Northern Minerals Limited has started its 2020/21 exploration program on its Browns Range tenements.
The project area, located in the remote East Kimberley region of Western Australia, includes more than 2,200 square kilometres of prospective tenements covering the Browns Range Dome.
Northern Minerals has committed a $5 million budget for its current exploration program for the remainder of the financial year ending 30 June 2021.
Up to 16,500 metres will be drilled across the tenements in total, with approximately 8,000 metres of reverse circulation drilling planned to be completed before the end of 2020.
The objective of the program is to increase the heavy rare earth mineral resource and life of mine potential at Browns Range. Exploration results, along with test work findings from the pilot plant, will feed into any future commercial, large-scale project feasibility study.
Drilling will test both identified greenfields targets and follow-up on previous encouraging intersections, in particular at the Dazzler and Banshee deposits.
Northern Minerals CEO, Mark Tory, said: “This significant commitment to exploration in the next nine months is designed to underpin the company’s ongoing ambition to realise the potential of Browns Range beyond the Pilot Plant.”
“A key consideration of any future feasibility study on a commercial, large-scale operation is building our mineral resource to the point the inventory would support at least 20 years of heavy rare earth production,” he added.