PERTH (miningweekly.com) – An expansion study into the Honeymoon uranium project, in South Australia, has given owner Boss Resources the necessary confidence to move to a prefeasibility study (PFS) phase, with a decision to mine expected by the end of 2017.

The Honeymoon project consists of two main exploration areas and comprises one granted mining lease, as well as five granted exploration licences with a number of associated retention and miscellaneous leases.

The expansion study considered issues identified by the previous owners that had affected the performance of the plant and included solutions in the design criteria, process routes and cost estimates to solve these problems.

The aim of the study is also to select a processing technology that will be a best fit to the existing plant for the proposed expansion.

The study’s base case investigated an initial two-million-pound-a-year operation, ramping up to 3.6-million pounds a year, potentially by the fifth year of operation. The base case costs were estimated at about $7-million for the restart of the existing plant, with a further $57-million to be spent to achieve the desired output.

In addition, $85-million will be required to bring operations at the Gould’s Dam deposit on line and ramp up production to 3.6-million pounds a year.

The expansion will be achieved in four stages, with the first consisting of recommissioning the existing solvent extraction (SX) processing facility, with modifications to resolve processing issues.

The second stage will supplement the recommissioning of the SX facility, with a new ion exchange circuit, using a chelating resin, and associated processing infrastructure needed to process the additional pregnant leach solutions that will have to be generated from Honeymoon for an expanded production of two-million pounds of uranium.

Stage 3 will see the development of satellite operations at Gould’s Dam, while Stage 4 will expand these operations.

Steady-state operating costs have been estimated at $24.10/lb for the base case scenario, and $23/lb for the expanded production.

Boss told shareholders that the project also offered substantial potential to expand the mineral resource inventory, with the company planning an infill drilling programme at the Jason’s deposit, and the continuation of the exploration programme.

The success of this drilling programme would delay any expansion at Gould’s Dam, and would put out any capital expenditure to later in the proposed schedule.