UraniumSA plans to start production by end-2011
miningweekly.com
By: Esmarie Swanepoel
18th November 2009
JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Emerging uranium developer UraniumSA on Wednesday reported that it has set an objective to produce maiden ore by end of 2011, from one of the South Australia’s most recent uranium discoveries.
The ASX-listed company stated that it anticipated starting the 12-month regulatory process to approve the field leach trial at the Blackbush prospect, by mid next year. The prospect lies in the wholly owned Mullaquana project, 20-kilometres southwest of Whyalla, on Eyre Peninsula.
The regulatory process would allow the trial to start by mid-2011 and if successful, transition, towards the end of 2011 into early 2012 into maiden commercial production from Blackbush.
Detailing the schedule, UraniumSA MD Russel Bluck said that a scoping study on Blackbush’s development had started in recent days to lead into the field trial regulatory process schedule by mid next year.
“We have effectively commenced the transition from pure exploration to exploration and development, one of the few of the crop of uranium initial public offerings to achieve this benchmark,” Bluck said.
Since the discovery of Blackbush in 2007, the project has evolved as a real project, and Bluck noted that it had started a scoping study with real contracts and real objectives and real timelines to deliver South Australia a viable new uranium mine.
“Given that South Australia has the best track record of any uranium jurisdiction in Australia, we expect to be able to stay close to our development and maiden production timelines.”
UraniumSA has defined a JORC Inferred Resource of 2 700 t of contained uranium oxide (U3O8) at the Blackbush prospect, its first discovery within the Mullaquana project area.
The resource comprises an estimated 12-million tons of mineralisation at an average grade of 224 parts per million (ppm) U3O8. Blackbush’s potential ore grade mineralisation extends for 1,6 km along strike with a width of 1,3 km and average thickness of 5,6 m.
Pattern drilling started on site at Blackbush on Wednesday to achieve an upgrade of the resource estimate through improved definition and mineral characterisation.
Bluck noted that a resource upgrade at Blackbush was expected to be developed in the opening half of next year.
The company was parallelling the scoping study with other environmental and community engagement programmes, and further regional drilling and exploration, to accelerate the Blackbush development outcome.
UraniumSA has set a broader project target at Mullaquana of 50-million to 80-million tons of uranium mineralisation at grades of between 0,01% U3O8 and 0,20% U3O8. This exploration objective excluded the already defined Blackbush inferred resource of 12-million tons. |
