According to John Prineas, West Desert is a well-endowed deposit...

According to John Prineas, West Desert is a well-endowed deposit containing 1.3 Mt of zinc, plus copper (49 kt Cu), silver (10 Moz Ag) and gold (119 Koz Au). The specialty metal is indium with it being the largest undeveloped indium resource (24 Moz of indium) in North America, Exploration and resource activities have essentially defined a large porphyry related, zinc-indium-polymetallic skarn.

The resource is a big deposit, hence requiring a bigger capital expenditure.

Next stage AW1 is trying to get government support to complete a bankable feasibility study and action some development plans, Previous economic studies have shown around 28Mt of iron ore (grading up to 68%) could also be recovered.

AW1 do admit most of its funding will be at Storm due to the way funding was focused.

West Desert is significantly underexplored with less than 10% of the project area explored with drilling. Modern electromagnetics and gravity geophysical techniques have not been utilized for exploration at West Desert, providing potential for these modern exploration methods to identify additional mineralization.

West Desert does have a lot of value yet to be realised.

West Desert appears to be a highly promising but underexploited resource deposit. Overcoming funding hurdles and implementing modern exploration methods could unlock its full potential.