HEATHGATE Resources says the Beverley North uranium mine will be...

HEATHGATE Resources says the Beverley North uranium mine will be in production by the second half of next year after positive drilling results.
The company has applied for a mining lease. If the nearby Four Mile project continues to be delayed, Beverley North could be Australia's next uranium mine.
The $110 million Four Mile mine is being developed by Heathgate's affiliate Quasar Resources and 25 per cent joint venture partner Alliance Resources.
Alliance recently announced that problems with the native title agreement for Four Mile had resulted in a delay to the mine, which will now not open until at least April.
Heathgate president David Williams says the company will be proceeding at full pace with Beverley North. He said its attention had been on Four Mile, but, ``with the delays there, we have gone back and focused on what we have ourselves''.
Drilling results from the Pepegoona prospect in Beverley North have indicated uranium deposits in the area could sustain an 800,000-pound-a-year production target, which Mr Williams wants in operation as soon as possible.
He says preliminary testing at Pepegoona has returned results that indicate Beverley North's deposit could rival Four Mile's, which is expected to produce three million pounds of uranium oxide a year.
``We can't say at the moment if Pepegoona is a 30 million-pound prospect, but in these early days it is showing all the hallmarks (and) it is likely we are going to get hits in that order,'' he said.
To begin on-site production quickly at minimal cost, mobile satellite facilities will be used to mine the uranium oxide, which will be trucked to the existing Beverley plant for processing.
In doing so, the company will save millions of dollars by not needing a permanent processing plant.
``It means we can bring this into production quickly while continuing to explore the area,'' Mr Williams said. ``If it turns out to be another 30 million-pound resource -- and we want to go full-bore on it -- we can build a more permanent installation.''
Mr Williams says Beverley's production capacity is 3.3 million pounds a year, and it is running at about half that rate.
If Four Mile and Beverley North both come onstream at the same time, the capacity of Beverley would have to be increased.
``Opposite to what might be thought out there, Beverley still has a life,'' he said.