Opening of Woomera Prohibited Area good news for Apollo Minerals
THE BOURSE WHISPERER: Iron ore hopeful Apollo Minerals became very excited after the recently released Commonwealth Government final report of its enquiry into mining and military activities in the Woomera Prohibited Area (WPA) in South Australia revealed it is expected to be open to exploration and mining.
The news came in a joint announcement from the Minister for Defence Stephen Smith and Minister for Resources and Energy Martin Ferguson.
“As a result of the Review, a new management framework will be introduced to increase use of the Woomera Prohibited Area in Australia’s national interest by better balancing national security and economic considerations,” Stephen Smith said.
The potential benefits for the mining industry however were more laid out more succinctly by Minister Ferguson.
“The Woomera Prohibited Area has great economic potential, with estimates that more than $35 billion of developments, including iron ore, gold and uranium projects would be possible over the next decade,” he said.
The WPA will be broken into three zones to known as the Red, Amber and Green Zones. Mining will be allowed in the Green and Amber Zones but not in the Red Zone.
Fortunately for Apollo its projects do not lie within the Red zone so there was little wonder it greeted the news with glee.
The company currently holds a 100% interest in the Commonwealth Hill Iron ore project which lies within the WPA.
According to Apollo, Commonwealth Hill contains a significant magnetic anomaly which may host magnetite mineralisation.
The adoption of the Report’s recommendations would allow mining to proceed at Apollo’s Commonwealth Hill exploration licence project area. Apollo has lodged an application for access rights to the tenement with the Department of Defence to conduct exploration.
The release of the report gives the Commonwealth Hill project address added value with the Adelaide to Darwin Railway line intersecting the company’s project.
The project has been on many radar screens attracting plenty of interest resulting in exploration by the South Australian Department of Mines and Energy and Western Plains.
Most recently Apollo commissioned geophysical consultants Southern Geoscience to review the project, which resulted in the identification of a 12 kilometre anomaly at Apollo’s project.
“The modeling (sic) of the ground magnetic data has demonstrated the potential for considerable intersections of magnetite rich layers and the inference of near surfaced weathered zone that could possibly contain iron – rich non-magnetic mineralisation,” Southern Geoscience concluded.
On receiving regulatory approval, Apollo’s next steps will be to conduct a high resolution, low level airborne magnetic survey to define the iron target zones. Subject to the results of this work, drilling is expected to take place as soon practicable.