taa annnouncement

Very positive announcement from Tantalum. Sounds like money for nothing.

Al Baby
(A long suffering shareholder)

TANTALUM AUSTRALIA NL 2003-03-21 ASX-SIGNAL-G

HOMEX - Perth

+++++++++++++++++++++++++
HIGHLIGHTS

* Agreement reached to acquire the prospective Gascoyne
tantalum/niobium project

* Joint venture negotiated to acquire up to a 78% interest in a major
rare metal (tantalum/niobium/yttrium) resource at the Brockman
project in the Kimberley

* Based on current world market prices for tantalum, niobium and
yttrium oxides in concentrate the open pitable resource has an in
ground value in excess of $750 million.

* Offtake agreement reached with a European refiner with respect to
columbite concentrate from Gascoyne. Columbite and tantalite are end
members of the same mineral species. Columbite is the niobium rich
end member and is a major source of the worlds tantalum raw material
supply. Tantalum Australia has received several enquiries from
potential customers for supply of columbite rich concentrates.

Tantalum Australia NL ("TAA") is pleased to announce agreements have
been reached for the acquisition of two tantalum/niobium projects in
the Gascoyne and Kimberley regions of Western Australia. In addition
the company has executed a supply contract with a European rare metal
refiner to off take the concentrate produced from the Gascoyne
project. These acquisitions are consistent with the company's
objective of building a world class resource base of tantalum and
associated rare metal resources in response to potential
customer/strategic partner requirements.

GASCOYNE PROJECT

BACKGROUND

The Gascoyne project covers an area of 400 square kilometres and is
located about 120 kilometres north northeast of Gascoyne Junction in
the Gascoyne Mineral Field of Western Australia. The project
tenements include two granted mining leases of 3 square kilometres
and three exploration licences totalling about 400 square kilometres.
Historically tantalum and niobium have been produced from several
localities in the region the most significant being from the Arthur
River and Nardoo Well/Morrissey Hill areas. Significant production of
mica has also been recovered from underground mines at the Mica King
and Mica Queen.

RESOURCE

Tantalite has been produced predominantly from alluvial/eluvial
sources; however a large swarm of rare metal pegmatites stretches in
an east west arc across the area for a strike length of about 60
kilometres. Niobium rich columbite has been produced from a
kaolinised pegmatite at Arthur River and will be the focus of early
bulk sampling and exploration of the project as this product is in
significant demand. The only other sources in the world of this
product are Brazil and Nigeria. Customers requiring this product have
indicated that they are looking for new stable sources of supply.

TAA will install a 50 tonne per hour jig plant at Arthur River at an
estimated cost of $300,000 during April to assess the production
potential for columbite and alluvial tantalite. The components for
this plant have been sourced from the parts of the circuit at
Dalgaranga that are no longer required for the recovery of the fine
grained tantalite found in the Niobe deposit. Rare Resources NL ( the
current owners of the property) have all the necessary statutory
approvals and bonds in place for an initial 50,000 tonne mining/
production campaign, meaning, production can be commenced by the end
of April 2003.

Trench sampling at the Arthur River prospect of alluvial/eluvial
targets and an outcropping kaolinised pegmatite has identified
potential resources of 40,000bcm at 150 to 200ppm Ta2O5 and 150,000
to 200,000 tonnes at 2000ppm Nb2O5 respectively. Both targets will be
evaluated by the sampling programme described above.

ACQUISITION

The terms of the acquisition involve TAA completing a takeover of the
tenement holder Rare Resources NL ("Rare") by issuing about 3 million
shares in return for 100% of Rare. The offer will be conditional on
100% acceptance by Rare shareholders; if TAA is unable to reach 100%
Rare will effect a direct sale of the tenements to TAA in return for
the shares. In addition, TAA will pay to Rare on production and sale
of 20,000 lbs Ta2O5 $300,000 in cash or as an equivalent issue of
shares (at the option of TAA) based on the prevailing TAA share
price. A second payment on identical terms to the first will be due
on production and sale of cumulate 50,000 lbs Ta2O5 or equivalent.

BROCKMAN PROJECT

Brockman JV Tantalum Australia (TAA) & Aztec Resources (AZR)

BACKGROUND

The Brockman project is situated in the east Kimberley district
approximately 18km southeast of Halls Creek and covers 20 square
kilometres held by Aztec Resources Ltd. The Duncan Highway is a
graded gravel road extending from Halls Creek and passes within 5km
of the target area of the project.

This project, discovered in the early 1980s, was subjected to intense
exploration and metallurgical testing in an attempt to rapidly
exploit its zirconium and rare earth resources. The presence of
niobium and tantalum was known from early stages of exploration but
has never been the focus of any development. All the zirconium, Rare
Earth Elements (REE) and niobium minerals occur in a zone of a
discrete trachytic tuff unit that is termed the "Niobium Tuff".
Whilst extending through 3.5km of strike the stratigraphic unit is
locally thickened from which zones the reported resources of 4.3
million tonnes derive and is weathered to 30 metres depth. The unit
crops-out well and, from drilling, appears to dip approximately 60deg
easterly.

RESOURCE

This world class project comprises measured indicated and inferred
resources (non JORC) of approximately 50 million tonnes at 4,400ppm
Nb2O5, 270ppm Ta2O5, 1240ppm Y2O3, 110ppm Ga, 350ppm HfO2, 900ppm REE
and 1.03% ZrO2. Open pitable resources (non JORC) to 70 metres depth
were estimated to be 4.29 million tonnes at average grades of 270ppm
Ta2O5 is and 4,400ppm Nb2O5 with an estimated stripping ratio of 4:1.
The resource is open along strike and at depth. Based on current
world market prices for tantalum, niobium and yttrium oxides in
concentrate the open pitable resource has an in ground value of $750
million. This value does not include the REE and Zirconia.

The project has been modelled as a REE resource with little attention
paid to the production of niobium and tantalum, except where these
elements may be used to add revenue to the total resource. That is,
specific attention to the preferential extraction of the rare metals
(eg tantalum, niobium and yttrium) does not appear to have been a
priority. CSIRO was engaged to develop a system for the extraction of
REE and specific elements such as zirconium and yttrium. This system
involved sulphation, water leaching and solvent extraction and
resulted in recoveries of about 65% Nb2O5 and 8% Ta2O5.

METALLURGY

TAA will focus on metallurgical test work followed by a feasibility
study into production of a mineral concentrate for sale to refiners
that maximises recovery of niobium and tantalum from the oxide
section of the deposit. The test work will pursue simple gravity
recovery and will be undertaken at TAA's metallurgical facility at
Balcatta.

Columbite being the major niobium/tantalum bearing mineral in this
deposit is a great advantage as it is the preferred feedstock mineral
for many refiners and can be separated from the other mineral species
by gravity and wet magnetic separation.

TAA REFINING PROCESS

The potential application of TAA's new refining process, the subject
of an R&D programme with Boston University (as previously announced),
to the concentrates produced from Brockman will be assessed as part
of the metallurgical evaluation programme to potentially optimise
recovery of rare metals from the deposit.

JOINT VENTURE

The terms of the farm in give TAA the right to earn 60% by the
expenditure of $1,500,000 within three years and a total of 78% by
the expenditure of an additional $2,000,000 within five years. TAA
can withdraw at any time after the expenditure of $150,000 within the
first year and if it elects to earn 78% will fund the next $2,500,000
of expenditure to be repaid out of 100% of the profits derived from
future production from the project.

SALES CONTRACT

TAA has executed a contact with a European refiner for the supply,
subject to TAA board approval, of 60 tonnes of columbite concentrates
(containing 50% Nb2O5 and 5% Ta2O5) from the Gascoyne project. This
contract will consume all the concentrates produced during the
initial three month evaluation phase of the project and includes a
provision for extension once evaluation of the future production
potential has been completed. If the contract is extended it would
have a yearly value of at least $1.25 million without any increase in
monthly volumes, however the customer has indicated the volumes
required my increase by up to 300% subject to quality and
availability.

TAA has received several approaches from overseas refiners who
require supply of the columbite product similar to that found at the
Gascoyne project. The world market for Niobium is in excess of 60
million pounds contained Nb2O5 per annum and has been more stable and
consistent than the market for tantalum over the last 12 months.
Given the size of the Brockman resource TAA is actively pursuing
additional customers who have already approached the company looking
for supply of niobium concentrates in particular.

DALGARANGA PROJECT UPDATE

Future operations will focus on processing feed from the Niobe
deposit whilst this deposit is higher grade than the Dalgaranga
deposit the mineralisation is finer grained and will require only the
spiral and table section of the existing treatment plant. The coarse
recovery jig circuit will not be require and has been removed and
transported to the companies Balcatta facility for reconfiguration
into the bulk sampling plant to be used at the Gascoyne project and
possibly at the Binneringie project. This effectively creates two
recovery plants from the existing circuit and will allow simultaneous
operation of Dalgaranga and Gascoyne if necessary. Production at
Dalgaranga has been halted during this reconfiguration.

For further information contact Michael Fotios.

P Farrah
COMPANY SECRETARY