"the inside story"

By Wally Graham

Black Range ready to tackle the next phase



The appointment of a new Managing Director has heralded the beginning of a new phase for this Colorado-focused Uranium explorer.

The united states of America is the world’s largest consumer of uranium.

In the US, domestic supplies of uranium are at a premium, with just five permitted conventional uranium processing facilities in existence.

Black Range Minerals Limited currently holds the exclusive right to acquire 100 per cent of the plus-60million pounds Taylor Ranch uranium project and exclusive rights to acquire 100 per cent of the adjacent circa-30 million pounds Hansen uranium deposit.

As a consolidated entity the company has around 90 million pounds of uranium on its landholdings.This makes the company’s Taylor Ranch and Hansen uranium project one of the largest in the US and an important vehicle for the US domestic market.

Black Range recently appointed Tony Simpson as managing director.Simpson brings a great deal of industry experience to the Black Range Board having held a number of senior management, technical and operational positions throughout
a 40 year career.

The most recent of these was with ASX-listed Peninsula Energy as chief operating officer where he was directly responsible for the successful exploration and permitting activities of Peninsula’s Lance uranium project in Wyoming.

“The reason I have been brought in as managing director is that Black Range is making the move from exploration to production status,”

Tony Simpson told The Inside Story.

“My experience is extensive in terms of bringing projects together,and that is what I hope to bring to Black Range.

“Permitting plays a major role with the decision making involved in mining, and what I was able to learn and achieve with Peninsula Energy gave me a thorough understanding of the requirements that work best for a permitting environment in the US.”

Black Range Minerals began exploring for uranium in Colorado
in November 2006 after acquiring a 100 per cent interest in the 13,000 acre Taylor Ranch uranium project.Taylor Ranch now boasts a JORC Code compliant resource of over 60
million pounds of uranium.

In addition to Taylor Ranch,Black Range was also interested in the Hansen project, where between 1977 and 1981 previous explorers had drilled-out the Hansen and Picnic tree deposits to reserve status.

After its initial discovery, the Hansen deposit was subjected to approximately 2,200 holes of exploration drilling.

Three feasibility studies were completed and the deposit was fully permitted for mining in the early 1980s.
Mining at Hansen was never to occur however, due to the collapse of the global uranium price after the “3 Mile Island incident” in 1979.

In June 2009 Black Range acquired NZ Minerals’ 49 per cent
interest in the Hansen deposit and in May 2010 agreed on commercial terms to acquire STB’s 51 per cent
interest.

By February 2011 final agreements over terms of the acquisition had been refined, providing Black Range an exclusive option to acquire the remaining 51 per cent.
Once Black Range had secured the rights for 100 per cent of Taylor Ranch, the company quickly moved to secure the rights to the Boyer ranch, which is a lease with the State
of Colorado.

Having built such an impressive suite of assets in a uranium mining friendly jurisdiction, it is little wonder
Black Range was able to secure the services of an experienced campaigner such as Simpson.
With his background in and knowledge of the uranium sector in encouragement to take his chair at the Black Range boardroom table.
“I conducted a due diligence on the project before I made the move,” Simpson said.

“I knew about the project,and had for some time. I actually
thought it may have been an interesting idea for Peninsula and Black Range to have merged a number of years ago to work the project up together.

“However, the opportunity with Black Range arose. The team members I brought with me conducted their own due diligence and agreed that this is a project that can be permitted.”

The company is extremely confident in its ability to develop the project into a mining operation.

“What we have is a very robust ore body; probably one the highest grade and largest uranium ore bodies in the USA,” Simpson said.

“So we have a number of opportunities available to us from the one project.”

Black Range recently conducted a detailed preliminary technical and economic evaluation on the use of engineered hydraulic borehole mining technology on the Hansen deposit.
“The result of this evaluation indicated borehole mining could be an alternative method of mining the
Hansen deposit,” Simpson said.

Mine operating costs, using this method, have been estimated at US$27 per pound of uranium, excluding processing costs. Simpson said the borehole mining technique
opened up a raft of advantages over more traditional and conventional mining methods.

These advantages include being more environmentally protective with a smaller surface impact, as well as requiring low capital expenditure.
The borehole mining technique also offers the ability of selective, high-grade mining if required and can produce high mining recoveries.

Previous feasibility studies for both open pit and underground mining methods are currently being updated.
The quality of the ore body and corresponding ability to
high grade is providing the company with some flexibility to adopt different ideas when approaching the permitting of the project.

“The first long-term item to be addressed is the permitting of the project so we have put that train in motion,” Simpson said.

“Hopefully we will be able to time things right so that the
permitting and feasibility study are completed at the same time so the decision to mine can then be
made.”

The Short Story