Reptile applies for uranium mining licence

Following last week’s announcement that it will be applying for a mining licence for its Shiyela Iron project in the first half of 2012, Reptile Uranium Namibia has submitted two mining licence applications to the Ministry of Mines and Energy on behalf of its 95% owned subsidiaries, INCA Mining (Pty) Ltd and TRS Mining Namibia (Pty) Ltd.
Local company, Oponona Investments (Pty) Ltd, holds the remaining 5% of both entities.
The INCA and the Tubas (TRS) deposits are covered by these two applications and form two components of the company’s flagship Omahola Project. The Ongolo and MS7 alaskite deposits also form part of the Omahola Project, located within the 100% held exclusive prospecting licence 3496.
The mining licence application for the TRS deposit is to permit a shallow, free dig open pit mine producing uranium ore which will be upgraded by physical beneficiation to produce a high grade uranium rich concentrate amenable to acid or alkali leaching. The second processing phase (to be located at INCA) will consist of a leach circuit followed by resin loading to produce an intermediate product to be potentially sold to one of Namibia’s existing uranium producers.
The mining licence for the INCA deposit is to permit an open pit mine producing up to 2.5 million tonnes per annum of uranium and iron bearing ore which could result in the production of up to 2.5 Mlbs per annum U3O8, depending on project economics.
Greg Cochran, managing director of Deep Yellow, the parent company of Reptile Uranium acknowledged the efforts of the Reptile team in achieving this milestone.
He said: “The small senior team there led by MD, Leon Pretorius, have managed against the odds to deliver three environmental impact assessment reports together with these two Mining licence applications to the respective regulators within a fortnight.
“This would not have been possible without significant sacrifice and I thank the team for their commitment. We are looking forward to a period of robust and thorough evaluation by the Namibian regulators and the timely issue of these licences.”