BMG Resources’ Dragon project looking to harness West Arunta’s emerging niobium-REE district
BMG Resources (ASX: BMG) has announced promising results from an ongoing review of historical exploration data for the Dragon niobium-rare earth elements project in Western Australia’s emerging West Arunta region.
Government-generated geophysical surveys and exploration reports by historical and current explorers have been used to identify several coincident structural and magnetic features with similarities to the nearby world-class Luni discovery owned by WA1 Resources (ASX: WA1) and Encounter Resources’ (ASX: ENR) Aileron project.
The features are reported to be located along or near structures that could have served as conduits for potential carbonatite intrusions and represent priority exploration targets for BMG.
BMG non-executive chair John Prineas said the review would present new opportunities for the company.
“Our exploration review of the Dragon tenure is ongoing and we are excited to see potential ‘look-a-like’ targets to the Luni-style carbonatite emerging on this under-explored ground,” he said.
“Exploration ground in the West Arunta is highly sought after following the significant Luni discovery.”
“BMG an outstanding opportunity to acquire a large landholding adjacent to [that] project—an opportunity we believe this could provide our company with a pathway to potentially replicate some of WA1’s success.”
Emerging district
The West Arunta region is an emerging world-class district for niobium-REE mineralisation and is home to active explorers including Rio Tinto (ASX: RIO), CGN Resources (ASX: CGR) and MTM Critical Metals (ASX: MTM).
The Dragon project has a total tenement area of 1470 square kilometres, making it one of the largest landholdings in the West Arunta and positioning BMG as a major player in the field.
Mr Prineas said the company had planned a series of close-spaced, high-resolution geophysical surveys to better delineate drill targets at Dragon.
On-ground field mapping as well as geochemical sampling of outcrop and soils will also be completed.
Critical metal
Niobium has been classified as a critical metal by the Australian government and a strategic metal by the US government for its importance to sectors such as defence, clean energy and aerospace.
Niobium is used to produce ferroniobium for use as an alloy in the steel industry to improve the strength and mechanical properties of the metal.
A key growth market is the production of niobium oxide, which is increasingly used in technology and clean energy and is already widely-used for superconductive magnets and capacitors, magnetic resonance imaging equipment and optical lenses.
Lithium-ion market
Recent developments in lithium-ion battery technology have created another rapidly-expanding market for niobium, enabling the development of batteries with fast-charging capabilities, stable delivery of high energy densities, improved safety, longer durability and enhanced battery life.
Brazil currently produces 90% of the world’s niobium supply and there has been a push to diversify supply sources to other tier 1 jurisdictions including Australia.