The International Bureau of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) has published two Lithium Australia patent applications for the recovery of lithium phosphate from lithium-bearing silicates and solutions.
Follow up exploration is in progress at four recently identified priority prospects for large porphyry copper-gold deposits at Impact Minerals Limited’s 100 per cent-owned Commonwealth project in Lachlan Fold Belt in New South Wales, Australia.
Middle Island Resources has embarked on the first of a planned series of drilling programs that collectively comprise a major exploration and resource definition drilling campaign at the Company’s 100 per cent-owned Sandstone gold project in Western Australia.
In contrast to its high demand for metals and minerals, Japan’s domestic industrial production is almost negligible, and has been collapsing over the last two decades. The country’s Metal Mining Agency (MMA) reported that between 1970 and 2001, the number of operating mines fell from 246 to 14, and the number of people employed in the mining sector fell from 34,000 people to just 405 over this period.