Exploration company seeks to develop heavy mineral sands portfolio
HMS PRIORITISATION Broken Hill Prospecting has identified a number of targets as priorities for drilling to develop the company’s Murray Basin Heavy Mineral Sands portfolio
Owing to strong prices for mineral sands, Australian exploration company Broken Hill Prospecting has been actively promoting and seeking partners to assist in the development of the company’s Murray basin heavy mineral sands (HMS) portfolio.
The company has secured extensive tenements in the last few years within the Murray basin HMS region of New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia.
To date, the company has defined a number of resources and identified numerous HMS targets that have been prioritised for drilling.
The company is currently in discussions with a number of international groups, from both China and India, that are seeking to secure long-term supplies of HMS from safe jurisdictions, such as Australia.
Broken Hill’s shareholders may benefit by working with such partners who are currently undergoing expansion of processing facilities for the production of titanium and zirconium, owing to increasing demand, says Broken Hill CEO Trangie Johnston in a letter to shareholders.
In recent weeks, the US Congress and US government have released a strategy aimed at securing ongoing supply of rare earths and other vital minerals for reasons of national security and defence, he says.
Historically, HMS have been a valuable source of rare-earth elements through the separation of monazite.
“Broken Hill’s previous metallurgical testwork within the Murray basin has demonstrated excellent extraction characteristics of monazite and the company is now assessing new processing and leaching technologies that could be suitably deployed,” notes Johnston.
Similarly, it should be noted that Australian mineral sands resources company Iluka Resources has said that it is investigating the extraction of rare earths from its Wimmera mineral sands project, in Victoria, as part of a current prefeasibility study.
“We are also in advanced due diligence on a number of rare earths projects in other locations, as we believe their strategic value – particularly to the US – creates significant opportunities.”
Meanwhile, Broken Hill is looking forward to seeing the resolution of numerous disputes that have occurred regarding development of the Thackaringa cobalt project, near Broken Hill, in New South Wales, Johnston states.
Last year, Broken Hill has issued a notice of dispute to cobalt deposit developer Cobalt Blue over the start of drilling activities at the Thackaringa cobalt project, in South Australia.
The dispute related to the drilling activities that have started outside the requisite approval process set out in a joint venture agreement, the company said last year.
Broken Hill currently holds a 30% beneficial interest in the project, as well as a 100% legal title.
Regardless of the outcome of the current expert determination review, the company will still retain a 2% royalty on any future cobalt production.
The company will still retain a title to the base and precious metals projects in the Thackaringa tenements and in others which the company owns outright within the region, as well as the company’s interest in industrial minerals covered by EL 8776 that overlaps the Thackaringa tenements.
Comments
Press Office
Announcements
What's On
Subscribe to improve your user experience...
Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):
Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format
Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):
All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors
including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.
Already a subscriber?
Forgotten your password?
Receive weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine (print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
➕
Recieve daily email newsletters
➕
Access to full search results
➕
Access archive of magazine back copies
➕
Access to Projects in Progress
➕
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format
RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA
R4500 (equivalent of R375 a month)
SUBSCRIBEAll benefits from Option 1
➕
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports on various industrial and mining sectors, in PDF format, including on:
Electricity
➕
Water
➕
Energy Transition
➕
Hydrogen
➕
Roads, Rail and Ports
➕
Coal
➕
Gold
➕
Platinum
➕
Battery Metals
➕
etc.
Receive all benefits from Option 1 or Option 2 delivered to numerous people at your company
➕
Multiple User names and Passwords for simultaneous log-ins
➕
Intranet integration access to all in your organisation