Permits in place for Burke Hollow production

Friday, 22 February 2019

The company submitted an application for a radioactive material licence to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality in October 2014. The commission has now issued the licence, UEC announced on 20 February.

The licence boundary includes 5385 acres (2179 hectares), encompasses multiple production areas and authorises construction of the satellite facility.

In addition to the Radioactive Material Licence, the Burke Hollow project now has an 11,000 acre (4452 hectare) Mine Area permit, approved in December 2016, two disposal well permits, issued in July 2015, and the aquifer exemption, issued in March 2017.

"The Burke Hollow Project will be developed as part of the company's hub-and-spoke strategy, designed for low-cost in-situ recovery (ISR) of uranium with final processing to occur at our nearby and fully permitted Hobson Plant," UEC said.

Craig Wall, vice president environmental, health & safety, said: "This accomplishment is extraordinarily rewarding for the UEC team, despite very challenging conditions in the uranium sector over the past six years. We're excited to advance Burke Hollow toward becoming a modern, low-cost and environmentally friendly ISR operation."

UEC President and CEO Amir Adnani said: "The drilling and permitting advancements at Burke Hollow have positioned UEC to create the newest, near-term, production ready ISR project in the United States. We are in an optimal position to provide the US a reliable and low-cost source of domestic uranium.  The company's 2019 drilling campaign is scheduled to begin in early March and will consist of approximately 20 delineation holes and the installation of approximately 120 monitor wells to prepare for development of the project's first production area."

The Burke Hollow project uranium property is located in southeastern Bee County, Texas, and consists of two in-situ uranium mining leases that comprise 19,335 acres. A 1825 acre lease located north of and immediately adjacent to Burke Hollow was added in 2012. The project has an estimated inferred mineral resource of 7.09 million pounds U3O8 at a weighted average grade of 0.088% U3O8 contained within 4.06 million tons.

UEC's Texan hub-and-spoke operations are anchored by the fully-licensed Hobson Processing Facility which is central to the Palangana, Burke Hollow and Goliad ISR projects.

In Wyoming, UEC controls the Reno Creek project which is the largest permitted, pre-construction ISR uranium project in the USA.

Additionally, the company controls a pipeline of uranium projects in Arizona, New Mexico and Paraguay, a uranium/vanadium project in Colorado and one of the highest-grade and largest undeveloped ferro-titanium deposits in the world, located in Paraguay.