Uranium is one of the hottest metals of the last couple of years and London’s main market is about to get its first specialist in the form of Neo Energy Metals.
The company is set to become the only fully listed uranium exploration, development and production company when it floats via a reverse takeover by Stranger Holdings PLC (LSE:STHP) this week, following approval of the merger at a shareholder meeting last week.
Admission of the enlarged group to trading is scheduled for Thursday 9 November 2023.
Neo is currently focused on a single project, Henkries, a South African project formerly owned by Anglo American in the 1970s.
There is an estimated 4.7 million pounds of uranium but due to its extremely shallow nature, it should be “very easy to process and very easy to get into production quickly”, says chief executive Sean Heathcote, who among his three decades' experience in mining can boast operational management positions at Anglo and Billiton, plus 16 years of executive management and directorships in project development companies.
“It's so easy to mine and so easy to process on the back of an Anglo American study that was done quite a few years back, and it's been proven over six months of pilot plant testing and trial mining test pits, etc,” he added.
“So in essence, what we're doing is updating that feasibility study and trying to get into production as fast as possible with a small operation that we then look to expand.”
As well as installing some renewable power sources at the site, Heathcote says the top of his in-tray at the moment is increasing the size of the deposit.
There are surface samples due for analysis that should flesh out the resource model.
“We expect 1.1 to 2 million pounds to come from those samples at surface.”
On top of the 18,000 metres that have already been drilled, he says there are another 6,000-6,500 metres worth of drilling still to go.
The target is to increase the size of the deposit to 10 million pounds worth of uranium in the ground.
“That gets us a nice-sized project to move forward and get into production quickly,” he said.