BHP, SensOre progress artificial intelligence-backed exploration agreement to ‘Phase 3’

SensOre says it is to advance its Joint Targeting Agreement (JTA) with BHP to “Phase 3” after receiving approval from the major miner.

Under the JTA, SensOre was required to meet certain hurdle rates and technical thresholds through deployment of its Discriminant Predictive Targeting® (DPT®) technology and related auxiliary systems. SensOre says it has met or exceeded the requirements set for Phases 1 and 2.

Richard Taylor, CEO of SensOre, said: “The SensOre team has been excited by the performance of its systems in targeting new commodity and deposit types. The relationship with BHP and its support for innovation in exploration has been incredibly valuable. The results derive from the truly joint nature of the project and shared view that better use of geoscience data will lead to improvements in discovery rates. We are really thrilled with the results.”

SensOre and BHP reached agreement on a letter of intent in May 2020, confirmed via execution of the JTA on September 18, 2020. The JTA envisages a phased process, training the DPT technology on commodity-specific deposit types and applying the knowledge gained to a predetermined search space. SensOre stands to benefit from fees for the targeting exercise and potential success-based payments on certain discoveries arising from the technology, it said.

SensOre aims to become the top performing minerals targeting company in the world through the deployment of artificial intelligence and machine-learning technologies, specifically its DPT workflow. SensOre collects all available geological information in a terrane and places it in a multi-dimensional hypercube or Data Cube, with its big data approach allowing DPT predictive analytics to accurately predict known endowment and generate targets for further discovery, it says.