PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Junior Iron Road has added some one-billion tons of resource to its Central Eyre iron project, increasing the estimated mineral resource from 2.6-billion tons to 3.7-billion tons, grading 16% iron.

The ASX-listed company said on Tuesday that some 2.2-billion tons of this resource were classified as measured.

MD Andrew Stokes noted that the large size of the resource, particularly the measured component, meant the Central Eyre project ranked not only as South Australia’s leading resource development, but also a project of global significance.

“Following an additional one-billion tons weighing into the resource at Central Eyre, we are now well and truly topping the scales with a 3.7-billion-ton resource. However, the significant aspect of this upgrade is the considerable measured and indicated tonnage, as it is only these two categories that are investigated for conversion to reserves.”

Stokes pointed out that the Central Eyre project now had the largest combined measured and indicated magnetite resource in Australia.

“Due to the distinctive nature of the mineralogy, we believe the project will be one of the easiest magnetite projects to process in the world today; it certainly has clear advantages over the very hard and fine-grained banded iron formations prevalent in Western Australia.”

Stokes noted that as the project kept on delivering in line with expectations, Iron Road was confident that it would ultimately achieve the upper end of its original exploration target, which was between 2.8-billion and 5.7-billion tons.

“We’ve also added the additional tons and the increased confidence in a very cost-effective manner, at a gross cost of just 0.67c/t. This is excellent value for shareholders,” said Stokes.

He added that the increased resource base meant that the company could now enter the final phase of development with confidence in the capability of the deposit to underpin viable iron concentrate export and infrastructure businesses.