Adelaide, May 1, 2006 (ABN Newswire) - Exploration companies behind the highly prospective Tripitaka mineral sands discovery in South Australia expect to have the first formal resource estimate for the deposit as early as September this year.

Addressing the first day today of the "2006 Paydirt SA Resources @ Energy Investment Conference" being held in Adelaide, the Colona Joint Venture partners said resource drill-out had just commenced in the field, and laboratory analysis of the results was likely to take a further two months.

"On that basis, we are confident of having our first resource estimate for Tripitaka towards the end of September," Colona Joint venture spokesperson, Mr Chris Drown, told delegates.

The JV partners are the listed Adelaide Resources Limited (ASX: ADN) and Iluka Resources Limited (ASX: ILU) - with Iluka expected to have completed its 51% farm-in to the partnership by the time of the release of the resource estimate.

Tripitaka, a highly prospective mineral sands project north of Ceduna in far west South Australia outside of the Yellabinna Regional Reserve, has a mineral assemblage with high levels of zircon, a commodity in strong international demand.

Mr Drown also told delegates today that there were exploration lessons to be learnt by the industry from the Tripitaka discovery.

"Much of the credit for the Tripitaka discovery lies with Iluka, which persisted with drilling for mineral sands in this part of the Eucla Basin (Iluka has two other flagship projects - Ambrosia and Jacinth - just northwest of Tripitaka).

"Previous explorers in the Eucla Basin were active at a time when the focus was not zircon but titanium minerals and the high zircon assemblages present in the area were not highly regarded," Mr Drown said.

"Current market conditions have seen a reversal of this situation with zircon now regarded as the most desirable valuable component in a mineral sand deposit.

"Iluka has a wealth of exploration experience for heavy mineral sands which the Company has brought to bear on the search in the Eucla.

"Both Iluka and Adelaide Resources through the Colona Joint Venture have certainly succeeded where past explorers, for a range of reasons, failed to make significant discoveries," Mr Drown said.
"To put it in perspective, the potential value of mineral sands discovered by the Iluka team in the Eucla Basin in the past 18 months, is up around US$2.5 billion.

"That is the most successful outcome of any exploration program in Australia in this period.

"From Adelaide Resources' point of view, the September Tripitaka resource outcome will deliver our company its first measurable mineral asset from among our current suite of mineral sand, gold, copper, uranium and iron ore projects."