Surrender report for EL 26226, 26227 and 26228 Warrabri GR114 Ammaroo Project

Abstract

The Ammaroo Phosphate Project is located 240 km southeast of Tennant Creek. The project area contains the 40 km long, billion-tonne Ammaroo Phosphate Deposit which is currently Australia's largest JORC rock phosphate resource, the satellite Ammaroo South resource, the Rockhole prospect, and, as yet untested, greenfields potential in the east. The overall Ammaroo Phosphate Project prefeasibility has been announced. This report describes the final surrender of three contiguous ELs (EL 26226, 26227, 26228) that were originally granted to NuPower Resources to explore for palaeochannel uranium. NuPower acquired and manipulated the existing open file geophysical and LANDSAT data for the area. They undertook water sampling from waterbores and acquired AEM data which consisted of a total of 2,053.3 line kilometres across parts of all three ELs It was flown at a nominal survey height of 120 m on 1 km spaced lines with tie lines at 10 km line spacings. NuPower became Central Australian Phosphate Limited. Based on an NTGS report of 3 m at 2.2% P2O5 in a waterbore at Wycliffe Well and the phosphate discovery about 30 km away at what was then called Barrow Creek 1 by Rum Jungle Resources, Central Australian Phosphate undertook a surface phosphate sampling program consisting of 8 rock chips and 70 soil samples in northern EL 26228. The latter were nominally 200 m and 400 m apart on four kilometre-spaced lines. Some of this surface sampling was on areas previously relinquished, but all the data is resubmitted with this report. During 2013, Rum Jungle Resources Ltd took over Central Australian Phosphate which is now a wholly owned subsidiary. Rum Jungle Resources was only interested in phosphate exploration and was not targeting uranium. In the opinion of Rum Jungle Resources, the NTGS interpretation of the stratigraphy which hosts the waterbore phosphate as Cambrian seemed dubious. If the putative phosphate occurrence is real, it is almost certainly in Cenozoic rocks, not Cambrian. In a worst case scenario, there may be no Cambrian stratigraphy even present under some or all of ELs 26226-8. This was first interpreted by Rum Jungle Resources in 2010 based on the stratigraphy in drillhole NTGS BC2 which went directly from Cenozoic into granite at about 50 m. However, Rum Jungle Resources chose to drill test ELs 26226-8 to be sure. Drilling had to be sited to avoid several areas. Cenozoic and modern drainages which contain unconsolidated sediments and shallow groundwater might have been problematic for the type of drill rig used and shallow groundwater would have negated open pit mining of any phosphate possibly present beneath it. The numerous CLC Cultural Exclusion Zones, some of which were significant portions of the original ELs, had to be avoided. Other impediments were infrastructure such as townships and habitation, the inability to cross the gas pipeline, and the railway and highway corridors. Drilling was undertaken during 2014 as part of a larger program of reconnaissance phosphate exploration between the Ammaroo Resource and the railway. Not all approved holes on ELs 26226-8 were drilled when it became apparent that no prospective stratigraphy was being intersected. Thirty air core holes were drilled for 814 m, to an average depth of 27 m and a maximum of 39 m. All samples were tested for phosphate using a handheld XRF with no significant phosphate detected. No samples were sent for laboratory assay.