Oscar Resources Limited' Mt Oscar Projects are situated in the town of Roebourne. The Mt Oscar Projects consist of two tenements covering ~163Km2 totally, i.e. Mt Oscar Main E47/1379 and Mt Oscar North E47/1378, which are held by Oscar Resources No. 1 Pty Ltd, a subsidiary of Oscar Resources Limited (the Company). The Mt Oscar Projects are comprised of Mt Oscar iron ore project (E47/1379), Mt Oscar gold project (E47/1378) and Mt Oscar lithium project (E47/1378). Any other mineral rights at the tenement E47/1379 are not included in the Mt Oscar Projects. The Projects are geographically well situated, being 25km south of the port at Cape Lambert and close to the proposed Port Anketell. The Projects are close to existing roads, rail, water, power and gas, and the township of Karratha, a major regional center with an airport.
Location of Tenements (Grey Colored) at Karratha in the West Pilbara, WA
Mt Oscar Iron Ore Project
The Company is advancing exploration over a large-scale, outcropping, magnetite-bearing banded iron formation (BIF) from the Cleaverville Formation. Previous geological mapping of the Cleaverville Formation had identified several distinct BIF units at Mt Oscar Main (E47/1379) with a total length of 6km strike. An extra 5km strike length was indentified later. So the total strike length of iron mineralisation is 11km.
Among the 11km strike length of iron mineralization present at Mt Oscar Iron Ore Project, about half of the total strike length is magnetite with a significant exploration target of 300-500 Mt of magnetite resources at 31-37%Fe, to 250m down dip beneath surface, which is currently the Company's main focus. Magnetite resources is open below 250m up to 450m down dip. The rest half is haematite mineralization and possibly with DSO, which was not in the development agenda. It would significantly increase production capacity or mine production life if this portion of haematite could be extracted and processed to be viable economically.
Among the 80 surface rock chip samples collected in the early exploration stage across the iron ore perspective area at Mt Oscar, the highest iron grade assayed was 55.82%Fe, which is close to DSO Fe grade. This simply means that sample's iron-rich layer was a lot thicker than iron-poor chert layer. BIF iron mineralisation at Mt Oscar is with thickness of the layered iron oxides (Fe3O4 and/or Fe2O3) from a few milimeters to a few centimeters. Testing of the Mt Oscar ore shows a trend towards rejection of tails at coarse sizes with dry magnetic separation (DMS), and when extrapolated to 8mm shows potentially 35% of tailings being rejected, which compares positively to other nearby projects, saving processing costs.
Outcropping Banded Magnetite Ore at Mt Oscar, and Hammer Broken Magnetite Outcrop Having 16 mm Thickness of Iron Oxides (Fe3O4) with Almost Free of Impurities in the Middle Picture
Mt Oscar Iron Ore Project has a number of significant advantages in that it is close to existing and planned ports, rail and road infrastructure, in the vicinity of the Pilbara regional centre of Karratha; and the outcropping nature of the BIF in prominent ridges up to 150 metres above the surrounding plain enabling the project to be suitable for favourable mining parameters.
Outcropping BIF Ore in Prominent Ridges up to 150 Metres Above the Surrounding Plain at Mt Oscar. Middle Picture with View Looking West Along Southern Flank of Magnetite-Bearing BIF Unit C, Vehicles Providing Scale
Breakthrough Technologies to Extract and Recover Iron Ore
Mt Oscar Iron Ore Project's prime location is one of the most important factors for the Project to be operating economically.
Other important factors impacting on the economics of the project include generating products with higher Fe grade and lower impurities, and recovering as much of iron ore as possible with suitable processing technologies, techniques and flowsheets to lower operating costs and increase selling prices.
With many years of research and testwork, Oscar Resources' metallurgical team has gained insight into the beneficiation characteristics of Mt Oscar iron ore, trying hard to work out suitable and cost-effective ore processing technologies, techniques and flowsheets for development of the Project, particularily the haematite which was previously thought to be of little value to develop, identifying breakthrough technologies such as Elutriated Magnetic Separation (EMS) and Ore Sorting Technology based on machine vision (OST), and developing innovative processing flowsheets, all of which would bring significant economic benefits to the Project.
With application of EMS to replace flotation, the quality and yield of magnetite concentrates would be significantly improved with a reduced operating cost. A better rejection of tails would be achieved at the crushed ore sizes at 8mm with OST to replace DMS for Mt Oscar iron ore.
Mt Oscar Gold and Lithium Projects
Mt Oscar Gold and Lithium Projects are related to Mt Oscar North tenemnt E47/1378.
Geological mapping shows there are three styles of mineralization possible within tenement E47/1378. Deposit models to be considered are as follows:
- Conglomerate gold [Au]
- Orogenic/shear zone gold [Au]
- Intrusive hosted Nickel & Copper [Ni-Cu]
All require the presence of greenstone rocks within the bedrock.
Mt Oscar Gold Project
Surface soil sampling programs designed based on the geological mapping were carreied out which included four passes of surface soil sampling of nearly 2000 samples. Assay results from the surface soil sampling program confirmed presence of gold, silver and arsenic mineralisation at Mt Oscar North Tenement. Among the five target areas two of them are selected for the first round of drilling work to achieve a gold resource.
A Satellite Resource Tracker (SRT) scan for gold over the project area was completed in 2023. SRT scans show there is gold present through this tenement, however, it is of weaker grade (up to 3 g per ton), most likely shallow deposits contained in water runs, which is probably related to the eroded conglomerate gold as most of the surface rocks across tenement E47/1378 are transported cover (estimated to be around 20m).
Mt Oscar Lithium Project
Oscar Resources has a significant and strategic tenement land holding of 58 km2, adjacent to the recently discovered lithium projects.
Mt Oscar Lithium Project is situated just to the south of the Andover Lithium Project of Azure Minerals, which is potentially a World class lithium project, with an Exploration Target of 100 – 240 million tonnes grading at 1.0 – 1.5% Li2O. In addition, there are also lithium discoveries in the tenements adjacent to Andover Lithium Project and Mt Oscar Lithium Project.
Previous surface soil sampling results indicate that there is the presence of greenstone rocks within the bedrock under the transported cover in E47/1378. This suggests the tenement is prospective for intrusive hosted battery metals such as lithium, nickel and copper, along with gold.