Beneath the plains of Western Victoria, known geologically as the , could lie the minerals needed to boost the State’s supply of advanced technologies.
has issued Victorian-based Westrock Minerals a Minerals Exploration Licence for an area approximately 35 kilometres east of Hamilton and north of Warrnambool.
Major work over the last decade by the and led to the 2018 Stavely Ground Release, which is expected to encourage an investment in minerals exploration of over $20 million with potential for more to come.
The third licence issued following the is expected to generate more than $7.5 million in local expenditure.
Geologists believe that 500 million years ago Western Victoria was on the border of a super-continent called Gondwana, giving it a similar geological environment at the time to the copper-rich Andes in South America.
One new mineral discovery has already been made on the back of renewed interest in the region’s geological setting.
Westrock Minerals has been supported by the Victorian Government with a $500,000 co-funded exploration grant from the program to help with early-stage exploration activity.
Further afield, the regulator has also recently granted two Retention Licences to Stavely Minerals to allow it to conduct more targeted exploration and potential resource development on ground near Ararat.
In Victoria, landholder consent is required before access to privately owned land to explore for minerals is granted. have been prepared to guide negotiations between landholders and explorers.
