MINERAL SANDS EXPLORATION

Murray Basin

The Murray Basin covers 300,000 km2 in the three states of New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia and is regarded as a world class mineral sands province. Approximately five million years ago, the Basin extended north from the current South Australian coastal regions to foot hills of the Barrier Ranges at Broken Hill and further east than the current course of the Darling River.

The host unit for mineral sands deposits within the Murray Basin is the Loxton Parilla Sands, a sequence of weakly consolidated bedded sands that were deposited during marine transgressions and regressions in the mid to late Pliocene period. Large ocean swells and prevailing south-westerly winds formed several beach barrier systems on which heavy mineral sands deposits were formed. Sea level fluctuations led to both transgression and regression of the shoreline yielding coarse grained heavy mineral deposits on the beaches that are the focus for exploration today. Exploration in the Murray Basin has been successful in discovering a total of over 100 million tonnes of coarse grained heavy mineral.

Bemax has focussed on the northern part of the Murray Basin and has developed a portfolio of project areas that should support long term mineral sands production.

Bemax continues to aggressively explore its tenements in NSW and northern Victoria which cover an area of greater than 9,000 km2.

South West Western Australia

Two prospective regions exist in this area, the Swan Coastal Plain, and the Scott Coastal Plain, on the Southern Coast.

The Swan coastal plain lies between the Darling Scarp and the sea, and is a feature of Western Australian Geography, stretching from Geraldton to Busselton. Although the southern coast has a number of mineral sand deposits, only two operations have taken place in this province.

Bemax is mining and exploring its resources in Western Australia through its wholly owned subsidiary, Cable Sands. Cable Sands has had a lengthy exploration presence in this region, developing projects to supply the Bunbury Mineral Separation Plant. The area is mature in terms of exploration potential but there is still potential for HM deposits to occur that could be economically treated at Bunbury. Mining has continued during the year at the Tutunup South and Ludlow Deposits. The Gwindinup Mine was commissioned in March 2008. The Gwindinup Mine (including the Happy Valley North and Happy Valley South extension) has an approximate nine-year mine life.