Perth-based minerals explorer Korab Resources Ltd will acquire a 90 per cent stake in West Perth's New World Alloys' Batchelor project in the Northern Territory, superseding their earlier joint venture agreement.
Perth-based minerals explorer Korab Resources Ltd will acquire a 90 per cent stake in West Perth's New World Alloys' Batchelor project in the Northern Territory, superseding their earlier joint venture agreement.
The full text of a Korab announcement is pasted below
Directors of Korab Resources Ltd are pleased to advise that they have reached an agreement with Savanna Mineral Resources Pty Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of New World Alloys Ltd to acquire 90% interest in the Batchelor Project adjacent to the historical Rum Jungle mine. This agreement supersedes the Batchelor Joint Venture agreement where Korab Resources Ltd had a right to earn 60% interest in the Bachelor Project by spending $600,000 over 4 years.
Savanna Mineral Resources Pty Ltd will retain 10% free carried interest in the project until bankable feasibility study at which time it will have an option to either contribute to the project development cost or to convert its interest in the project to a 3% net smelter return royalty.
THE BATCHELOR PROJECT is located near the town of Batchelor and to the west of the Green Alligator Project. It covers prospective Lower Proterozoic sediments that hosted economic deposits of uranium, copper, zinc, lead and gold, such as Rum Jungle (U), Woodcutters (Pb-Zn-Ag), Browns (Pb-Cu-Ni-Co), Adelaide River, Sundance (Zn-Pb-Au); Winchester (Mg). The latter two are contained within the Company's tenements.
The Rum Jungle uranium mines operated from 1954 to 1971 and produced 3,530 tonnes of uranium oxide from 863,000 tonnes of ore grading between 0.27% and 0.43%. The uranium mineralisation at Rum Jungle area was discovered in 1949, when secondary uranium minerals were found near Rum Jungle at the site of the now mined-out Whites deposit. Subsequent exploration led to the discovery of the Dysons, Intermediate, Whites, Rum Jungle Creek South, Mount Burton and Mount Fitch deposits, and several smaller occurrences. These deposits were mined during 1954-1970 by Territory Enterprises Pty Ltd. In the early 1980s, Uranerz Australia renewed uranium exploration in the Rum Jungle field and discovered the Kylie deposit.
Compass Resources NL estimated the Mt Fitch Uranium resource using a variety of cut offs. Using a 0.75 lbs cut the resource comprises 8.9 million pounds of contained U308at a grade of 1.01 lbs/tonne which increases to 14.5 million pounds at a cut off of 0.5 lbs/tonne. At the Woodcutters Mine, 6 million tonnes of ore was mined at a grade of 12% zinc & 6% lead. Within the Batchelor Project area significant zinc mineralization has been intersected at
the White Bomb Prospect, 3.5km southeast of Winchester. The host rocks are graphitic siltstones of the Wildman Formation that are higher in the stratigraphy than Woodcutters. The best intersection to date is 6 m at 11.7% Zn.
The Winchester Magnesite Deposit has been examined in depth by Mt Grace Resources NL (now New World Alloys Limited) and advanced to the feasibility study stage. The deposit occurs as magnesite-enriched rocks of the
Coomalie Formation. The deposit area is 7.5km long and 0.5km wide; mineralisation is open at depth. An Indicated Resource of 12.2Mt at 43.1% MgO and an Inferred Resource of 4.4Mt at 43.6% MgO are sufficient for over 25 years production at a rate of 50,000tpa magnesium metal.
Uranium Australia Ltd, a company controlled by Korab Resources, will focus on the areas prospective for unconformity-type uranium mineralisation, namely, airborne radiometric anomalies along strike from the Rum Jungle uranium mine further to the east and south-east (see attached ternary radiometric image on page 4). High priority targets occur where additional structural controls are evident in aeromagnetic data. Archaean basement is exposed in the cores of the Rum Jungle and Waterhouse domes. The Lower Proterozoic sediments, which include the Coomalie Dolomite, dip gently to moderately off the domes and are dominated by siltstones and sandstones with lesser carbonate horizons. The rocks are gently folded about N-S oriented axes. The Whites Formation conformably overlies the Coomalie Dolostone. It comprises fine-grained commonly pyritic calcareous and carbonaceous argillite, and minor quartzite, calcarenite and para-amphibolite. Polymetallic mineralization occur at the same stratigraphic horizon, this being the Whites Formation/Coomalie Dolomite contact. Most deposits have a strong lithological, structural and stratigraphic control. Uranium and base metal deposits occur within carbonaceous pelite of the Whites Formation close to the contact with the underlying Coomalie Dolostone.
