$30 million capital raising, page-2

The Half Yearly report put out on Friday night was a blandish document (as one expects of these reports) ... but I have picked up a few gems in there.

I cant remember seeing these before:

Exploration
"Resource extension drilling commenced in January 2009 on either side of the Anomaly A resource area."

So drilling has been going on now on Anomaly A resource extensions for some TWO months already. Great stuff, as we have another possible good news source in the near term!

Leaching
The previous announcements on the Agitated Tank leaching & the newly proposed Heap leaching option have been sparse. We now have an update:

"Agitated Leach
The second round of agitated leach optimisation testing was completed in late December 2008. The favourable sulphuric acid consumption results in prior tests continued with a likely range of 15-20 kg/tonne compared with 30kg/tonne previously assumed in the Scoping Study. The results also indicate that there appears to be little advantage in pursuing a fine grind as metal extraction is not strongly dependent on grind size."

TWO THINGS:
1] So its pretty much confirmed that agitated tank leaching on Anomaly A ore is consuming up to 50% LESS sulphuric acid than the original scoping study was based on!!
2] This 2nd test confirms the preliminary studies that Anomaly A ore is "soft", and releases its uranium easily from COURSER grind sizes, thus ruducing the need for extra & prolonged crushing. This is VERY significant. It means it will be cheaper in: a/ less time used to crush b/ less labour time needed c/ less acid used d/ less power used e/ less water used f/ less wear & tear on crushers, rollers, and agitators. These are the sort of things that will make Etango an economic mine while still being a lower grade resource.

"Heap Leach
Preliminary scoping level heap leach testwork was commenced late in the half year. The program tested the effect of crushed product size and free acid concentration. On the basis of the encouraging extraction performance demonstrated in this preliminary program, a further optimisation round of testwork on coarser crushed product sizes was commenced."
and:
"The encouraging heap leach amenability testwork has indicated that this process may have the potential to complement or fully substitute the agitated leaching approach adopted to date."

So first results are through on heap leaching, and they are "encouraging" enough to warrant consideration of possibly replacing tank leaching ... this will MASSIVELY reduce the original CAPEX requirements of mine development.

All great stuff

cheers