Overview of Projects
Introduction
Rubicon Resources Limited (Rubicon) controls approximately 7,000 km² of prospective tenements in six main project areas in Western Australia and one in Queensland. Rubicon's project portfolio consists of large contiguous areas within highly mineralised provinces, including the Western Australian Goldfields (Yindarlgooda, Celia, Desdemona, Erlistoun and Bencubbin), the Musgrave Province (Warburton) and the Mt Isa block (Canobie).
The Company has 100% ownership and exploration rights to the majority of its tenements, but within the Yindarlgooda, Desdemona and Erlistoun projects, Heron Resources Limited either retains nickel exploration and mining rights on Rubicon tenements overlying ultramafic rocks or retains the tenement and Rubicon has all non-nickel exploration and mining rights.
Project Summaries
The Warburton Project comprises 2,900 km² of exploration licences within the western Musgrave Province. This largely unexplored terrain has the potential for stratabound sediment-hosted copper (eg. Mt Isa and Michigan Copper belt) as demonstrated by previous exploration and Rubicon's work to date. The Warburton Project is being explored in conjunction with major Rubicon shareholder Vale Australia EA Pty Ltd, which is funding expenditure to earn an initial 51% interest in the project. Vale may earn up to 75% of the project by sole funding all work up to a decision to mine. Rubicon is managing the exploration programme.
The Yindarlgooda Project comprises approximately 950 km² of tenure centred 55 km east of Kalgoorlie. The project comprises both gold and Volcanogenic Massive Sulphide-style (VMS) base metals occurrences. Known gold mineralisation within Rubicon tenure occurs at Queen Lapage, Taurus and QE1 and Rubicon's tenements are located adjacent to the 400,000 ounce Salt Creek gold deposit. Rubicon has entered into four separate joint ventures with Integra Mining Limited, St Barbara Limited, Dominion Mining Limited and Empire Resources Limited with collective potential earn-in commitments of $7.9 million.
The Celia Project comprises approximately 800 km² of tenure over the southern part of the Laverton Tectonic Zone, one of Australia's most productive gold provinces. Mainly acquired through open ground acquisition during 2009, Rubicon has secured tenure adjacent to and along strike of the Sunrise Dam, Granny Smith, Safari Bore, Butcher Well and Kangaroo Bore gold deposits. The leases also encompass parts of the ultramafic belt that hosts the Eucalyptus Bore nickel laterite mineralisation.
The Desdemona Project comprises approximately 1,200 km² of tenements located to the southeast of Leonora. This includes leases adjacent to the historical Kookynie gold mining centres of Cosmopolitan, Butterfly, Orient Well and Niagara with 500,000 ounces of past production and leases along the Keith-Kilkenny Fault Zone. The western part of the project has the southern continuation of the sequence that hosts the Teutonic Bore and Jaguar VMS base metal deposits to the north of Rubicon's tenements.
The Bencubbin Project consists of 200 km² of tenure located north of Merredin and covering the Bencubbin greenstone belt. A strong gold-in-auger anomaly was generated in the early 1990s returned up to 12m @ 2.2g/t gold in follow up drilling.
The Erlistoun Project comprises two exploration licences located approximately 70 km north of Laverton.
The Wyloo Project comprises a single exploration licence located south of Karratha targeting channel iron deposits beneath recent alluvial drainages.
The Canobie Project in Queensland comprises six exploration permits totalling 1,330 km² over magnetic, gravity and structural targets in the covered northeastern part of the strongly mineralised Mt Isa Inlier.
