PERTH (miningweekly.com) –The share price of ASX-listed Greenland Minerals tumbled on Friday as the company resumed share trading after the Greenland government earlier this week passed legislation to ban uranium mining.
The new legislation could mean the axe for Greenland’s Kvanefjeld rare earths project, as it contains a uranium by-product.
Greenland Minerals has previously noted that while the uranium was not of great economic significance to the Kvanefjeld project, the revenues generated by the uranium and other by-products would serve to reduce the rare earth production costs.
The ASX-listed company on Friday told shareholders that the company was now seeking advice on how the new legislation would impact the proposed development strategy for its Kvanefjeld project.
The company noted that the new uranium legislation marks a shift in the Greenland government’s decade-long agenda of developing a critical minerals industry in Greenland, in alignment with Greenland’s broader minerals strategy.
The Kvanefjeld rare earth project is underpinned by a Joint Ore Reserves Committee code compliant ore reserve estimate that contains 108-million tonnes at 1.43% rare earth oxide, 0.26% zinc, and 0.036% uranium oxide. Under the currently proposed development strategy for Kvanefjeld, uranium oxide, if recovered as a by-product of rare earth production, would contribute approximately 5% of project revenues.
Greenland said on Friday that a comprehensive radiological assessment of the project by an independent specialst consultancy firm had concluded that the project was expected to release "only small amounts" of additional radioactivity to the environment, and was not expected to result in an adverse effect, or significant harm, to the region.
The company’s share price fell to 8.5c each on Friday, from a closing price of 12.4c each November 10, when it went into a trading halt.