Successful applicants announced for round 28 of the Exploration Incentive Scheme
WA Mines and Petroleum Minister Bill Johnston has announced the successful applicants for round 28 of the Exploration Incentive Scheme’s (EIS) co-funded drilling program and series 6 of the energy analysis program.
Round 28 will offer grants worth more than $6m to 33 general applicants and three prospectors for projects to be drilled between December 2023 and November 2024.
More than half of the successful applicants are searching for battery minerals, including five projects exploring for lithium, six for rare earth elements and 13 for nickel.
Series 6 of the energy analysis program will offer $120k to three successful applications who are undertaking analysis and reprocessing projects in the Canning Basin and Officer Basin.
Minister Johnston commented on the program.
“The ongoing interest in the Exploration Incentive Scheme reflects the strength of WA’s exploration sector and industry’s confidence in our State’s economic future,” he said.
Western Mines Group (ASX:WMG) was awarded $220k under round 28 of the EIS to fund deep drilling at the Mulga Tank project.
The company plans to use this money to drill a 1500m-deep diamond hole to follow-up the diamond drilling program undertaken last year. The hole will look to test the deepest part of the Mulga Tank ultramafic complex and target a significant gravity high, magnetic high and MobileMT anomaly.
Western Mines chairman Rex Turkington further elaborated on what the funding will be used for.
“The maximum $220k award will be used to drill another exciting deep hole aimed at testing some significant targets at the base of the Mulga Tank complex following our outstanding results from the project during this year,” he said.
The EIS will expand next year to include a co-funded geophysics program that will offer $2m per year to co-fund greenfields exploration geophysics data acquisition.
Applications for this program will open in February 2024 along with round 29 of the EIS and series 7 of the energy analysis program.
 co-funded drilling program and series 6 of the energy analysis program.){kind=link}