Simmers und First Uranium schreiben bisher sher gute Zahlen, weiter hängt von den nächsten Ergebnissen ab ob es viel oder SEHR viel Erfolg geben wird. sehr Euch dazu auch die Seite auf der homeopage, Förderkosten,e tc an viel glück
News Today Gold junior set on uranium diversification strategy South African junior miner Simmer & Jack (Simmers) has historically been associated with gold-mining, but owing to the currently firm market fundamentals within the uranium sector and increasing prices on a sustained basis, the company has elected to diversify its traditional focus to pursue a separate uranium strategy. Owing to the fact that the fundamentals between the two commodities are so different, this uranium strategy is being undertaken by the company’s subsidiary, First Uranium, of which Simmers has a 70% shareholding and the remaining 30% is owned by Canadian private entity First Uranium.
In an interview with Mining Weekly, Simmers CEO Gordon Miller explains that the company took the decision to diversify its commodity focus based on positive analytical information from offshore advisers.
“Our advice, which has been based on information provided by the large Canadian and European investment banks, is that as the supply of uranium becomes more constrained, the price will rise and could be sustained at an average of $45/lb in the medium term,” explains Miller. “In addition, we have been advised that we are working within a seven-year cycle because the timing to get new projects online worldwide is immensely difficult owing to strict permitting and regulations.” However, in this regard, Miller argues that South Africa has a com- petitive advantage over other uranium-rich countries in that most of the mines with uranium-bearing deposits have permits in place already because of the country’s historical mining activities. “Because global production of new uranium is not going to come online for the next few years, the market is going to be driven by supply-and-demand fundamentals, which could cause the uranium price to be sustained for a number of years,” elabo-rates Miller. “Consequently, the market outlook for uranium is very positive at this point and has inevitably encouraged our diversification strategy.” Miller further elaborates that the company’s operating strategy for the medium-term has been based on the uranium price remaining at $45/lb for the next seven years and, subsequently, stabilising at a long-term price of $25/lb.
However, not only are the market fundamentals presenting an encouraging situation for the company, but Miller explains that the management team within First Uranium, including the company’s CEO, Jim Fisher, Graham Wanblad, the technical di- rector and Roland Freeman, the chief mechanical and electrical engineer, all have previous experience in uranium-mining, particularly with regard to the old Western Areas mine. First Uranium is, thus, in a strong position to take advantage of the current upcycle in the uranium market, which will primarily be achieved through its Buffelsfontein operation in the Free State and, subject to the granting of the new-order mining right, the Ezulwini operation.
Buffelsfontein The Buffelsfontein operation was acquired from DRDGold in July last year after the mine was placed under provincial liquidation in March owing to the earthquake that caused extensive damage to its No 5 shaft. Although this operation is primarily a gold-mine, uranium has always been a significant by-product of this mine. Consequently, with the upturn in the uranium market, Simmers embarked on a feasibility study in Nov- ember to assess the viability of surface mining for uranium in the tailings dams surrounding the current operational mine. The first phase of the feasibility study, which involved extensive drilling and sampling of the tailings dam, was completed in January this year and, according to Miller, all indications suggest that this project is highly workable. According to the resource statement, which was released during the first quarter, the tailings dams, using a zero grade cut-off, are estimated to contain measured and indi-cated uranium mineral resources of 43,6-million pounds of U308 grading at 0,15 lb/t.
The resources are contained in 283-million tons of relatively homo- genous tailings dams and metallurgical testwork is currently under way to determine the most cost-effective extraction methods.
Based purely on the surface re-treatment opportunity, the initial results indicate a 15-year project life, with the potential to extract 12-million pounds of uranium at a throughput rate of one-million tons of surface material a month.
The underground mine will also be sending uranium to the mill and the potential to recover this by-product metal will be assessed when the underground mine completes its mineral-reserves statements.
The next important step for the feasibility study is to complete the metallurgical testwork that will be conducted over the next few months in order to arrive at a definitive process design for coextraction of gold and uranium. “Although mining uranium requires a very simple mining method, it is very difficult to get uranium out of tailings, so we have assumed pretty low recoveries in our current forecast model,” explains Miller. “We are assuming that we are going to get about 28% of the uranium that is contained in the tailings, which is what the initial metallurgical results show.” Miller elaborates that this is because the uranium sits in the fine fraction of the tailings dam, 56% of which is actually in the ultra fine component of the tailings. There are obviously technologies that can be used to improve our recovery ratio, but Miller explains that it is always going to be a balance between cost versus recovery, although the company will go through optimisation strategies as part of this feasibility study.
“The project is fully funded by First Uranium Corporation, which has raised $3-million in private equity to fund the bankable feasibility study,” Miller tells Mining Weekly.
“Should the feasibility study prove to be viable, the Canadian company is obliged to inject a further $25-million in equity to fund the construction of the extraction plants.
“The provision of this funding will result in their ownership increasing to 49% of this project.”
Ezulwini The other uranium project that Simmers is focussing on is the ex-Western Areas and Harmony property (Randfontein 4 Shaft) that has been renamed Ezulwini.
However, this controversial pro-ject has been receiving a lot of attention during the last few months, especially with regard to the company’s black economic-empowerment status.
To this extent, Miller explains that this project is largely misunder- stood in that Ezulwini is a new-order mining-right application and, con-sequently, Simmers is of the view that it will be in full compliance with all the legal requirements of the current legislation. When the mining-right application for Simmers’ 90%-owned Ezulwini company is approved, its gold and uranium assets will be held by Simmers and not First Uranium, but First Uranium is currently considering options for it to acquire Ezulwini’s uranium resources should the mining right be granted to Simmers.
Historic data on this shaft indicates that it has some 1,7-million tons of proved gold at 8,7 g/t. Total measured and indicated reserves come to 19,1-million tons at 6,5 g/t - figures that do not take into account the main shaft pillars, which could add a further 1,5-million tons at 6,04 g/t.
Miller adds that there are also uranium underground resources, which the firm might access at a later stage. Currently, the firm is busy with a feasibility study that is examining the possibility of mining the pillar shafts and this should be completed in the first quarter. Once this has been completed this quarter, and once the Depart-ment of Minerals and Energy awards the licence, mining can start.
However, the firm would require around $50-million in capital to acquire equipment, refurbish the shaft, fix haulages, and supply power. But this expense would also enable Ezulwini to gain access to some 35-million pounds of inferred high-grade uranium resources contained in the abandoned uranium-mine.
According to Miller, if the application for Ezulwini is approved, there are a number of ways that Simmers will raise the capital for this project. “We will raise capital through a placement of shares, although we prefer to do as little of this as possible and see if we can actually raise offshore capital out of Toronto using First Uranium’s equity rather than Simmers’ equity,” concludes Miller. |