ABC

Gold exploration is set to increase in central Australia with the signing of an agreement between two Western Australian mining companies.

Tanami Gold - which has a mine across the WA border - has transferred its Northern Territory building to explorer ABM.

The deal covers 20,000 square kilometres of land and locks ABM into spending $10 million on exploration over two years.

Tanami Gold's managing director, Graeme Sloan, says the deal fast-tracks exploration in the region.

"It basically brings everything forward by several years and hopefully that will unlock some of the potential that we've always recognised could be there," he said.

"Obviously [that could] create both employment and the opportunity for the company to have other operations going," he said.