Photo by: Bloomberg
PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Uranium developer Toro Energy was seeking government approval to start mining operations at its Millipede and Lake Maitland deposits to further enhance the Wiluna project, in Western Australia.
The company already had the necessary federal and state government approvals in place to establish a processing facility at the Centipede deposit and to establish mining activities at the Centipede and Lake Way deposits.
At the end of January, an independent scoping study improved Wiluna’s project economics by integrating the Lake Maitland deposit into the project.
Based on mining at the four deposits, the Wiluna project was expected to have a mine life of 16 years with average production of two-million pounds of uranium oxide (U3O8) a year, for the first ten years of operation.
Total production over the life-of-mine would reach 30.2-million pounds U3O8.
“Toro’s overarching Wiluna strategy is to use one central processing plant adjacent to the Centipede deposit to reduce the regional footprint and environmental impacts by avoiding a duplication of operations and infrastructure,” said Toro MD Vanessa Guthrie on Friday.
“Accordingly, Toro is hopeful that the environmental assessment process for Millipede and Lake Maitland can be completed by mid-2016.”
Guthrie pointed out that the recently completed study provided a running start into Wiluna’s definitive feasibility study, with the results positioning the proposed A$315-million project as one of the few uranium mining projects in the world capable of bringing new production to global markets at a time when the uranium price was set to rise in the second half of the decade.