WCP Resources (WCP) has acquired a second phosphate exploration project -- this time in the Northern Territory -- as the company continues its expansion into the commodity.

Under the farm-in terms, Levi Mochkin's WCP has entered into an agreement with Murphy Uranium, a wholly owned subsidiary of Bondi Mining, to earn a 70 per cent interest in all phosphorous minerals of the NT Murphy Project -- with the exception of any phosphorous minerals directly associated with a uranium deposit. WCP already has a phosphate play near Mt Isa in Queensland.

The new project, 280km northeast of Tennant Creek, covers eight granted exploration licences. WCP will be required to spend a minimum $150,000 on exploration in the first year, with Bondi as project manager in that time.

If WCP elects to then continue, it will become the mine operator and commit $750,000 over the following two years to earn a 51 per cent interest, and an additional $750,000 over the subsequent two years to earn the 70 per cent interest.

Analytical results from Bondi's recent uranium-focused drilling program on the Murphy Project have returned anomalous phosphorous values from several holes. WCP's shares closed at 6c on Friday.

IRONBARK (IBG) has received further assay results from Phase 2 of the drilling program at its wholly owned Citronen zinc-lead deposit in northern Greenland.

The company said the results are significant in that every hole drilled outside the resource has proven to host mineralisation.

The latest drilling followed results announced recently on July 16 and were planned to increase resources by drilling extensions to known mineralisation. Ironbark has to date drilled over 9500m of diamond drilling at Citronen this season.

Further drilling is ongoing and samples are currently in the assay labs awaiting analysis.

Of particular benefit to the project economics will be the results of shallow mineralisation at the discovery zone -- approximately 130m from the edge of interpreted mineralisation and 290m from the nearest drill hole and containing significant zones of zinc from 13m depth.

Ironbark says it is confident that further drilling will continue to expand resources at Citronen. Its shares ended last week on 34c.

AUSTRALIA-BASED resource company Avalon Minerals (AVI) has announced a substantial increase in the mineral resource inventory for its fully owned Viscaria copper project in northern Sweden.

The results have outlined an additional inferred mineral resource of 5.1 million tonnes at 1.2 per cent copper from a northern section of the project's "A" zone. The delineation of the "A" zone resource estimate has resulted in a 32 per cent increase in the total inferred mineral resource to 31.6 million tonnes at 0.9 per cent copper for 284,000 tonnes of contained copper metal.

The historical Viscaria Copper mine is in the Norrbotten area of northern Sweden, 4km from the Kiruna iron ore mine, Sweden's largest iron ore mine and the world's second largest underground mine.

The company says there is excellent potential for further resource upgrades including modelling and initial estimates for "A" zone south, expected to be completed in the September quarter. AVI shares closed the week at 20c.

AMPELLA Mining (AMX) has commenced initial work programs on its five recently acquired gold tenements in southern Burkina Faso in West Africa.

The company says initial rock chip results received from the first of these programs highlight the prospectivity of the region to host major economic gold resources.

A regional soil geochemistry sampling program has now been completed over the Tiopolo licence area, the first of five new tenements collectively known as the Batie West project.

Rock chip sampling undertaken during the soil geochemistry program has returned results which have outlined a 16km long by 2.5km wide gold-bearing shear zone consisting of multiple parallel structures.

A total of 72 rock chips were taken over a 16km strike length yielding 57 per cent with gold values above 2 grams per tonne of gold. Of these, 20 samples returned gold values above 5 grams per tonne. AMX's stock was trading at 6c at Friday's close.

INTERNATIONAL uranium and base metals explorer Nimrodel Resources (NMR) has started diamond drilling at its 3862sqkm Batken Oblast licences in the Batken region of southwest Kyrgyzstan.

The culmination of progressive and systematic uranium exploration has resulted in the delineation of 15 priority diamond drill targets, for a total of 3315m of drilling, which just began on August 9.

The drill targets aim to intersect Mailuu Suu-style uranium mineralisation. Mailuu Suu was one of the larger former Soviet uranium mines that produced in excess of 10,000 tonnes of medium to high grade uranium up to cessation of operations in 1967.

The high priority targets have been selected based on a combination of geological and geophysical exploration techniques.

The company says drilling will not only provide critical information about the potential for uranium mineralisation at its targets, but it is expected to also reveal key sub-surface information that will significantly enhance confidence in the model used for future uranium exploration in Kyrgyzstan. Shares in NMR ended last week at 32c.