Laramide Resources’ uranium tale gets easier to tell

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THE CONFERENCE CALLER: Uranium has always been a difficult commodity and telling its story is always challenging.

“The uranium story is a little bit different to that of other commodities in that the demand remains fairly constant and supply has been constant,” Laramide Resources managing director Peter Mullens told the 2013 Gold Coats Resources Showcase.

Currently there are 436 nuclear reactors operating around the world while a further 65 new reactors are being constructed.

“The 65 new reactors being built are important as they will be coming on and commissioning over the next five to eight years,” Mullens said.

“They will require significant new uranium production in order to operate.”

Laramide Resources’ (ASX: LAM) main project is the Westmoreland project, an advanced uranium exploration stage project located in Queensland, Australia, which the company claims to rank as one of the best undeveloped uranium assets in the world.

 

Westmoreland project location. Source: Company web page

Westmoreland has a JORC/NI 43-101 compliant resource of 51.9 million pounds (36m lbs. indicated) of uranium with average grade of 0.089 per cent (890ppm) and 15.9 million pounds with average grade of 0.083 per cent (830ppm).

Other highlights of the Westmoreland project include:

Simple mineralisation
Mineralisation is near surface and has significant resource expansion opportunities; 80 per cent of the resource is within 50 metres from surface

Excellent metallurgical results
High uranium recovery of 90.6 per cent and relatively low acid consumption. More recent uranium recoveries of 97 per cent were confirmed by ANSTO with the use of a conventional metallurgical processing route.

Simple mining operation
Westmoreland is intended to be an open cut operation using conventional acid leaching and solvent extraction technology to produce greater than 3 million pounds per annum.

“It’s one of the ten largest uranium deposits in Australia and is one of only two or three that is actually owned and controlled by a junior mining company,” Mullens explained.

“We’re looking at a long mine life of plus 12, probably 15 years producing between 4 to 5 million pounds of uranium per year.

“It is a good size project, no quite a Rio Tinto-scale project, but it is certainly a good mid-tier sized project.”