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.
The Roper Bar tenement area totals almost 2,100 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.
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 March 2009 extended the known area of outcropping iron mineralisation to 55 square km, some of which yielded surface samples assaying over 60% Fe.
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.
Mining development will start at the DSO (direct shipping ore) at Area F (east). Mining, infrastructure, environmental and community studies and consultation processes have commenced. A conveyor or short haul road 50 kilometres to the coast is envisaged as the optimum transport solution. A barging operation would then take the ore to a Cape size vessel in the Gulf of Carpentaria. After Darwin, this is closest shipping point from Australia to the Asian steel mills.
The current timetable incorporates initial export of 1.5mtpa. Investigations into beneficiation of the lower grade ore are underway.
Whilst development plans are in train, WDR intend to carry out further mapping and drilling to refine resource definition and explore other target areas within the tenement group. It is planned to complete 20,000 metres of drilling in the second half of 2010, targetting 600-800mt of iron ore at grades of 40%-65% Fe.*


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