Bill Beament’s Develop will release an updated mine plan for the restart of its Woodlawn mine in New South Wales as the diamond drilling program at the project exceeds expectations (reports MiningNews).

Monster inventory growth will be music to western world’s ears. Plus, Antipa’s juicy inventory and Sunstone’s bumper discovery highlight big upside in gold-copper juniors.

Albemarle’s $5.5 billion takeover bid for Liontown Resources and a $560 million expansion by Pilbara Minerals returned lithium to centre-stage this week but there could be more to come with a go ahead for the proposed US$7500 U.S. Government subsidy on electric vehicles.

Platinum and palladium usually circle each other with one’s price rising as the other falls due to their close chemistry and interchangeability in industrial applications (reports Tim Treadgold on Small Caps).

Canadian uranium explorer 92 Energy (92E) has made a major breakthrough in its bid to grow the rich Gemini discovery, hitting bonanza-grade mineralisation in its latest drilling program (reports Stockhead).

The sheer scale of Caravel’s namesake copper project in Western Australia and strong outlook for the red metal are reason enough for Canaccord Genuity to initiate coverage on the company (reports Stockead).

Cygnus has added to its lithium exploration ground in the James Bay region of Quebec, Canada, outlaying about C$700,000 cash and issuing nearly 7.5 million shares in staged transactions for two options (reports MiningNews).

The huge potential of Nimy Resources’ (NIM) base metals project in WA has been highlighted by the outstanding results of the latest geophysical survey, which has identified 21 compelling anomalies (reports Stockhead).

Explorer RareX has released the first of two planned resource updates for its Cummins Range project in Western Australia’s Kimberley region (reports MiningNews).

Junior explorer Bellavista Resources has kicked off a diamond drilling program to test “compelling” targets at the Brumby zinc-silver-copper project, 130km southwest of Newman in Western Australia (reports MiningNews).

Evion’s planned Panthera Graphite Technology expandable graphite plant in India is now fully funded to production after the joint venture secured a highly-favourable US$2.1m loan (reports Stockhead).

Chalice Mining says a chunk of one of Australia’s biggest undeveloped nickel sulphide discoveries is officially up for grabs after a major upgrade in the size of the Gonneville deposit just outside Perth (reports The Australian Financial Review).

Pilbara Minerals chief Dale Henderson says Albemarle’s willingness to pay a 63 per cent premium for control of Liontown Resources highlights lithium’s long-term scarcity value and emboldened him to spend $560 million expanding his Australian mines (reports The Australian Financial Review).

If any confirmation was needed that metals are the new oil, it could be found at the FT Commodities Global Summit in Lausanne. At a meeting of traders, where energy and agricultural markets have historically taken centre stage, metals found themselves the centre of attention (reports MiningNews).

Study reveals huge leverage for $30m junior, with 20% jump in copper price boosting NPV to $1b. Plus, gold equities lagging bullion price and will BHP or IGO join the battle for Mincor?

Australian financial markets were surprisingly resilient this week as the world’s central banks entered the final stage of their confidence-crushing round of interest rate increases which finally killed the ailing Credit Suisse.

Kingsland has highlighted the potential of its Leliyn project to host a significant flake graphite deposit over 20km of strike with the delivery of an Exploration Target (reports Stockhead).

Shares in Kairos Minerals are poised to triple as the company grows its already-substantial WA gold inventory and ramps up lithium exploration, according to a new report from Resolve Research (reports Stockhead).

Coda Minerals says its Elizabeth Creek copper and cobalt project in the heart of South Australia’s copper mining belt would cost $577m to build and would generate more than $5.7bn over its life (reports The Australian).