Daily Special: OD6 Metals, Australian Rare Earths, X2M Connect, Altair Minerals, Racura Oncology

Australian shares traded lower at midday, with the S&P/ASX 200 down 0.28 per cent to 9,050.40 at 12:30pm AEST. Six of the 11 sectors were weaker, led by consumer discretionary stocks. The decline followed renewed strikes in the Middle East and a weaker Wall Street session. Rising inflation concerns pushed US 10-year Treasury yields to 4.75 per cent, while Australian 10-year yields rose to 5.17 per cent.

In small cap company news,

OD6 Metals (ASX:OD6) has completed registration with the US Government’s System for Award Management, allowing the company to pursue applicable federal contracting, financial assistance and strategic critical minerals opportunities as it advances its Quinn Fluorspar Project in Nevada. Fluorspar is included on the US critical minerals list and the country remains 100 per cent net import reliant. OD6 plans to assess potential funding and partnership pathways with US government agencies while continuing permitting, exploration, ore sorting and metallurgical work at Quinn. No government funding has currently been approved.

Australian Rare Earths (ASX:AR3) has commenced a follow-up drilling program at its Overland Project in South Australia, targeting extensions to its recently identified niobium and rare earth carbonatite system. The approximately 2,000-metre aircore program will test priority targets across the northern six kilometres of a 10-kilometre magnetic corridor. The program follows the discovery of niobium and rare earth mineralisation in hole OV167, which intersected 19 metres of anomalous mineralisation from 86 metres to the end of the hole. Five drill traverses are planned to test the continuity and scale of the system, with assay results to be progressively reported.

X2M Connect (ASX:X2M) has signed a non-binding five-year partnership agreement to develop high-density GPU data centre and energy precincts in regional Queensland. The proposed facilities would range from 10 to 100 megawatts in capacity, lifting the company’s prospective data centre pipeline above 200 megawatts. X2M is being engaged to deliver data centre infrastructure and could also manage the facilities on an ongoing basis. Its platform would connect energy generation, storage, distribution and environmental sensors into a single AI-powered management system, providing the potential for both project and recurring platform revenue.

Altair Minerals (ASX:ALR) has commenced maiden reverse circulation drilling at South Oko and North Peters, taking the number of active drill rigs across its Greater Oko projects to three. The company is targeting a drilling rate of around 8,000 metres per month by October. At South Oko, a 15,000-metre Phase 1 program will initially focus on the W1 target following encouraging trenching results, including 10 metres at 10.15 grams per tonne gold. At North Peters, around 2,000 metres of RC drilling is running alongside an ongoing 5,600-metre diamond drilling program.

Racura Oncology (ASX:RAC) has opened its first Korean clinical site for patient enrolment in the Phase 1 CPACS trial of RC220 in combination with doxorubicin for patients with advanced solid tumours. Pre-screening has begun, with treatment of the first patient expected soon, subject to an available treatment slot. Two further Korean sites are scheduled to open for patient enrolment on September 4 and September 8, while a fourth has received regulatory and governance approvals and is awaiting completion of its study contract. Racura expects the additional sites to help accelerate trial progress.