Boss Resources to fast track Honeymoon uranium restart

According to Mining News Pro - Uranium prices hit their highest point since the beginning of 2017 last November and are expected to increase further into 2019, according to uranium market analysts such as UxC and TradeTech.

The uranium spot price stood at $US28.65 per pound ($40) as of February 18, according to UxC.

Honeymoon’s restart area, which includes three deposits within the ML6109 mining licence in the project’s eastern region — Brooks Dam, Honeymoon and East Kalkaroo — has received a 30 per cent resource increase to 24 million tonnes at 660 parts per million for 36 million pounds of contained uranium.

The Honeymoon mine, which was placed on care and maintenance in 2013 by previous owners Uranium One, is poised to restart and expand under Boss.

It is one of five uranium mines in Australia, adding to the Ranger site in the Northern Territory and the Beverley and Olympic Dam mines in South Australia. The Four Mile deposit, a sister mine to Beverley, opened in 2014 to become Australia’s fifth uranium operation.

Boss reported that Honeymoon’s total mineral resource has increased to 52.4 million tonnes of uranium compound (triuranium octoxide) at an average grade of 660 parts per million for 71.6 million pounds of contained uranium, a 13 per cent overall increase.

“Today’s announcement provides further validation that Honeymoon is one of the few uranium projects worldwide positioned to participate in the early stages of a new bull market,” Boss Resources managing director Duncan Craib said.

“A 30 per cent increase in mineral resource, covering a fully permitted mining licence ML6109 which is supported by an export licence, will help fast-track the restart of uranium production and facilitate offtake arrangements.”

Boss is also researching Honeymoon’s expansion potential with the finalisation of its 2019 exploration strategy. The company has a conceptual exploration target of 32–78 million tonnes at 440–1400 parts per million for 42–100 million pounds of uranium .

“We believe Honeymoon’s global uranium endowmnet will increase through future exploration activity on our surrounding 100 per cent-owned tenements,” Craib said.