Sleeping uranium giant Jabiluka now clearly in ERA’s thinking
A presentation to the United States market by the Rio Tinto-controlled Energy Resources of Australia (ERA) showed that one of the world’s sleeping uranium giants, the Jabiluka project, is now firmly in the company’s development plans.
Author: Ross Louthean Posted: Tuesday , 06 May 2008
PERTH -
Jabiluka in the Northern Territory, originally discovered by Pancontinental Mining, has been politically sterilised from development for more than three decades but the political door is now open with the NT and South Australia now amenable to development of new uranium mines.
Energy Resources of Australia Ltd (ASX: ERA) has one political hurdle and that is an undertaking given about three years ago by a Rio Tinto executive along the lines that Jabiluka's development would need the sanction of the traditional landholders in that sector of the Alligator Rivers region. That has seen anti uranium groups undertaking heavy lobbying of the genuine and the questionable land titleholders for Jabiluka, which has reserves of 11.8 million tonnes grading 0.5% U308 for 59,000t of contained U308 (at an 0.2% cut-off grade), and resources of 15.18 Mt @ 0.5% U308 for 76,403t (0.2% cut-off). Old reports indicate Jabiluka also has a gold zone containing up to 1 million ounces.
At ERA's Ranger mine, which has operated for 28 years and been the world's second largest uranium operation, the Ranger 3 deposit has remaining reserves of 32.11 Mt @ 0.15% for 49,671t (at an 0.08% cut-off grade for in situ ore and 0.06% for stockpiled ore) and resources of 42.39 Mt @ 0.12% for 50,567t U308 (including low grade stockpiled ore not processed).
In the US presentation ERA's chief executive Chris Salisbury said Ranger 3, which processes ore at 2.4 Mt per annum, is due to cease mining in 2012 though the processing life will go through to 2020.
After a declaration of force majeure in 2007 the company expects normal production this year. Despite this 2007 produced record profit of $A76 M ($US71.89 M) from $A362 M ($US342.4 M) revenue with the production of 5,412t U308.
Salisbury said ERA sells uranium under long term contracts and the average realised price lifted in 2007 to $US25.06/lb compared with 2006's $US18.36 and 2005's $US16/lb. The contracts, generally of 3-5 years duration, have a mixture of pricing mechanisms including being "fixed price/base escalated", linked to market indicators and negotiated prices.
He said about half of the metal at Ranger 3 is in existing stockpiles and the remainder is in situ in the current final pit shell design.
"The future processing of the material is subject to a detailed study to be concluded mid year," he said.
With the Pit 3 extension work which extended mine life to 2012 an additional 4,857t (10.7 M lbs) of uranium was added to reserves.
There was also a "significant exploration pipeline" with targets including Ranger 18 and trial seismic surveying was underway for drill targeting purposes.
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