Extract expects uranium supply gap by the time Husab starts...

Extract expects uranium supply gap by the time Husab starts production

CAPE TOWN (miningweekly.com) – Less than four years after the Husab uranium deposit in Namibia was first discovered the project was now ready for development, Extract Resources CEO Jonathan Leslie told the Investing in African Mining Indaba in Cape Town this week.

Leslie said that a mining licence for an area of 110 km at the site, which was near Swakopmund, was granted at the end of 2011.

The mine is expected to produce 15-million pounds of uranium oxide equivalent a year by 2014.

The company has defined a total resource of over 500-million pounds of uranium and a reserve update declared 320-million pounds of uranium at Husab.

Husab was “comfortably the largest uranium deposit in Namibia . . . and apart from Langer Heinrich we have the highest grade of known mineral deposits of uranium in Nambia,” said Leslie.

The grade of uranium at Husab is 50% higher than that of Rössing mine, which was currently the largest openpit uranium mine in the world.

Leslie said that at present Husab was the third-largest primary uranium deposit in the world but as more discovery work was done, he anticipated that it would continue to climb the rankings. “Our drilling programme continues and we expect a further resource update in the second quarter of 2012. We’re encouraged by a number of the process options we’re looking at.”

(I don't think the T/O will be completed without taking these results into consideration. Hence, there is a reason for holding back the release of this information)


While Leslie noted that Namibia had a good existing port, rail and road infrastructure, Extract Resources estimated it would still need to spend $210-million on infrastructure for the site.

The capital costs of the project were $7-billion with total operating costs of $32/lb and Leslie anticipated that the investment would make a significant contribution to Namibia’s gross domestic product, as well as create an estimated 1 000 permanent jobs and 8 000 indirect jobs.

Though the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan did have a short-term impact on the uranium market, Leslie said he believed the fundamentals of the remained attractive.

With demand growth being generated by China, India and the Middle East, he said it was predicted a supply gap would emerge in the uranium market at the time that Husab would come into production.

“If Husab was in production today it would be the second-largest uranium mine in the world . . . [it] is undeniably a world-class deposit,” he concluded.

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