In October 2009 the Company applied for an exploration licence targeting diamonds, platinum group metals (PGM’s) and gold in Western Australia.

The exploration licence application (ELA20/727) covers an area of approximately 70 square km and is located 70km to the north-west of the town of Cue in the Murchison Mineral Field in the Yilgarn Craton of Western Australia.

The Cue region was explored by De Beers in the period 1994-2002 during which time De Beers discovered a number of kimberlite dykes in two separate areas within the Company’s application area.

At the "Cue 1" locality a kimberlite dyke outcrops and is reported by De Beers to be 2-3 m wide. Several drill holes intersected the dyke and one vertical hole intersected kimberlite from surface to 60m depth. At Soapy Well, 7km to the west, at least three closely spaced kimberlite dykes, up to 3 m wide, were encountered in two drill traverses spaced 400m apart.

De Beers described the Cue project kimberlites as olivine macrocrystic hypabyssal kimberlites. It did not report the results of diamond sampling, although some time after the first discovery of the Cue 1 kimberlite De Beers described the area as having "...excellent potential for discovery of kimberlites and diamonds."

De Beers carried out an extensive regional exploration programme in the north-west part of the Yilgarn Craton involving stream sediment sampling, soil sampling, airborne geophysics and drill testing. De Beers last open-file report on the area reported that “….anomalous heavy mineral results from areas that are structurally analogous to the Cue and Soapy Well kimberlites suggest that additional kimberlite intrusions remain to be found.” Sunrise has carried out a preliminary evaluation of these results and included the most anomalous areas within its exploration licence application.

Also of interest within the licence area is a sulphide-bearing gabbro dyke that was intersected in several drill holes by De Beers prior to the discovery of the Cue 1 kimberlite. Although not of interest to De Beers for diamond exploration, the gabbro dyke is now targeted by Sunrise for PGM’s and gold. It is located in the same region as the Weld Range PGM deposit (inferred resource >0.5 million ounces platinum+palladium+gold) the discovery of which was initiated by the current Sunrise Executive Chairman, Patrick Cheetham, when Joint Managing Director of Dragon Mining NL.

The new licence application area has not been held under licence since the De Beers licences expired and their exploration results did not become open file until 2006. Consequently the occurrence of the Cue kimberlites is not widely documented.

The Company has applied for Exploration Licence 20/727 through a new wholly owned subsidiary in Australia – Sunrise Minerals Australia Pty Ltd.

The Cue project is the first of a number of new projects planned by the Company to broaden its geographical base and widen its commodity interests which, to date, have been focused on diamond exploration in Finland.