The Northern Territory’s Minister for Resources, Kon Vatskalis, will today deliver a keynote address to around 400 delegates at the nation’s largest gathering of representatives from the uranium industry.

The Australian Uranium Conference is being held in Fremantle, Perth from 22 – 23 July.

“The Northern Territory Government is committed to encouraging increased exploration to make an even greater contribution to the Territory’s economic growth,” said Mr Vatskalis.

“The Territory Government is assisting the industry to grow through initiatives such as the $14.4m Bringing Forward Discovery strategy, which includes providing exploration companies with free geoscience data, and funding assistance for greenfields exploration projects.

“During my address, I will be encouraging companies to look to the Northern Territory’s vast under-explored land for their next exploration project.

“I will be outlining how the NT Government is assisting this industry to grow and prosper and detail some of the exciting discoveries currently being made.”

The Territory provides around half of Australia’s uranium production, with most of Australia’s current uranium exports passing through the port of Darwin

The ERA Ranger uranium mine is the only one currently operating in the Territory.

Cameco Australia has commenced resource drilling at the Angela Pamela prospect south of Alice Springs, as part of their joint venture with Paladin Energy.

Advanced exploration projects  in Central Australia include Energy Metals’ Bigrlyi project, and Toro Energy’s Napperby project, both of which aim to be amongst Australia’s next generation of uranium mines, and have announced major resource upgrades over the past year.

Another uranium resource has been defined in central Australia at Nolans Bore, where Arafura Resources have a resource of over 13 million pounds of uranium oxide as part of a rare earths-phosphate uranium resource. Following a recent joint venture with East China Exploration, this project is now moving towards a bankable feasibility study.