Uranium mills at heart of two US acquisitions

Friday, 4 October 2024

IsoEnergy and Anfield announced on 2 October that IsoEnergy will acquire all of the issued and outstanding common shares of Anfield by way of a court-approved plan of arrangement, in a transaction which is expected to complete in the fourth quarter of this year subject to satisfaction of the conditions. The "implied fully-diluted in the-money equity value" of the transaction is about CAD126.8 million (USD93.6 million), the companies said.

The companies said their combined portfolio of permitted past-producing mines and development projects in the western USA is expected "to provide for substantial increased uranium production potential in the short, medium and long term". Combined current mineral resources of 17.0 million pounds U3O8 (6539 tU) in the measured and indicated category, 10.6 million pounds in the inferred category, and historical mineral resources of 152.0 million pounds U3O8 (measured and indicated) and 40.4 million pounds (inferred) will make the proforma company "among the largest" in the USA, with operational synergies between projects in Utah and Colorado as well as a "robust pipeline" of development and exploration-stage projects in tier-one uranium jurisdictions, including in Canada’s Athabasca Basin.

Shootaring Canyon is one of only three licensed and permitted conventional uranium mills in the USA. The mill has been on standby since 1982, but earlier this year Anfield submitted a production reactivation plan - including an application to increase its licensed capacity from 1 million to 3 million pounds U3O8 - to the State of Utah's Department of Environmental Quality, targeting a potential restart for 2026. Existing toll-milling agreements with Energy Fuels at the White Mesa Mill provide additional processing flexibility for current IsoEnergy mines, the company noted.

Western eyes second mill at Pinon Ridge
 

Western Uranium & Vanadium Corp said its acquisition of 100% of the shares of the Pinon Ridge Corporation (PRC) through a binding stock purchase agreement is part of its plans for developing and licensing one or more uranium and vanadium processing facilities to process production from its resource properties in Colorado and Utah.

The PRC property, which includes historic uranium production sites and exploration projects, has been previously licensed for a uranium mill and Western said the acquisition is part of its plans for developing and licensing "one or more uranium and vanadium processing facilities" to process the output from its resources in Colorado and Utah. This multiple site approach will optimise transportation and processing costs, it says, and notes that the Colorado site is about 25 miles its flagship Sunday Mine Complex.

Former owner Energy Fuels had planned to build a 500 tonnes per day mill at Pinon Ridge, receiving a licence from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) in 2011. However, Energy Fuels subsequently acquired the operational White Mesa mill, and in 2014 it sold Pinon Ridge to a private investor group led by Baobab Asset Management and former Energy Fuels president George Glasier. Glasier is now the president, CEO and a director of Western. As Glasier and his wife now own 50% of the shares of PRC, with another director of Western indirectly owning 3%, the negotiations and approval of the agreement to acquire PRC has been overseen by an independent committee comprised of directors "who are not considered to have an interest in the transaction".

The issuance of the mill's radioactive materials licence was challenged by several environmental groups and in 2018, the CDPHE decided to revoke the licence rather than hold further hearings on the issue.

The preliminary engineering design that has now been developed by Precision Systems Engineering for Western's proposed Utah mill may be utilised at both proposed sites, the company said. The proposed mill will include a kinetic separation circuit to separate mineralised rock from waste rock in a pre-milling process.