Uranium exploration company Denison Mines has completed its inaugural in-situ recovery (ISR) field test programme within The Heldeth Tue (THT) uranium deposit at its 67.41%-owned Waterbury Lake project, in northern Saskatchewan.

The THT ISR field test involved the installation of an eight-well ISR test pattern, designed to collect a database of hydrogeological data.

“Our recently completed ISR de-risking efforts at THT demonstrate the competitive advantage of our in-house Saskatoon-based technical team.  While there is no shortcut for the collection of key project-specific technical data, our team developed a programme for THT that leveraged our experience and maximised the value of our time and efforts in the field,” said president and CEO David Cates.   

“The programme was completed safely and delivered excellent results, confirming our previous expectations that THT can be amenable to ISR mining and should be considered as a potentially low-cost and highly prospective uranium development project,” he said.

Cates added that many potential projects in the uranium industry struggle to meaningfully advance towards a future development or restart decision, despite higher uranium prices.

“We continue to meaningfully invest in our exploration and development pipeline projects, and the results from the ISR field test programme support bringing THT forward for additional evaluation, and reinforce the project's potential to become Denison's second ISR uranium mine development asset in the Athabasca basin."

In November 2020, an independent preliminary economic assessment (PEA) was completed for Waterbury evaluating the potential use of the ISR mining method at THT. The PEA demonstrated robust economics for a small-scale Athabasca basin ISR mining project, highlighted by an estimated all-in cost per pound of uranium oxide (U₃O₈) of $24.93 and a pre-tax internal rate of return estimated at 50.0% based on a uranium selling price of $65/lb U₃O₈.

The PEA included recommendations to further advance the technical de-risking of the project with the collection of site-specific data.