Marenica strengthens position in Erongo Region – adds Mile 72 Uranium Project to portfolio
Australian Stock Exchange listed company, Marenica Energy Limited with its major focus being the development of its proprietary U-pgrade technology has signed a binding agreement to purchase the Mile 72 Uranium Project (EPL3308) from Metals Australia Limited.
In a SENS announcement last week, it was stated that Marenica has now acquired 100% of the Mile 72 Project.
The Mile 72 Uranium Project covers 2,692 hectares and is located in the Erongo Region within 100 km of the Marenica Uranium Project and only 30 km from Henties Bay.
According to the announcement, the mineralisation at the Mile 72 Uranium Project is calcrete hosted, very similar to the Marenica Uranium Project, Langer Heinrich Project (Paladin) and Tumas (Deep Yellow) deposits, in the country.
Marenica in the announcement said past testwork on these projects has confirmed the amenability of U-pgrade and indicated that the U-pgrade process potentially reduces the project development costs by about 50% and the operating costs by about 50%.
It is expected that the Mile 72 calcrete mineralisation will respond to U-pgrade the same as all other Namibian calcrete deposits tested and produce a low mass concentrate for leaching.
“We are excited about the acquisition of Mile 72 as we build a portfolio of uranium assets at the bottom of the uranium price cycle, assets in which our proprietary U-pgrade process is expected to add significant value,” said Murray Hill, Managing Director.
“Mile 72 has been under explored for calcrete uranium mineralisation and presents a great opportunity for the company to potentially delineate a high-grade resource, in a world class uranium province,” he added.
Meanwhile, Marenica will pay A$30,000 cash, plus a preferential dividend of 1% of gross production from the project. The agreement to purchase is subject to obtaining any regulatory approvals that will be required in Australia or Namibia.
Metals Australia Limited has completed several exploration programmes since 2007, the latest of which was in 2014. The first stage for Marenica will be data validation of all available exploration data.
