A JAPANESE company has bought into a Territory uranium project that mineral explorers believe could be as big as Ranger.

The Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation has signed a $3 million exploration joint-venture agreement with Queensland-based Bondi Mining.

The deal covers the Murphy project, a 9000 sq km tenement lying east of the Tablelands Highway, which runs from Cape Crawford to Barkly Homestead.

The land is the southern extension of the uranium-rich Alligator rivers region.

A Ranger-size mine would spawn a new township.

Bondi Mining managing director Rick Valenta said the Japanese injection of cash was a "vote of confidence" in the Murphy project.

The tenement has been passed around like a hot potato over the past few years.

It was acquired by Global Discovery in mid-2005 and taken over by Buffalo Gold as part of an option deal the following year.

Bondi Mining acquired Murphy when it took over Buffalo Gold's uranium portfolio in May 2007.

The tenement has long been known as a uranium hot-spot.

Exploration was carried out by several companies, including Esso Australia, Noranda, Union Oil and Otter, in the 1970s. It included airborne radiometric surveys, ground follow up and rock chip sampling, and groundwater sampling from existing water bores.

Some percussion and diamond drilling was also undertaken.

Since 2005, exploration has included an airborne electro-magnetics survey, a detailed interpretation and targeting exercise over the main prospective areas, a 100m-spaced airborne magnetic and radiometric survey, and a program of radon track etch sampling of high priority target spots.

The project is only 80km from a bitumen highway and is reached by a good gravel road.