By Location - Roper Bar Iron Ore

The Roper Bar Iron Ore project is located in the Roper River region of the Northern Territory, some 40 kilometres from the Gulf of Carpentaria. The nearest settlement is at Roper Bar, 80 kms to the northwest.

A drilling program in 2008 confirmed substantial ironstone under cover assaying up to 60% Fe.  Subsequent beneficiation testwork successfully upgraded material of moderate grade to 63%-65% Fe using low cost gravity techniques.

A geological mapping program conducted during April 2009 extended the known area of outcropping iron mineralisation to 55km², some of which yielded surface samples assaying over 60% Fe.

The Roper Bar tenement area totals almost 2,300 sq kms, comprising six granted exploration licences EL25672, EL26759, EL24307, EL24944, EL24665 and EL26992. The project is located in the northern part of the Northern Territory, a geological region endowed with numerous world class mineral deposits.

The iron ore deposits have many attractive attributes to develop into a major project. Located only 40 kms from the coast, the area is ideally placed for export of a bulk commodity.   Furthermore, the top end of Australia is closer to Asian steel mills than any other major iron ore producing region.

Geologically, the Roper Bar project area is located in the McArthur Basin, a Proterozoic province extending from Arnhem Land to the Queensland border.  A sedimentary iron formation called the Sherwin Ironstone Member occurs in the McMinn formation Mesoproterozoic Roper Group. The strata is predominantly flat-lying with gentle dips, although in places folding and steep dips due to structural dislocation are observed.

The iron formation is comprised of multiple oolitic beds, consisting of closely packed hematite concretions, or oolites, and well rounded quartz grains. Mineralogical studies show the iron formation in hand specimen is best described as a hematitic sandstone. Importantly, the ironstones have been locally enriched by the addition of microcrystalline specular hematite. This event has substantially upgraded the iron content of the original oolitic iron formation. The regional government airborne geophysical data shows the magnetic activity over the entire area is very subdued, confirming the iron mineralogy is hematite rather than magnetite.

During 2008 the Company completed reconnaissance surface sampling, acquired high resolution colour photography and commenced detailed geological mapping. The 2008 drilling program targeted mineralisation under cover and recovered ironstone material from area “D” which had a measured specific gravity of 3.2 with an average thickness of 5.7 metres. Assays revealed grades of up to 60%Fe. Importantly levels of phosphorous and other deleterious elements were consistently very low.  Subsequent beneficiation testwork successfully upgraded lower grade material to in excess of 60%Fe using the low cost heavy liquid separation technique.

The mapping and subsequent drilling confirmed the ironstone beds are in places up to 10 metres thick. They have mostly shallow dips and are reasonably continuous. This is very encouraging, for it increases the potential for discovery of significant tonnages of ironstone under shallow cover over a large part of the project area.

In 2009 RC drilling was completed on areas D, E , F (east) and F (west).   Although much of this drilling was completed on wide-spaced traverses typically 400 metres apart, the continuity of the hematite mineralisation allowed three JORC-compliant Inferred Mineral Resource calculations to be completed.   These are:

Area D : 90 million tonnes of hematitic iron ore @ 37.2% Fe

Area E : 12.3 million tonnes of hematitic iron ore @ 44% Fe

Area F (east) : 14 million tonnes of hematitic iron ore @ 49% Fe

         including 7 million tonnes @ 59% Fe.

Other work completed during 2009 included trial ground EM surveys, detailed helimag survey over most of the tenement area, and a gravity survey at area F (east).   The gravity and magnetic surveys show that the hematite mineralisation can be mapped out in areas under cover using these geophysical techniques.   This opens up the potential target exploration area to over 200 square kilometres.

In 2010 WDR will carry out further mapping and drilling to refine resource definition and explore other target areas within the tenement group.