I've said in a previous post that with the other minerals included in Sweden, Moly, Nickel and Vanadium it brings the average U grade up to the equivalent 320ppm.
Still not massive by any means BUT if you believe the price of U is moving up then the project is VERY compelling especially due it's size.
Check this interview out:
August 25, 2010 Aura Energy Gets To Work On The Metallurgy At Storsjon, The Worlds Seventh Largest Undeveloped Uranium Deposit By Alastair Ford Uranium companies havent been having an easy time of it lately, as the uranium price has flatlined for month after endless month at between US$40 and US$45 per pound. Although thats some way up from lows at which uranium traded during the first five years of the new millennium, its a long way down from the highs of nearly US$140 per pound hit during the height of the boom in 2007. But with gold steaming ahead, copper recovering strongly and various other metals at least showing signs of life, investors have for a long time now elected to view the uranium glass as being half-empty. Its not all bad news, though. The wider uranium market may currently have all the attributes of Bunyans slough of despond, but there are still one or two ways to make money in the space from an investment point of view. The trick is to pick the right value-add proposition, and one that wont be dependent on the uranium price renewing its assault on US$140. In short, for anyone who really chooses to drill down into the detail, its a stockpickers market. Which brings us to Aura Energy. Were one of the few stocks that are actually ahead of where we started the year, says Aura Energy managing director Bob Beeson. And its not hard to see why. The company has two key areas of focus, the Storsjon project in Sweden, one of the worlds most mining-friendly countries, and a huge swathe of exploration ground in Mauretania, which is earlier stage, but could be equally prospective. Its news from Sweden thats been making the running recently though. Within the last few weeks Aura released a maiden JORC resource number for Storsjon which showed 291 million pounds at 162 parts per million (ppm) U3O8. Alright the grade wasnt spectacular, but not long after those JORC numbers went out the company also announced positive news on metallurgical testing and bioleach work. In response Aura Energy shares surged by nearly 20 per cent. So, even if the market would prefer the grade to be higher, its not letting the current numbers hold it back. What redeems Storsjon is its size. We think itll be bigger than Olympic Dam, says Bob Beeson, although he rightly adds the rider that the company cant as yet, support that view with hard numbers. Still, across the licence boundary at Storsjon sits Continental Precious Minerals, with its own JORC inferred resource of around one billion pounds. And Continental claims another mantle for its project as well: its the worlds second largest undeveloped molybdenum deposit. The presence of the moly is key to another value add that Aura should be able to offer to compensate for the low grades at Storsjon: credits. Theres nickel, molybdenum and vanadium all tied in with the uranium, and all of which brings the equivalent grade at Storsjon up to between 300ppm and 350ppm. Now we are beginning to talk familiar numbers as far as economics are concerned, and the size of the deposit begins to take on real meaning. We suspect theres five billion tonnes of material, says Bob, and drilling to date has done nothing to change his mind. So far Storsjon has been drilled to a depth of 250 metres, with the drill holes bottoming out in mineralisation. On the 18 kilometre square Haggan section of Storsjon, every drill hole that Aura sank intersected mineralisation. And so far only five per cent of Auras total Swedish landholding has been drilled. Whats more, it looks like mining should be fairly easy. The strip ratio will be low, says Bob. It could be excavated with a backhoe. No worries about any overburden then, nor with the complexities of deep uranium extraction. In that context its interesting to note, that with the associated metals excluded, Storsjon still shows up as bigger than Extracts famous discovery at Rossing South, and as bigger than the Kvanefjeld deposit in Greenland, currently the subject of early stage development work by Greenland Minerals and Energy. In fact, on Auras own numbers, Storsjon is the seventh largest undeveloped uranium project in the world. In that context, its perhaps not surprising that investors have been sitting up and taking note, and that on recent tours of the London institutions Bob has met with a favourable reception. The next step will be to nail down the metallurgy to a greater degree of certainty, after which the company will start to think about the broad economics. Mine life wont be a problem, but juggling the ratios between the various capex options and potential extraction rates will be a nice headscratcher for the consultants. Meanwhile, work will continue down in Mauritania where the company is hoping to prove up a maiden 50 million pound resource in the early part of next year, with grades in the 300 ppm to 450 ppm range or better. Not far away Forte Energy has been plying its trade on its own ground at Bir en Nar, so this is familiar country to Aussie and UK investors, although things havent always gone Fortes way as far as the pounds in the ground are concerned. Mauritanias proved itself a fairly hands-off mining jurisdiction, though, so there shouldnt be too many worries on that score. As Bob Beeson notes, when the multi-million ounce Tasiast gold deposit began to feature on the radar screens of the majors, the Mauritanian government kept well out of the fray and allowed the natural business process to wend its merry way. If things stay like that, more companies may well be following in Aura Energys footsteps and picking up ground there. Finally, to return to our opening theme, its worth noting that if investors think the uranium glass is half empty right now, its likely that when they look again the glass will be almost full to the brim. Global uranium demand is likely to grow as, on current plans, there will be 57 new reactors commissioned between now and 2015. Further out, theres another 134 in the pipeline, according to data sourced by Aura from the World Nuclear Association, with proposals for another 300 on the table. Aura Energys projects should have come on leaps and bounds by then, and the company could find itself extremely well positioned at just the right time.
(20min delay)