Australian-based ferro-alloys company Precious Metals Australia Limited has started a significant new drilling program targeting extensions to the resource base at its 90%-owned Windimurra Vanadium Project in Western Australia as it moves towards completing financing for the project"s forthcoming $200 million redevelopment.

The drilling program is designed to confirm extensions to the deposit which would further reinforce Windimurra's position as the world's largest reported proven vanadium ore reserve, extend the current 15-20 year mine life and further enhance project economics.

PMA says the 2800 metre reverse circulation (RC) drilling program is designed to prove up vanadium mineralisation in the hanging wall of the existing Windimurra ore reserve of 56 million tonnes grading 0.46% V2O5 (vanadium pentoxide).

PMA managing director Roderick Smith says the $300,000 drilling program would quantify mineralisation in the hanging wall zones, enabling pit optimisations to be carried out to potentially generate a significantly wider and deeper open pit. The drilling will also test a zone of titanium mineralisation known to exist parallel to the main Windimurra ore body.

"The Windimurra ore body is unique in its dimensions and width, and also in the fact that exploration to date has not returned a barren drill hole," Roderick Smith says.

"The current drilling program is designed to test potential extensions to the deposit given that it remains open in almost all directions - which is a nice problem for our geologists to have to deal with."

The current resource of 148 million tonnes has been calculated from previous PMA drilling covering a length of just 5km, with an average width of 200m, but the Windimurra vanadiferous titanomagnetite deposit has a strike length of almost 27km.

Three holes drilled by PMA in 1989 intercepted near-surface, high-grade titanium in the hanging wall over a strike length of 2.3km. Results from this drilling included 26 metres of 19.8% titanium dioxide (TiO2), from surface, at a cut-off of 10% TiO2, this intersection including 16 metres (from a depth of 4 to 20 metres) at 22.8% TiO2, using a 20% cut-off.

Roderick Smith says assay results would be released progressively, with first results expected in late December 2006.

PMA has appointed Coffey Mining Consultants to update the resource modelling for the Windimurra Project with the results of the new drilling program and to carry out further mine optimisation and planning studies, as part of the ongoing development of the Windimurra Mine. This work is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2007.

PMA anticipates finalising a finance package for the Windimurra Vanadium Project in early 2007, with project construction starting soon after and first production targeted in the first quarter of 2008.