Uranium Energy has established a strong reputation in the South Texas Uranium Belt via their regional development/production /processing strategy, tying advanced in-situ recovery capabilities and premiere acreage to the company’s Texas-based, fully licensed, and permitted Hobson processing facility. The company recently tacked on even more logistical momentum to the operation, showcasing excellent resource data with the reportage of the most recent independent resource estimate on the company’s Anderson Project over in Yavapai County, Arizona.
Looking at the data we see a huge addition to the company’s already impressive production pipeline, with Indicated resource estimates coming in at some 17M lbs of U3O8 (12M Inferred) via the jointly produced independent resource estimate (CSA NI 43-101 Qualified Persons were Bruce Davis, of BD Resource Consulting and Bob Sim, of Sim Geological). Wholly commensurate with the company’s brilliant strategy for the region, the Anderson Project is not only expected to evolve as UEC’s flagship project for Arizona, but add mightily to the stream of uranium feeding the company’s Hobson processing facility.
The data for the technical report was acquired via some 665k feet of drilling in 1,464 holes to date (1,054 by Minerals Exploration Company, 385 by Urangesellschaft U.S.A. Inc., and another 25 by Concentric Energy Corp.), including downhole gamma surveys and chemical assays. VP of Exploration for UEC, Clyde L. Yancey, P.G., acted as Qualified Person for the technical review and pegged a 45-day window for release of the technical report itself. This constitutes the most comprehensive current update to the resource outlook for Anderson and offers investors a tantalizing glimpse into the future of UEC’s AZ production stream (the company’s Workman Creek Project is only 180 miles away).
With a long track record of consistent empirical observation to go on, stretching back to initial open-pit mining in the 50’s, the 9,852-acre Anderson Property (459 contiguous, unpatented lode mining and placer claims) is located just 75 miles outside Phoenix and is broken into two basic north and south sections. The northern half contains the open-pittable resource (15.5M lbs indicated, 2.5M inferred) and the southern part contains the underground resource (1.5M lbs indicated, 9.5M inferred).
The mineral resource estimate is based on a complex geological model that details the spatial distribution of uranium in the deposit, in conjunction with sample assay data from the drill holes and mapped according to accepted geostatistical methods (nominal 10×10 meter blocking in 2 meter slices), with resources classified according to sample proximity as per the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum’s definition standards.
President and CEO of UEC, Amir Adnani, clearly pleased with this hearty expansion of the company’s underlying resource pipeline, hailed the Anderson Project’s large, defined resource estimate as a clear indicator to shareholders of the company’s market position/forward momentum. Citing the energy production and business-friendly attitude of Arizona as ideal for UEC’s business model, Adnani cited the fact that AZ hosts three of the biggest nuclear plants in the country and that they all have received their 20-year license extensions, offering an immediate consumption blanket that reinforces UEC’s growth projections.
Adnani indicated that environmental baseline study data was being amassed in coordination with all aspects of the permitting process (from an objective standpoint, the process should go swimmingly). Arizona is extremely receptive to this sort of work and UEC has a solid reputation for environmentally responsible in-situ recovery, employing some of the most efficient prevailing methods in existence wherever possible.
Recent upticks in the long-term price of U3O8 (up about 2.5%) show the first real positive signs in 17 months that stability/improvement has returned to the vector since Fukushima, spurred on by positive news like the town of Ohi, where the local Japanese government voted 11-1 in favor of restarting the town’s two plants. Japanese PM Noda has gone on record as being inclined to restart in general and this is not surprising as now the country is gobbling up hydrocarbons at an economically unsustainable rate, representing some 90% of all electricity currently consumed in this energy-hungry market. Indeed, the price trend is a clear market factor, we have other news that the Czech Republic set a target for 50% of electrical output to come from nuclear by 2030 and a new report out of China today, as Graham Corp. was awarded $5M in new orders for elector systems, to be made at their facility in Batavia and installed at four Chinese nuclear energy facilities currently under construction.
Anderson will make a great addition to the Palangana in-situ project (currently ramping up production) and should keep UEC flush with inputs for Hobson, precisely as the global market wakes up to the fact that they need nuclear, now more than ever, just to satisfy burgeoning demand for electricity. China certainly has figured it out, planning to build nuclear and coal plants at a rapid pace over the next several decades, the PRC is focusing on safer pebble-bed reactors of modern design and will need huge amounts of yellowcake well into the foreseeable future, meaning that the domestic and export markets will remain stable (likely accelerating over time, as even German Chancellor Merkel recently acknowledged that they are way behind schedule trying to replace nuclear energy infrastructure, something increasingly difficult amid still-ominous European sovereign debt woes).
For more information on the Anderson Project, or to stay up to date with the latest news and information on Uranium Energy Corp., please visit the company’s website at: www.UraniumEnergy.com
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