New Millennium Resources is developing the world’s richest deposit of niobium.

Ever heard of niobium? This almost unknown metal is fast becoming an exciting one in the world of rare metallic elements. Even more exciting for New Millennium Resources NL (NMR) is the company’s discovery of high-grade niobium deposits in Greenland, where NMR has acquired mining tenements to extract the rare metal.

Growing world demand for niobium
Niobium has already become essential in a variety of industrial fields, with the largest market (85%) in high strength, low-alloy steel production. It is used to strengthen steel because it doesn’t corrode, it is a good shock absorber and it also improves high-temperature strength (niobium has a melting point of 2468°C). This creates a product suitable for the manufacture of gas pipelines, automobile components and structural steel.

The remaining 15% of the market for niobium covers a variety of value-added high-tech uses in the growing electronics and aerospace industries – including superconductors for efficient transport of power.

For example, each standard jet engine uses more than 300kg of niobium. With technological breakthroughs continually emerging, so too do new uses that demand niobium.

NMR
New Millennium Resources is a Western Australian mining company, backed by international investors and the first private company in Australia to list directly on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) in London.

Managing Director Mr Chong-Kiat Lim says that NMR’s goal is to develop the company’s niobium project in Greenland. Following its initial exploration success, NMR has strategically pegged most of the available areas in Greenland that have the potential for significant deposits of niobium, tantalum and other rare earths.

NMR currently holds four licences in Greenland, one of which includes the Sarfartoq tenement, containing a rich deposit of niobium and tantalum in economic grades that are unusually high compared with any other deposit throughout the world. A 1998 drilling programme on one site (Sarfartoq 1) within this 104km2 tenement, over a strike length of 100m and to a depth of only 30m, established the 35,000 tonnes at the surface of the deposit has a conservative in-ground value of A$105m, (without potential tantalum values). NMR now seeks to develop an operational ‘boutique’ mine to exploit the rich, surface-exposed niobium deposit.

Satellite, aeromagnetic and radiometric surveys conducted in 2000 indicate many additional potential deposits.

Unique extraction process
To develop its unique chemical extraction process, NMR used in-house expertise provided by two former industrial chemists from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and a team from the Applied Chemistry Department of the Curtin University of Technology in Western Australia.

The process involves the leaching of ore using inexpensive chemicals and a special catalyst. A niobium recovery rate of greater than 90% is reported, compared with conventional rates of around 70-75% in other mines around the world. The process has the capacity to produce a top-grade niobium oxide for use in the high-value, emerging-technology end of the market.

A strong future
In developing its Greenland project, NMR has designed an innovative, world-class processing and transport method to efficiently exploit the deposit and maximise profits.

NMR has contacted a number of potential buyers in Europe, the US, China and Japan, all of whom have expressed interest in playing a commercial role in the sale of the company’s product.

NMR recently appointed Worley, Australia’s leading private engineering company, to commence work on a Bank-able Feasibility Study for the Greenland niobium project, making New Millennium Resources well-placed to become a significant new player in the world of niobium and tantalum. Mining operations are planned to commence in 2003.

For further information:
Telephone: + 61 8 9368 0388
Fax +61 8 9368 0588
Email:
info@new-millennium.com.au
Website:
www.new-millennium.com.au