Uranium company says WA Government policy changes | Australian Markets

A company with a long-stalled uranium project within the northern Goldfields says changes to the State Government’s policy in direction of the nuclear fuel are “warranted” after a “more accurate” low-level research highlighted the “robust” financial potential of one of its deposits.

West Perth-headquartered Toro Energy’s Wiluna uranium-vanadium project has three deposits, together with Lake Maitland, which is 105km south-east of the northern Goldfields city.

The WA Labor Government has a policy banning new uranium mining tasks within the State, and Toro’s approvals for Wiluna, which had been granted in 2016, lapsed in 2021 as a result of “substantial commencement” was deemed to not have taken place.

The solely uranium project in WA with presently legitimate State approval is Deep Yellow’s Mulga Rock proposal 290km east-north-east of Kalgoorlie-Boulder — however that is second in line to the $750 million Tumas project in Namibia, the place Deep Yellow lately delayed a financial investment resolution because it waits for world costs to improve.

However, Toro has saved its investment in Wiluna effervescent away, and on Wednesday launched an up to date scoping research for Lake Maitland which it mentioned highlighted a “robust” case for a standalone mining and processing operation.

Toro govt chairman Richard Homsany mentioned the new research used the lately accomplished, more correct useful resource estimation and re-engineering of the proposed mining operations.

“The result is a more accurate study that clearly demonstrates just how robust the potential economics of the proposed project are, with an uplift of $75m or 9 per cent to a base case of $908m in pre-tax net present value, and a significant reduction in the payback period to a very swift 18 months from the commencement of mining and processing,” he mentioned.

“As we have stated previously, the Lake Maitland deposit comprises a significant proportion of the Wiluna uranium project’s resources, so we cannot understate just how transformational the standalone Lake Maitland operation is on the potential economics of the entire Wiluna uranium project.

“These latest estimates at Lake Maitland outline its potential to be brought into production and capacity to generate significant returns when regulatory settings align.

“Importantly, Lake Maitland’s upside and quality continue to improve with each evaluation Toro undertakes, further strengthening the case that Wiluna is an asset of global significance.

“Policy changes at the WA State Government level to facilitate Toro’s project development and unlock the considerable value in WA’s uranium industry are warranted and, in the context of assisting many countries with nuclear power in their energy mix to achieve decarbonisation, are more than well overdue.”

Toro on Wednesday mentioned it believed its State approval remained legitimate regardless of not attaining substantial graduation, and it nonetheless had the option of making use of beneath the Environmental Protection Act for an extension of time at a later time during the life of the approval.

“It is also envisaged that favourable results from the studies detailed in this announcement may also necessitate an amendment to the proposal the subject of each environmental approval received,” the company mentioned.

The company up to date the useful resource at Lake Maitland final September by 12 per cent to 29.6 million kilos of contained triuranium octoxide — in any other case referred to as yellowcake — with a discount in average grade to 403 components per million triuranium octoxide at a 100ppm cut-off grade.

The research launched on Wednesday mentioned Lake Maitland may produce 1.3 million kilos yearly of yellowcake throughout a 16.3-year mine life — which amounted to a whole of 22Mlb.

It mentioned the entire price of the project was $298.4m.

The returns had been based mostly on a uranium price of US$85/lb — rival Canadian company Cameco estimates the spot price in April was US$67.73/lb.

The research additionally included the stripping of vanadium from the uranium processing stream stream — Toro mentioned it was liberated from the uranium ore mineral as a potassium uranium vanadate, together with the uranium, during leaching, to provide a low-value sodium hexavanadate as a by-product.

Last September’s mineral useful resource estimate mentioned Lake Maitland had a vanadium useful resource of 50Mt at 285ppm vanadium oxide for 31.4Mlb at a 100ppm cut-off.