Rio Tinto Exploration, a wholly owned subsidiary of Rio Tinto, has signed a conditional agreement with Tasman Resources for the funding of an accelerated exploration program on Tasman’s 100% owned Exploration Licence 4322 which contains the Vulcan prospect, located 30 km from BHP Billiton’s giant Olympic Dam copper-gold-uranium mine in South Australia. The agreement will see an immediate cash injection of A$10 million into Perth-based Tasman for its highly prospective Vulcan iron-oxide copper gold uranium (IOCGU) prospect. Tasman will undertake a A$5 million exploration program across the project over the first 12 months, with the objective of further proving up the potential of the Vulcan prospect, first identified by Tasman in 2009. (more…)