Iron Road Limited

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The Eyre Peninsula, running the coast of the Southern Ocean in South Australia, has been a well-established iron mining hotspot for many years now. Discovered in the 1870s, this impressive resource-bountiful region plays host to projects from some of the world’s most exciting mining companies, including Iron Road Limited (“IRD” on the ASX), of Perth, Western Australia.

Formed to cater to the surging growth in the DRI and concrete markets of Asia, the Middle East and Europe, Iron Road has a healthy portfolio of projects in both South and west Australia.

In Iron Road’s 2010 Work Programme ASX press release on December 15, 2009, the company announced seven planned drilling programmes to take place this year. The first, scheduled for January 5, 2010, contained 54 holes for 12,600m at the Boo-Loo and Dolphin prospects within the company’s principle project, The Central Eyre iron project. Drilling commenced right on time, kicking off the year with a busy and encouraging January.

The Central Eyre iron project

Central Eyre is a 100 per cent-owned collection of three iron occurrences known as Warramboo, Kopi and Hambidge. Combined, these prospects offer an exploration potential of 2.8-5.7 billion tonnes magnetite gneiss and according to Iron Road’s current programme for the project, resource expansion drilling is included (which would increase the existing JORC compliant inferred resource estimate of 110Mt at the Boo-Loo prospect located within Warramboo).

This first drilling programme of 2010 sought “to better define the extent of the prospective Boo-Loo and Dolphin area,” according to Iron Road’s press release.

“This drilling programme forms part of a planned strategy to establish a long-life +10Mtpa magnetite concentrate export operation. Test work from the Stage One and Two drilling programmes indicates that a high quality concentrate may be produced from the Warramboo project area grading ~70.3 per cent iron with low impurities.”

The metallurgical test work has proved equally encouraging, indicating excellent beneficiation characteristics with good optimisation potential, which could in turn reduce operation costs. Add to this encouraging start the magnetic anomalies which occur within the Kopi and Hambidge areas, and Central Eyre’s potential becomes clear.

On January 21, 2010, Iron Road’s Drilling Programme Update release delivered more encouraging news for investors. The release reports that the drilling programme scheduled to take place at the Boo-Loo and Dolphin prospects was underway, the diamond core processing and onsite storage facility both established and commissioned, and all RC pre-collars at Boo-Loo had been completed.

On February 8, 2010, another progress-affirming report was released. Drilling at Boo-Loo and Dolphin continued accident and incident-free, each drill hole completed had intersected magnetite gneiss, the RC rig was underway ahead of schedule and 840 samples had been sent on to the analytical laboratory for XRF analysis and DTR test work.

West Gawler and Windarling Peak

Iron Road’s strategy includes investigating advanced exploration projects in close proximity to existing infrastructure. An excellent example of this is the West Gawler tenements, situated 100 kilometres from the Adelaide-Darwin Railway in South Australia.

Ideally placed near by the Central Eyre project, this 3,380 square-metre site has more than 10 areas of known iron occurrences.

Amongst the wealth of historic and modern exploration investigations and results offered up by West Gawler, are:

• The Mt. Christie deposit which underwent beneficiation test work in the 1960s by the South Australian Department of Mines, in which results of 56–65 per cent iron (Fe) and recoveries of 70–90 per cent were identified.
• Black Fellow Hill where two sub-cropping horizons of iron ore formations have returned historic grades of 46.8 iron (Fe).
• George Hill and Claude Hill where banded iron formations in the keel of a syncline have offered historic drilling intersected iron mineralisation assays of 49.9 iron (Fe) at a depth of 15–40 metres down hole.

These are the three areas of particular interest to Iron Road.

Meanwhile in Western Australia, Iron Road’s Windarling Peak Iron Project, located approximately 85 kilometres north of Koolyanobbing, brings more to the table.
Windarling is made up of three granted exploration licenses four prospecting license applications, and again illustrates Iron Road’s keen eye for placement within reach of existing infrastructure in this significant iron ore producing area.

The rail from nearby Koolyanobbing and the deepwater port of Esperance play a key part in Iron Road’s exploration activities going forward, and existing mining operations are already mining deposits as one single operation, using and trucking to this rail infrastructure before taking ore by rail on to the port. The company plans to target the potential continuation of the Windarling structure on its tenements.

The Iron Road ahead

Iron Road offers an expert team focused on project delineation, feasibility and development. Just as the employees hold an impressive and weighty track record, so does the company’s Central Eyre project.

It is this strong and reliable record which attracted the company’s cornerstone investor, the independent private equity investment firm and global resource experts, The Sentient Group.

“Sentient typically seeks potential high return projects with companies that have committed and talented management,” the investor’s website states.
With this in mind, it is not difficult to understand why Iron Road was an excellent choice for investment. As a highly-experienced miner with a strong portfolio, consistent motive for existence since its inception and superb backing, Iron Road continues to carry out the 2010 Work Programme and with this, provide promising results.

www.ironroadlimited.com.au