The US State Department on Tuesday officially classified the events in Niger at the end of July as a ‘coup d’etat’.

This designation has placed a temporary hold on US development bank financing for the Dasa project.

In a response, Toronto-listed Global Atomic has acknowledged that, although it has sufficient cash reserves to cover its operations for the next year, it is engaging in contingency planning. This includes exploring non-dilutive options with parties interested in purchasing yellowcake.

Global Atomic also stressed that the existing yellowcake offtake agreements with utilities were unaffected by the State Department’s decision.

On the heels of signing its third offtake agreement last week, the company has received additional requests for proposal for yellowcake offtake agreements from utilities. Similar to the most recent agreement, the company is favouring contracts based on market pricing formulas that capture firming market fundamentals.

"The government of Niger has confirmed its full support for the Dasa project,” commented Global Atomic president and CEO Stephen Roman.

He also reported that logistics issues regarding importing goods into Niger were being dealt with by the Niger government, which has given approval for the transport of goods into the country via ports in Ghana and Togo, as well as overland through Burkina Faso.

International flights were expected to be restored shortly.

In the meantime, Global Atomic’s engineering and mine planning team is nearing completion of a revised mine plan that will integrate the recently updated mineral resource estimate and associated material increase in measured and indicated resources. The company stated that detailed engineering and costing were in line with the 2021 Phase 1 feasibility study.  This will form the basis of a revised feasibility study to be completed in the first half of next year.