Metallurgy
Discrete samples of the upper Schrockingerite mineralisation horizon, the lower Carnotite mineralisation horizon and a composite of the two horizons were subjected to water and acid leach test work in the Mintek, Johannesburg, Research Facility, under GRD Minproc supervision.
The final metallurgical stage of the Pre-Feasibility Study is researching a base case processing flow sheet consisting of scrubbing, size reduction to minus 1mm, conventional acid leaching and resin-in-pulp adsorption. The achievement of the recoveries in the short leach time frames continues to indicate the potential of lower quartile processing costs and a reduced size plant for a given throughput.
The interstitial nature of the uranium mineralisation results in it predominantly reporting in the finer size fraction, thus resulting in a high proportion of the feed material being rejected in the coarse fraction.
Additional Mineralisation
Preliminary results from the 170 drill holes completed to date, of the 400 hole resource upgrade programme, indicate that there is significant mineralisation, in the grade range of 200 – 1,000 ppm eU308, both beneath and outside the envelopes of the present JORC Inferred Resource estimates. The depth of the mineralisation included in the JORC Inferred Resource estimates calculated by the independent consultants Hellman and Schofield Pty Ltd, ranged from 2 metres to 12 metres below surface, with an average depth of less than 10 metres.
Mining
The mining system will be a simple free digging operation in unconsolidated material, without any drilling and blasting. It is envisaged that ore from several sites will be fed to a central processing plant: a One Plant-Multiple Sources Scenario.
Manyoni Uranium Project (100% Uranex NL)
The Manyoni Project is situated in the northern section of the Bahi regional uranium province in central Tanzania, near the town of Manyoni, which is situated some 120 kms WNW of Dodoma, the capital of Tanzania. The sealed main trunk road and railway line from Dar Es Salaam to the Lake Victoria port of Mwanza, plus a main high voltage power line pass through the town.
The Company commenced the initial phase of the Manyoni Pre-Feasibility Study in Mid-June 2009. The internationally recognised AMC Consultants, as project managers, are responsible for the overall study management and the aspects of geology, mining, infrastructure, cost estimation and the final Study Report.
GRD Minproc is responsible for all metallurgical aspects.
Enviroworks Consulting is responsible for all environmental aspects of the study, including the social and community aspects and development of the environmental baseline for data measurement purposes.
The exploration of uranium mineralisation in the playas around Manyoni led to the establishment of JORC compliant resource estimates for portions of playas A, C and E, with the largest portions in playa C. The focus of the follow-up exploration and analysis has been the upgrading and extension of these estimates within A, C and E, with programmed extension into the other playas.
