Starting to make news...from todays Australian....LOCAL...

Starting to make news...from todays Australian....


LOCAL investors seem happy to throw caution to the wind if it's a big copper strike, or gold find, or -- indeed -- trillions of cubic feet of coal-seam gas. But mineral sands have a habit of inducing little more than a stifled yawn.

Which is what happened with the latest pronouncement from Diatreme Resources (DRX) announcing a 50 per cent increase in its resource at the Cyclone project in the West Australian section of the Eucla Basin.

This brings the mineral sands resource to 2.8 million tonnes of contained heavy minerals.

By way of contrast, the Jacinth-Ambrosia project in the South Australian part of the Eucla has a resource of 9.5 million contained tonnes. There Iluka Resources (ILU) has committed $420 million for development.

But it must be remembered that Diatreme has yet to drill several satellite deposits or Cyclone East. Diatreme has another 2446 drill assay results coming in over the next few weeks.

Executive chairman Tony Fawdon has gone on record during the week with the assertion that Cyclone is potentially the biggest single heavy minerals deposit in the Eucla. Moreover, 33 per cent of the deposit is zircon, the most valuable of the metals.

But it doesn't end there. The mineral body does not stop at Diatreme's southern border, and Image Resources (IMA) is waiting for its drill results to come in covering IMA's extension of the body.

Pure Speculation has long taken an interest in Image because of its Cooljarloo mineral sands project north of Perth, but good results from its Eucla drilling would add a new dimension.

The other piece of good news is that both juniors are of a mind to work together to develop the Eucla mineral sands find.