Emmerson Resources is an Australian resource company listed on ASX.

In April 2009, Ivanhoe Australia concluded a strategic investment in Emmerson Resources (Emmerson -- ASX:ERM), which holds tenements covering the key areas of the historic and prospective Tennant Creek Mineral Field (TCMF) in the centre of Australia's Northern Territory.

Emmerson's tenement holdings in the TCMF cover approximately 2,700 square kilometres and are divided into four geographic areas to facilitate exploration planning: Northern, Southern, Eastern, and Western (See Figure 1). Emmerson controls most of the past production areas, known prospects and prospective areas and its assets include the refurbished Warrego ore treatment facility, historical exploration data and core libraries.


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The Tennant Creek Mineral Field (TCMF) surrounds the town of Tennant Creek which is situated approximately 1,000 kilometres south of Darwin and 500 kilometres north of Alice Springs. Ivanhoe is confident that future development projects in the TCMF will benefit strongly from the existing infrastructure at Tennant Creek:

• sealed highways linking the town to Mount Isa, Darwin and Alice Springs;
• the Adelaide-Darwin railway line directly services the town;
• grid electrical power is available; and
• a natural gas pipeline provides potential flexibility in power supply.

The TCMF is one of the richest and largest Proterozoic goldfields in Australia discovered to date, where gold first was mined in the 1930s, followed by the first copper in the 1950s. Historical production totals more than 5.5 million ounces of gold at an average grade of 19.3 g/t gold and approximately 488,000 tonnes of copper with an average grade of 2.9% copper. Former mines in the TCMF include Nobles Nob, White Devil, Warrego and Juno and deposits in the TCMF are generally high grade, with most gold deposits averaging 15-20 g/t and copper 2-4%.

IAL made the following investments in Emmerson:

• A placement of 22.61 million shares at 13 cents, representing an investment of A$2.94 million, providing IAL with an initial 10% shareholding in Emmerson.
• The issue of 27.9 million options at an exercise price of 20 cents within two years, which upon exercise would inject a further A$5.58 million into Emmerson and increase IAL's stake to 19.9%.

In addition to the equity participation, IAL entered into a joint venture covering all of Emmerson tenements in the TCMF. IAL is entitled to spend A$18 million over three years to earn a 51% equity interest in the tenements, which could increase to 70% in particular projects if certain mineral resource thresholds are met.

As at the end of 2009 Ivanhoe Australia had spent A$7.5m on the joint venture with Emmerson.

Additional information may be available on the Emmerson Resources website:

www.emmersonresources.com.au/