Annual report mineral lease 24511 Lethbridge Bay West Tiwi Islands Northern Territory for period ending 4 December 2008

Abstract

No ground-based exploration was carried out during the year ending 4th December 2008 in ML 24511. In the light of experience gained in mining the Andranangoo Mineral Sand deposit on ML 24510, the resource for the Lethbridge West deposit on ML24511 was revised using a higher cut-off grade of 2% HM as follows: 284,454 tonnes at 6.58% HM with 87% VHM.This figure compares with the previous resource of 410,000 tonnes at 5.1% HM. In September 2008, Matilda Minerals was preparing the Lethbridge West deposit for mining after completion of mining at Andranangoo (ML 24510) when the decision was made to put the whole Tiwi Mineral Sand Project on care and maintenance due to the high Australian dollar, problems with shipping from Port Melville, the high cost of shipping, and issues with the off-take agreement with Chinese buyers of the mineral sand concentrate.