The Tasmanian Government has announced that 12 drilling projects will receive a total funding of more than $766,000 as part of the latest round of successful projects under the Tasmanian Exploration Drilling Grant Initiative (EDGI).
The EDGI program provides up to $70,000 for direct drilling costs and $20,000 for helicopter support, if required, for successful applicants wanting to undertake mineral exploration.
The round eight successful projects include:
- ABx4 at the Wind Break Rare Earth Element project
- Columbus Metals projects:
- Razorback
- Carbine Hill East
- Evenden
- Edrill at East Denison
- Flynn Gold projects:
- Mangana
- Firetower
- Warrentinna
- Moina Gold projects:
- Basin Lake
- All Nations
- Tarcoola Iron at North Scamander
- Yunnan Tin Australia TDK at Anchor Tin Deeps
All successful applicants are targeting Category 1 (metallic) minerals.
Tasmanian Minister for Resources, Felix Ellis, said the Tasmanian Government is backing the mining industry to grow, which may help discover Tassie’s next new mine.
“These newly approved projects will deliver nearly six kilometres of exploration drilling and more than $2.1 million spent by industry,” Mr Ellis said.
“As our number one economic earner, the mining and mineral processing sector contributes more than $3 billion a year in exports and supports more than 5,200 jobs.”
Mr Ellis said this was the first round of grants to specifically encourage exploration for critical minerals for defence manufacturing and clean energy, such as tungsten, cobalt and rare earths.
“In recent years, our country has shifted focus to find local sources of the minerals needed for battery and defence manufacturing,” Mr Ellis said.
“Tasmania is supporting industry by developing our own critical minerals strategy and this is an important first step.
“We are a small state but we punch above our weight in some critical minerals categories – at least four of these 12 projects have strong critical minerals potential.
“It is fitting that a state whose history is proudly based on renewable energy is now helping to uncover the minerals that will help the rest of the world follow in our footsteps.”
