The company understands that the Planning Assessment Commission (PAC) will make a final decision on the DZP development application next month.

PAC approval of the DZP would be followed by the issuing of a mining lease by the state government, allowing Alkane Resources to produce the likes of zirconium, niobium and rare earths, but not uranium and thorium.

“The mining lease absolutely won’t include uranium and thorium,” Mr Chalmers said from his Perth office on Tuesday.

The managing director said the NSW Mining Act 1992 offered “double protection” in that it prevented the overlapping of titles.

He said the Act would protect “our operation from some other outfit that might want to come in on top of us”.

Mr Chalmer’s advice follows months of legal research by Alkane Resources in response to the government’s decision in 2014 to “open up the state to uranium exploration”.

He said talk of “separate titles” concerned the company that had “no desire to go into the uranium business”.

“We put in an expression of interest to give us time to look at all the legal aspects of whether someone could put a title over the top of our existing title,” he said.

Reassured by its investigations, the company has recently declined an offer from the NSW Department of Trade and Investment, Regional Infrastructure and Services, Division of Resources and Energy to apply for a separate exploration licence for uranium and thorium.

Mr Chalmers said a uranium operation was “not worth it money-wise and environmentally”.

“We get much better revenue uplift from getting better recovery of existing metals,” he said.

The DZP, 25 kilometres south of Dubbo, seeks to utilise  a large in-ground resource of zirconium, niobium and rare earths.

It would position Alkane Resources as a significant world producer of zirconium products and heavy rare earths. 

Mr Chalmers said the company hoped that DZP would operate for more than 80 years.

Uranium would not be produced at the DZP “while ever Alkane is working there”, he said.