PERTH (miningweekly.com) – A prefeasibility study into the Mulga Rock uranium project, in Western Australia, has estimated that the project could deliver some 50.4-million pounds of uranium oxide (U3O8) over a 17-year mine life.
The mine would produce at a rate of three-million tonnes of U3O8 a year, at a capital cost of $254-million and a C1 operating cost of $31/lb over its life, including by-product credits.
The project was estimated to have a net present value of A$431-million and an internal rate of return of 25%.
Vimy MD Mike Young said on Tuesday that the Mulga Rock project had proven to be a robust and large uranium deposit with simple geology, mining and metallurgy.
“We are well positioned to ride the wave of demand for uranium as the world turns to cleaner energy sources. We are proud that Mulga Rock will deliver enough uranium fuel to offset the equivalent of 50-million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions a year, or 9% of Australia’s total carbon emissions.”
The project would comprise a simple openpit mining operation to a maximum depth of 74 m, with the process plant employing a low-cost acid leaching and resin-in-pulp.
The mine schedule proposed that the Princess deposit would be mined first, with ore being stockpiled prior to the commissioning of the processing plant. This would enable a sterilised pit void to be established for use as an in-pit tailings facility.
Mining would then start at the Ambassador deposit in the second year of operation and would continue through to year 13. The Shogun deposit would then supplement the later part of the Ambassador deposit between years 10 and 14.
Mining from the Emperor deposit was anticipated to start in year 13, after the mineable inventory at Ambassador has been exhausted.
A definitive feasibility study for the Mulga Rock project had now been scheduled for completion by the fourth quarter of 2016 and, pending a positive outcome, a decision to develop the mine would occur in late 2016.