A successful exploration campaign at Boss Energy’s Honeymoon uranium project is pointing to a resource and mine life upgrade for the project, just in time to catch an uptrending uranium market.
The drilling campaign tested 21 holes at the SA site, which the company said returned “exceptional” results, including a 5.25m intercept at 3744 parts per million (ppm) triuranium octoxide.
Boss Energy managing director Duncan Craib explains the significance of the results.
“To put it into perspective, our cut-off grade is 250ppm, and while we could mine at lower grades, there are numerous cost and operational benefits to leaching higher grade material from continuous thicknesses,” he said.
“Primarily, less ore has to be leached to extract the same amount of contained uranium, which typically results in lower operating costs and increased operating margins.”
Another 40 holes are yet to be drilling at the Gould Dam prospect at the site.
The company already has seen significant success on the exploration front, increasing Honeymoon’s resource from 16.57Mlbs to 71.57Mlbs since the project’s acquisition in December 2015.
“We have a two-pronged strategy for creating shareholder value,” Craib said.
“This involves the start of production and cashflow, which will make Boss Australia’s next uranium producer, and growing the uranium inventory, which will enable us to increase the mine life and production rates.”
The development comes at an important time, with spot and long-term uranium prices trending upwards, and trading at a five-year high.
Boss forecasts an increase in primary uranium demand of 33 to 44 million pounds by 2030, driven by a significant drop in Russian imports and higher tails assays.
Boss Energy is fully funded with $87 million in cash and zero debt as it prepares for first production in the fourth quarter of 2023.