Compass Resources NL is an Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n mining

Mining

Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...

 and mineral exploration

Mineral exploration

Mineral exploration is the process of finding ore to mine. Mineral exploration is a much more intensive, organized and professional form of mineral prospecting and, though it frequently uses the services of prospecting, the process of mineral exploration on the whole is much more involved.-Stages...

 company listed on the Australian Stock Exchange

Australian Stock Exchange

The Australian Securities Exchange was created by the merger of the Australian Stock Exchange and the Sydney Futures Exchange in July 2006. It is the primary stock exchange group in Australia....

 and currently in voluntary administration since 29 January 2009.

The company's main assets are mineral resources at Browns, Browns East and Mount Fitch

Mount Fitch

Mount Fitch can refer to* Mount Fitch, a subordinate peak of Mount Greylock, located in Massachusetts.*Mount Fitch, Northern Territory, a mountain of approximately 70 m in Australia, part of the old Rum Jungle, Northern Territory uranium mines near Batchelor, 64 km south of Darwin, Northern...

, adjacent to the former Rum Jungle

Rum Jungle, Northern Territory

The Rum Jungle uranium deposit in the Northern Territory, Australia was found in 1949. It is 65 kilometres south of Darwin on the East Finniss River.-Original uranium mine:...

 uranium mine in the Northern Territory

Northern Territory

The Northern Territory is a federal territory of Australia, occupying much of the centre of the mainland continent, as well as the central northern regions...

 of Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. Brown's consists of a multi-metal oxide deposit overlying a related sulphide deposit. Compass also has exploration rights over the site of the former uranium mine and some royalty rights on a gold mine in New South Wales

New South Wales

New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...

.

Mining in the Northern Territory

In 2005, Compass Resources sought approval to establish a copper

Copper

Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...

, cobalt

Cobalt

Cobalt is a chemical element with symbol Co and atomic number 27. It is found naturally only in chemically combined form. The free element, produced by reductive smelting, is a hard, lustrous, silver-gray metal....

 and nickel

Nickel

Nickel is a chemical element with the chemical symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel belongs to the transition metals and is hard and ductile...

 mine on the Brown's Oxide deposit. It also plans to mine Lead, Copper, Cobalt and Nickel from the sulphide deposit through a separate processing chain. Browns East is a copper and uranium resource

Compass has advised shareholders that the projects could lead to reopening uranium

Uranium

Uranium is a silvery-white metallic chemical element in the actinide series of the periodic table, with atomic number 92. It is assigned the chemical symbol U. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons...

 mining in the area, with infrastructure from the Brown's Oxide project shared with uranium processing from a nearby deposit on the abandoned Rum Jungle

Rum Jungle, Northern Territory

The Rum Jungle uranium deposit in the Northern Territory, Australia was found in 1949. It is 65 kilometres south of Darwin on the East Finniss River.-Original uranium mine:...

 lease. The company began clearing the Browns site ahead of formal signing of a joint venture agreement with a Chinese partner, Hunan Nonferrous Metals

Hunan Nonferrous Metals

Hunan Nonferrous Metals Corporation Ltd. is a nonferrous metals company of China, one of the five largest as of October 2006. It was listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange in March 2006. On 1 August, 2006 it purchased a 9.73 percent share in Compass Resources NL of Australia for 30 million...

 (HNC), but expects to be reimbursed for these development costs. It is scheduled to start mining the Browns Oxide Project in 2007 with production aims of 10,000 tonnes per annum (tpa) copper, 1,000 tpa cobalt and 700 tpa of nickel.

On Wednesday 4 April 2007, CMR lodged an application for a Mining Lease with the NT Government covering the Mount Fitch

Mount Fitch

Mount Fitch can refer to* Mount Fitch, a subordinate peak of Mount Greylock, located in Massachusetts.*Mount Fitch, Northern Territory, a mountain of approximately 70 m in Australia, part of the old Rum Jungle, Northern Territory uranium mines near Batchelor, 64 km south of Darwin, Northern...

uranium deposit.

On 29 January 2009, Compass Resources went into voluntary administration, while in the process of commissioning the Brown's Oxide mine.