Taken from website incase anyone missed it... N E W S• R E L E A...

Taken from website incase anyone missed it...


N E W S
• R E L E A S E •

Monday February 9, 2009

AFRICAN BOOST FOR AUSTRALIA’S BONAPARTE TO
DEVELOP WORLD FIRST OFFSHORE PHOSPHATE PROJECT

An Australian-backed joint venture has gained two major breakthroughs to access and develop some of the richest known marine phosphate concentrations off the West African coast of Namibia.
Australia’s Bonaparte Diamond Mines NL and its joint venture partners announced today they had been awarded a two year licence extension, and a new exploration block, to back their bid to establish the world’s first underwater phosphate mine within the next two to three years.
The licence award is a boost for Perth-based Bonaparte (ASX code:BON) and Brisbane-based Union Resources Limited (ASX code:UCL) – which each own a 42.5% stake in the Sandpiper-Meob phosphate joint venture - with the remaining 15% held by Namibian-based Tungeni Investments cc.
The two year renewal, to 2010, has been granted for one of Sandpiper-Meob’s flagship tenements, EPL3323, about 170 kilometres southwest of the Namibian coastal port of Walvis Bay.
The EPL3323 acreage covers 1,000km2 and incorporates the project’s maiden JORC-compliant Inferred Mineral Resource of 196.1 million tonnes at 15.8% P2O5 (‘phosphate”) announced by Bonaparte last month.
As well, the Bonaparte partnership has been granted an additional nearby licence area, EPL4010, comprising some 1,000km2 for an initial term of three years with the new licence being located in the group of joint venture tenements lying to the west of EPL3323.
The Company said today the latest approvals now delivered the joint venture access to a licence area of approximately 6,000km2 comprising six granted licences incorporating the majority of regional high grade phosphate mineralised zones.
The joint venture has a further two applications before Namibian mining authorities to extend the total project area by a further 2,000km2 to 8,000km2.
“The joint venture now holds a major part of the most extensive and richest known concentrations of marine phosphate mineralisation off that part of the southwest African coastline,” Bonaparte’s Managing Director, Mr Mike Woodborne, said today.
“This gives us critical exploration mass over the most prospective ground best able to deliver our objective of commercial underwater phosphate mining in the near-term,” Mr Woodborne said.
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“With the licence extension and the approval of additional acreage secured, our immediate focus is moving to define a core of phosphate resource within the expanded project area to now support plans for earliest possible mining.”
2009 sampling and assaying campaign commenced
The joint venture’s 2009 marine sampling campaign across the project has commenced, and subject to seasonal weather conditions, Mr Woodborne expects it to be completed in the next few weeks.
Bonaparte says the joint venture is on also on track to announce by the end of March, an upgraded resource estimate comprising both Inferred and Indicated categories.
“The new estimate will include the first resource contribution from two blocks, EPL3414 and EPL3415, immediately to the west and southwest of EPL3323, plus an upgraded estimate from EPL3323’s maiden resource,” Mr Woodborne said.
“Significantly, we are undertaking additional core sampling in a section of EPL3323 to define an Indicated Resource sufficient to support the project’s transition to maiden pre-feasibility studies,” Mr Woodborne said.
“The maiden JORC inferred mineral resource of 196 million tonnes was derived from work only within average sediment thicknesses of 40 centimetres. As subsequent coring work completed to date has indicated that the mineralised sediments extend up to 1.2m thickness in places, the scope for enhanced resources is robust.”

Background – Offshore Namibian phosphate project
Under a deal signed in October last year (2008), Bonaparte, Union and Tungeni pooled their marine phosphate interests in the offshore Namibian region to create and jointly develop the combined phosphate prospective footprint of 8,000 km2.
Bonaparte and its JV partners have set a first production deadline of 2011 for the project at an initial 3mtpa of rock phosphate, doubling to 6mtpa as demand allows.
The JV plans to become a supplier to downstream customers for rock phosphate in America, Europe and Asia and who are not vertically integrated back to their own mines.
Union have results from previous work on an initial pilot plant test of the Namibian phosphate sediments in the Sandpiper deposit that shows that a good quality merchant grade phosphoric acid can be produced.
While there is no other marine phosphate mine in the world, modern dredging technology, its successful application in alluvial mining, and continued strong prices globally for phosphate, are encouraging a re-assessment of ocean mining options for easily accessible, large, near-shore phosphate deposits.
Such bulk dredging of seabed sediments is already used around the world by international dredging companies and is used to extract marine diamonds off Namibia, tin off Indonesia, and potentially gold, iron sands, copper and zinc in the near future.