AIM-listed mineral development company Bushveld Minerals has received approval from the Department of Mineral Resource (DMR) to add two farms to its iron ore licence area in South Africa.In an operational update issued on Tuesday, the company reported that its Section 102 application to add farms Schoonoord 786 LR and Bellevue 808 LR to the licence area of 95PR in the Limpopo Province had been approved by the DMR adding significant strike extensions to the P-Q zone orebody. The company said that Phosphate Rock had been added to the list of minerals included within the prospecting right and an additional 3.5km of strike length of P-Q zone mineralisation had been identified on Bellevue and Schoonoord, giving a 64% increase in the strike length of mineralisation.It added that the P-Q zone had been identified in the historical BV-1 borehole drilled on the farm Bellevue 808 LR.Fortune Mojapelo, Chief Executive Officer of Bushveld Minerals, said: "The inclusion of the farms Schoonoord and Bellevue will potentially extend the iron ore resource beyond our 1bn tonne target. More importantly, it allows us to extend our resources along strike, thus maintaining the open-cast mining proposition of this deposit.""The inclusion of phosphate in the licence means that we can now develop the phosphate potential of the project in earnest, which we believe will significantly enhance the economics of the whole project,"he added.Bushveld Minerals' share price was unchanged at 12.62p at 10:57 on Tuesday.MF