Peninsula upgrades Lance resources

Australia-based exploration company Peninsula Energy has announced a 31% increase in total resources at its Lance uranium projects in Wyoming, USA. The company has applied for a licence to mine the Ross project at the deposit.

Peninsula said that a further upgrade to the JORC-compliant resource estimate for the Lance uranium projects in Wyoming's Powder River Basin puts total resources at 33 million pounds U₃O₈ (12,700 tU).

The company said that since the release of the updated resource estimate in August 2010, it has continued resource conversion and exploration drilling with the completion of a further 223 drill holes mostly within or near the Ross permit area.

There was a 14% increase in measured and indicated resources from 9.2 million pounds U₃O₈ (3540 tU) to 10.5 million pounds U₃O₈ (4040 tU). The company said that measured and indicated resources comprise 32% of the total resource estimate. At Ross there is a combined measured, indicated and inferred resource of 22 million pounds U₃O₈ (8460 tU), an increase of 36% from the August 2010 update. The average ore grade at Ross is 453 parts per million (ppm) uranium.

Peninsula said that the measured, indicated and inferred resources are located in confined aquifers that "have demonstrated positive in-situ recovery test-work." It added, "The positive results to date provide further confidence that mining will commence within the targeted time-frame (assuming regulatory approval timeframes and funding options are achieved) with production continuing over an extended mine-life."

On 13 January 2011, Peninsula submitted an application to the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality for a permit to construct and operate an in situ leach (ISL) facility at Ross. The company had previously submitted an application to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a combined source and by-product material licence. Peninsula said that these authorizations "are the two key regulatory permits required for the development and commencement of production at the proposed Ross ISL project."

The company is targeting the start of uranium mining at the Ross project in 2012, with planned production of 1.5 million pounds U₃O₈ (580 tU) per year.

Researched and written

by World Nuclear News