The Richmond-Julia Creek project mineralisation is located within marine sediments of the Early Cretaceous Toolebuc Formation, a stratigraphic unit that occurs throughout the Eromanga Basin in central-northern Queensland.

The Eromanga Basin is a sub-basin of the Great Artesian Basin and consists of a number of thick sequences of non-marine and marine sedimentary units. The Toolebuc is part of the Rolling Downs Group of the Eromanga Basin that covers a wide but relatively shallow structural depression in eastern Australia, covering 1.5 million km2. The basin was developed as a major downward warpon a basement of Proterozoic to Palaeozoic metamorphic and igneous rocks during the Jurassic to Cretaceous Periods.

The Toolebuc Formation is a flat lying early Cretaceous (Albian ~ 100My) sediment that consists predominantly of black carbonaceous and bituminous shale and minor siltstone, with limestone lenses and coquinites (mixed limestone and clays). It is composed of two distinct units representing two different facies: an upper coarse limestone-rich-clay-oil shale unit (coquina) and a lower fine-grained carbonate-clay-oil shale unit.

The Toolebuc Formation outcrops only at the margins of the Eromanga and Carpentaria basins, except at Julia Creek where it is draped over an interpreted original basement high and has been structurally brought to the surface. Where the unit outcrops it forms low, rubbly, subtle topographic highs which have been the sou ........

A mining contractor will be engaged to conduct the mining activities with technical and managerial oversight provided by RVT. Mining will utilise conventional open cut methods which shall be 100% free dig of the ore and waste. No drill and blast is required due to the shallow nature of the oxide pit extending typically to an average depth of between 15 and 25m, and to a maximum depth of 31m.

Pre-strip of waste overburden shall be carried out by 200 tonne excavators and 180 tonne trucks, with the waste typically backfilled behind the advancing pit.

Ore mining at the base of the pit shall be undertaken by a 360 tonne excavator into a mobile in-pit sizer/lump breaker, with the ore picked up by a 100 tonne Front End Loader (FEL) and loaded in 180 tonne trucks to the surface concentrator.

Total movement from the LOM pit is 951.7Mt of rock at a strip ratio of 1.07.

Open pit mine designs have been completed, including a Life of Mine (LOM) pit and starter pit designs. The build-up of the mining costs is based on an initial pre-strip of the ore allowing the free dig mining of the ore body using a bucket excavator similar to PC3600 feeding a mobile in-pit sizer/lump breaker which loads CAT 789 haul packs using CAT992 FELs or similar. The pre-strip material will be cleared using EX1900 or similar excavators direct loaded into CAT 789 Haul packs hauled to an initial course waste dump. Once the pit has been established and the set out of the wo ........

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