AUSTRALIAN resources company TNG has signed a Heads of Agreement (HoA) with uranium and project development company Toro Energy that gives TNG rights to explore for all minerals except uranium within Toro’s EL 27115, EL 26848 and EL 27876 tenements. Called the Walabanba Hills project, the HoA tenements – considered to be highly prospective for copper and nickel
mineralisation – lie directly west of TNG’s fl agship Mount Peake strategic metals project, near Alice Springs in the Northern Territory. Under the HoA terms, TNG must spend $500,000 on exploration activities within the fi rst two years to earn a 51 per cent interest in the granted exploration licences, with an option to increase this to 80 per cent after that time by spending a further
$1.5 million during the ensuing five years.
The tenements were held by Western Mining Corporation (WMC) in the mid-1990s and by Anglo American between 2003 and 2004. Both conducted aeromagnetic surveys over the region, focussing on magneticand electromagnetic anomalies. Historical soil sampling and drilling – conducted by WMC, Anglo American and Aberfoyle Resources (which was acquired by WMC in 1998) – returned highly-anomalous nickel and copper results of up to 3581 parts per million (ppm) of nickel and 2410ppm of copper in shallow drilling from 20m to 50m lengths.
TNG has pegged six areas as highly prospective for immediate follow upexploration using a combination of soil geochemistry plus magnetic and electro-magnetic geophysics to rapidly advance prospective drill targets. TNG managing director Paul Burton said the new tenements were an exciting and highly-prospective addition to the company’s copper exploration portfolio and its overall strategy for the Northern Territory.The company’s 100 per cent-owned Mount Peake project is in the Arunta Geological Province, 235km northwest of Alice Springs. TNG is moving toward a 2014 production scenario for the project, which hosts a JORC indicated and inferred resource of 160 million tonnes grading 23 per cent iron, 0.3 per cent vanadium – which is primarily used in the production of specialty steel alloys – and 5 per cent titanium.
By Reuben Adams
