Australian mineral explorer Iron Mountain Mining (IRM) has completed the acquisition of a 50% interest in Au Capital Mining (ACM), which owns the entire Nendo Bauxite project in the Solomon Islands.

With a granted prospecting licence, ACM’s Nendo project is in the Temotu Province of the Solomon Islands and has potential for direct shipping ore (DSO) quality bauxite. ACM also owns another project in the islands called Choiseul.

Prior to the acquisition, IRM owned a 50% stake in Nendo project and was able to explore an area of 12km x 2km, accounting for only a third of the prospective area.

So far, the company has explored 41.2% of alumina (Al2O3) and 2.39% of reactive silica (rxSiO2) for laboratory assays from the project. 

"Prior to the acquisition, IRM was able to explore only a third of the prospective area."

IRM has now become the owner of all Nendo’s project activities and will begin its next stage of exploration at the project, which includes infill drilling in higher-grade areas to define an initial JORC resource estimation.

The phase also includes detection of new areas within the project that are favourable for bauxite mineralisation.

IRM aims to explore high-quality bauxite, which is suitable for direct shipping and low-cost development of minerals, from the Nendo project.

The company said that an option agreement was signed to purchase a 50% equity interest in ACM in March.

Currently, the company is involved in various prospective iron ore, gold, bauxite and nickel-copper sulphide projects.