca Regional Uranium Project.  Berkeley’s objective is to generate a total resource base for the project of over 65m lbs of U3O8 and to complete a Feasibility Study within 18 months of approval of shareholders in January 2009.

Berkeley will partner with Spanish utility ENUSA to investigate the regeneration of uranium production in Spain.

Funds raised will be used to to fund exploration at Northern Uranium’s Gardiner-Tanami project.

On-ground exploration has recommenced at Northern Uranium's 100% owned Gardiner-Tanami project in northern Australia.

Northern Uranium has been exploring for unconformity related uranium deposits in the area since 2007 with French nuclear group Areva NC. The Gardiner-Tanami project covers an area of approximately 10,000km2 centred on the WA-NT border 200km southeast of Halls Creek.

Exploration to date has been focused on pinpointing the highest quality targets using a ‘whole of project’ approach. This reflects Areva’s experience and success in Canada within the Athabasca Basin which hosts the world’s highest grade unconformity-related uranium deposits.

French owned global uranium heavyweight Areva NC holds 8,500,000 shares in Northern Uranium or 16.8% of the company.

The Gardiner-Tanami area is also compared favourably with the Alligator Rivers region in the NT where the Ranger mine, Australia’s largest operating uranium mine, is located.

This is a 34% increase from the previous estimate, 20 per cent of that resources in now in the Indicated category. 

Overall resource grade has also increased to 449 ppm u308. 

This represents the highest granite-hosted uranium deposit in Namibia.  A maident resource for Zone 2 at Rossing South is due in August 2009.  Together, on current trends would place Rossing South into the top 1p global uranium deposits by containted metal.

Importantly, both Zone 1 and Zone 2 desposits are still open along strike and down dip, pointing to possibility of additional resources.

Extract’s Managing Director, Peter McIntyre, said “The significance of the recent high grade intersections we have been reporting, are now being reflected in this major deposit.  This resource base is expected to support a long life, large scale open pit mining operation and a feasibility study is in progress to quantify this potential.”

Importantly, ground water resources will be more than sufficient to meet the processing and other operational needs of its 100% owned Boseto Copper Project. 

In fact, water availability significantly exceeds the requirements of currently planned operations with more than four times the project requirement available over a 15 year period.

Discovery Metals’ Managing Director, Brad Sampson said this is an important milestone for the Boseto Copper Project. A water resource has been identified with capacity to more than meet the project’s operational requirements, thus eliminating a key project risk. "We have now demonstrated that neither the life nor scale of the project is likely to be constrained by water supply.”

After an extensive program which included the drilling of eleven water exploration boreholes, the water resources planned for use at Boseto are contained within two of the five potential groundwater resource areas identified during the water exploration program.

These were undertaken as part of the Bankable Feasibility Study on the Boseto Copper Project. Borefields which will tap these resources and will be situated within 15 km of the proposed plant site.

Water quality is suitable for use in the Boseto process plant.  Identified water resources support consideration of mine life extension and/or expansion of production beyond the currently planned 10 year x 2Mtpa base case for Boseto.

The total facility has been renewed until 30 September, 2009 and is secured by the Company’s assets, including its Utah and Oklahoma projects. The increase is fully available.

The Clear Creek 2p reserves in Utah are 85.51 Bcfe. Seven newly drilled wells are tied into production facilities.

In early February 2009 Marion Energy mandated Goldman Sachs & Co to undertake a process which may lead to the sale of the Company and/or its assets either in whole or in part.

WCP Resources now holds 37,500,125 ordinary shares in Panax Geothermal (ASX: PAX) amounting to 15.9% of the issued capital of the company.