Exploration and Evaluation of Kintyre Rio Tinto Exploration (formerly known as CRA Exploration) has been conducting a multi-commodity search in the Rudall Region intermittently since 1972 and continuously since 1976. The area is highly prospective for uranium, gold, platinum group metals and base metals. Rio Tinto Exploration tenements cover 4,900 sq km inside and outside the Rudall River National Park, as shown in figure 1. So far, uranium has been found in significant quantities and highly favourable geological settings for other minerals have been delineated. The Kintyre Deposit The Kintyre orebody was discovered by Rio Tinto Exploration in 1985 through surface follow up of a number of radiometric anomalies which had been detected during an airborne survey of the company's leases in the Rudall region. Ground surveys and initial drilling established the presence of a significant orebody at Kintyre, identified from a very small surface outcrop.

As figure 2 shows, there are three adjacent areas of mineralisation, Pioneer, Whale, and Nerada. Significant geological potential exists to add to these reserves and to discover new orebodies in the immediate area. Kintyre Geology The geometry of the Kintyre orebody is represented in section by a shallow dipping lens, highly amenable to open pit mining, with a maximum depth of 150 metres from the surface. Uranium ore occurs in narrow high grade veins which are concentrated in discrete zones. The main ore mineral is coarse pitchblende with minor accessories such as native bismuth, copper, lead and zinc sulphides, gold, platinum and palladium. A number of gold intersections of 4 to 15g/t over 0.5 metres have been detected, commonly in, or adjacent to, pitchblende veins. The Kintyre deposit lies within Lower Proterozoic metamorphic rocks which were originally a sedimentary assemblage of limestones, black shales, sandy shales, quartzites and iron formations. These basement rocks have been raised to very high temperatures and deformed by folding a fracturing. Younger Proterozoic sandstones overlie the metamorphic rocks at a contact known as 'unconformity'. This contact extends over the whole Rudall region which, although originally flat-lying, is now tightly folded and sheared. These contacts are critical in the formation and preservation of the 'unconformity - vein style' uranium ores. Kintyre lies very close to an unconformity with the overlying sandstones. The uranium ore at Kintyre lies within a sheared and altered chlorite schist, in contact with dolomitic limestones and graphitic schists. Shearing has also occurred across the formation, contributing to the localisation of the high grade portion of the orebody.

Regional Exploration Programme - The Rudall Potential Kintyre covers approximately three square kilometres, only a very small part of Rio Tinto Exploration's tenements. The work undertaken to date by Rio Tinto Exploration on the balance of the tenements has involved remote sensing, airborne geophysics, ground follow up and reconnaissance drilling activities. It has been sufficient to show that, as well as hosting uranium, the rudall province is highly prospective for a range of minerals including gold, platinum group metals and base metals. In addition, many uranium anomalies have been detected by airborne geophysics throughout the province, some of which rank higher (as surface radiometric expressions) than Kintyre. At Mount Cotten, some 80km to the south-east of Kintyre, a high grade intersection of 1.5 percent U3O8 was obtained from drilling in the late 1970s. The conclusion is that the Rudall region is of the same age and contains similar rocks and structural framework as the Alligator River region in the Northern Territory and the Athabasca region is Saskatchewan, Canada, currently the most important uranium province in the world. The economic mineral potential of the region is therefore world class.