Alien Metals Limited (LON:UFO), a minerals exploration and development company, has provided an update on tenure and stakeholder engagement at its 100%-owned Georgina Basin iron-oxide copper-gold project in the Northern Territory, Australia.
Highlights:
| Granted Georgina Basin tenure streamlined, with four exploration licences consolidated into two licences (EL34498 and EL34499), simplifying administration, reducing ongoing tenement management costs and enabling exploration programmes to be planned across contiguous areas. |
| First Traditional Owner meeting held in relation to exploration licence applications EL32284 and EL32965, with Project Director Matt Healy meeting Traditional Owners in Tennant Creek facilitated by the Central Land Council. |
| Engagement marks the first step toward an access and exploration agreement with the Wakaya Aboriginal Land Trust, which is required before EL32284 and EL32965 can progress toward grant. |
| Technical review of historic drill core undertaken to support target ranking, including publicly available core from NDIBK10 and CWDD004, providing additional geological context for the concealed East Tennant province and Alien’s Georgina Basin tenure. |
| CWDD004 provides important geological context close to Alien’s tenure, having tested copper-related geophysical anomalies 1.3 km from Alien’s EL33375, on which previous drilling intersected elevated copper, uranium, bismuth and silver. |
Vince Fayad, Chief Executive Officer of Alien Metals, said:
“This work continues to strengthen the foundations of our Georgina Basin exploration strategy. Consolidating the granted licences simplifies the tenure structure, reduces administration and allows us to plan exploration across the Project more efficiently.
“The first meeting with Traditional Owners and the Central Land Council is also an important step in progressing EL32284 and EL32965 toward grant, subject to the necessary agreements and approvals.
“At the same time, Matt’s review of historic drill core provides valuable geological context as we continue to refine and rank targets across this highly prospective IOCG province.”
Tenement amalgamations
The Northern Territory Department of Mining and Energy has completed two consolidations of granted tenure:
- EL32282 and EL32296 have been amalgamated to form EL34498; and
- EL32285 and EL32286 have been amalgamated to form EL34499.
The amalgamations do not change the Company’s ownership or the surface area of the ground held. They replace four licences with two, covering the same areas under a single title in each case.
Consolidation is a routine but useful piece of tenure housekeeping. It reduces the number of annual reports, expenditure returns and renewal processes the Company must manage, and allows work programmes and expenditure commitments to be planned across a single contiguous title rather than split between adjoining licences. That is particularly relevant at Georgina, where geophysical and geological targets do not stop at historic licence boundaries.
A simpler title structure also makes land-access planning, heritage clearances and any future joint-venture or farm-in discussions easier to document.
Figure 1. The Georgina IOCG project with recent tenement consolidations labelled.
Traditional Owner meeting
Exploration Licence Applications EL32284 and EL32965 lie on Aboriginal freehold land and cannot be granted until an access and exploration agreement is in place with the relevant Traditional Owners, through the Central Land Council.
Mr Healy attended the first meeting with Traditional Owners in Tennant Creek, facilitated by the CLC. The purpose was to introduce the Company, outline the nature of the applications and the exploration work that would be proposed following grant, and begin the consultation required under the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976.
The Company regards the meeting as the opening step toward an agreement with the Wakaya Aboriginal Land Trust. Subject to those discussions and the consent of Wakaya, and to the usual regulatory processes, an executed agreement would allow the applications to proceed to grant. EL32284 is interpreted to contain rocks of the Warramunga Formation, the host sequence to the high-grade gold and copper deposits of the Tennant Creek mineral field, and previous work by SRK Consulting identified magnetic alteration, interpreted fluid pathways and associated gravity highs within the application area. No on-ground exploration may be undertaken on either application until grant and until all required approvals and clearances are in place.
Figure 2. Alien Metals Project Director outside the Central Land Council in Tennant Creek, the location of the first meeting with the Wakaya Aboriginal Land Trust regarding ELA32284 and ELA32965.
Core library
While in the Territory, Mr Healy took the opportunity to visit the Northern Territory Government core library in Alice Springs and reviewed core from NDIBK10 and CWDD004, two publicly documented holes near the Project.
NDIBK10 was drilled in 2020 as part of the MinEx CRC National Drilling Initiative East Tennant campaign, funded under Geoscience Australia’s Exploring for the Future programme. The campaign comprised ten stratigraphic holes, totalling nearly 4,000 metres, designed to test basement concealed beneath Georgina Basin cover along the East Tennant corridor. NDIBK10, about 200 kilometres east of Tennant Creek, was sited on a low magnetic and gravity corridor later named the Brunette Downs Rift Corridor.
It was planned to intersect shallow basement but instead drilled sedimentary rocks of previously uncertain affinity beneath the Helen Springs Volcanics, with the base of the volcanics reported at about 297 metres and basement at about 724 metres. Subsequent work interpreted the sequence below the volcanics as occupying a small half-graben, with maximum depositional ages supporting a Neoproterozoic, pre-Cambrian Georgina Basin affinity for the upper unit. HyLogger mineralogy, wireline logs and whole-rock geochemistry for the hole are open file through the Northern Territory Geological Survey and Geoscience Australia. The hole is relevant to Georgina because it constrains cover thickness, basement type and the architecture of the concealed East Tennant province on the margin of the Company’s tenure.
Figure 3. Hematite (iron oxide mineral) altered rocks in National Drilling Initiative hole NDIBK10.
CWDD004 was drilled by Middle Island Resources Limited at the Crosswinds prospect on its Barkly project in 2022, targeting aeromagnetic and induced-polarisation anomalies beneath a surface malachite occurrence, where Middle Island had previously reported a 130-metre trench interval grading 0.75 per cent copper, located along strike of regional-scale faults only 1.3 km from the eastern boundary of Alien Metals tenement EL33375, where previous drilling intersected elevated copper, uranium, bismuth and silver associated with iron-rich rocks. The core provides valuable geological context for the central area of the Alien tenement package at Georgina, where three advanced targets are situated.
The review forms part of the Company’s compilation of open-file drilling and will be used to refine geological interpretation ahead of the next phase of target ranking.
Figure 4. Alien Metals Project Director with drill core from Middle Island Resources hole CWDD004.
Next Steps
The Company continues its project-wide review and ranking of the Georgina Basin prospects, from early-stage opportunities through to advanced targets. The Company would also like to advise that the submission timeframe for the 2027 BHP Xplor programme has been postponed from October 2026 until March 2027. The Company maintains its intent to apply for BHP Xplor funding.
