www.marenicaenergy.com.au
Marenica Energy's (ASX: MEY) strategy is to focus on the evaluation of the Marenica Project as well as to identify and acquire other uranium opportunities globally.
The Company's principal asset is the Marenica Uranium Project located in the uranium rich Damara Province in Namibia. The project covers 527sq km, with high prospectivity for both secondary and primary uranium deposits.
Marenica ticks off solid progress at Marenica uranium project
Marenica (ASX: MEY) has been active on operational and corporate fronts as it progresses its Marenica Project in Namibia.
The company is aiming for production from Marenica by 2014.
Marenica's has raised $10 million through a share placement which ultimately resulted in the French-based global nuclear giant AREVA Inc gaining a strategic 10.4% stake in Marenica.
There has been a substantial increase in the resource base for its flagship Marenica Project from around 34 million pounds of contained U3O8 to 85 million pounds (Indicated Mineral Resource of 31Mt grading 175ppm U3O8 and an Inferred Mineral Resource of 196Mt grading 169ppm) of contained U3O8 including a significant increase in the average resource grade to 170ppm U3O8.
Frst-pass metallurgical testwork has been completed on Marenica ore as well as preliminary scoping study work which has demonstrated positive economics and confirmed treatment by heap leach as the superior option.
John Young, CEO, said forthcoming activities will include further detailed metallurgical testwork to assess the heap leach processing route and optimisation work to further improve the project’s financial parameters.
The company is planning the commencement of trial mining and pitting operations to extract samples for bulk metallurgical pilot plant testwork, as well as to obtain geotechnical information to further define key project parameters
Marenica has had regional exploration success with the definition of new targets at MA5 and MA7, outside of the main resource envelope.
The company has "an aggressive work program in place for the 2010/11 financial year to continue to progress the Marenica Project towards development and production."
Marenica will undertake further resource definition drilling to improve continuity, grade and convert resources to reserves and exploration drilling to increase the resource base at the key MA1, MA2 and MA5 targets, as well as electromagnetic surveys and further exploration to define further targets at MA7.
Young said he is confident that the fundamental reasons for pursuing the development of a substantial new uranium project in Namibia remain sound.
"Global demand for uranium continues to increase rapidly with over 57 nuclear power plants currently under construction in 15 countries, and a further 151 either planned or ordered worldwide."
"This represents significant growth and could result in a potential widening of the supply-demand gap over the next few years," Young said.
Over the last 12 months, supply from Kazakhstan and the US Department of Energy inventory has increased, however slower development of new supply from Kazakhstan within the next several years combined with an end to the U.S.- Russia HEU agreement in 2013 should bolster prices medium-term.
Preliminary scoping work has demonstrated that a large heap leach operation shows positive economics, and will deliver far superior financial returns compared with an agitated leach circuit.
This development scenario will "involve additional metallurgical testwork across a broader run-of-mine samples to confirm the use of heap leach technology, given there is a large tonnage of low grade mineralisation available above the lower cut of 50ppm U3O8."
Marenica said the metallurgical work will involve a series of agglomeration and column leach tests that will take several months and these tests are planned to commence in August 2010.
Following this next phase of work, trial mining will be undertaken to enable bulk metallurgical and pilot plant testwork to be progressed to Feasibility Study level.
