August drilling results support Tumas’ 20-year Life of Mine objective
By Freeman Ngulu.
Reptile Uranium’s ambitious drilling programme continues to add to the mineral explorer’s already promising list of resource assets.
Reptile’s parent, ASX-listed Deep Yellow Uranium released this week an updated Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) for the Tumas 1 East deposit, on EPL3497.
Deep Yellow Management says that the success of the Tumas drilling programme provides a high-level of confidence in achieving a stated Life of Mine (LOM) objective of 20 or more years.
John Borshoff, Managing Director and Chief Executive of Deep Yellow said in a statement dated 1 September 2021 that the exploration has since 2017 increased the Tumas Mineral Resource base fourfold, including a 76% conversion to the Indicated Mineral Resource status. These results are based on the 65% of the Tumas 1 East resource that has been tested so far.
“Pleasingly, the program was very successful and of the portion of the deposit tested, achieved a 102% conversion of Inferred Mineral Resources (by metal on a panel-by-panel basis) to an Indicated Mineral Resource category. This conversion rate, along with the previous 113% at the Tumas 3 deposit, again shows the value of the company’s Mineral Resource improvement strategy,” he said.
In August 2021, Deep Yellow successfully completed a two-month, 556 hole, 6,982 metre resource upgrade infill drilling programme at the Tumas 1 East deposit. The mineralisation at Tumas 1 East occurs as an eastward extension of the Tumas 1 deposit.
The updated MRE at Tumas 1 East has delivered at a 100ppm cut off, a maiden Indicated Mineral Resource of 19.6Mlb eU3O8 at 245ppm. In addition, an Inferred Mineral Resource of 9.2Mlb eU3O8 at 216ppm remains within the Tumas 1 East deposit to be upgraded at a future date.
Overall, at a 100 ppm eU3O8 cut off, the Tumas 1 East MRE now stands at 28.8Mlb at 235ppm.
“It is timely to compare the increase to the Indicated Mineral Resource base that has occurred relative to that used for the Tumas Pre-Feasibility Study (PFS) announced on 10 February 2021.
For the PFS, the Indicated Mineral Resources available using a 100ppm cut-off were 28.4Mlb at 299ppm U3O8 from Tumas 3 and 24.2Mlb at 203ppm U3O8 from Tumas 1 and Tumas 2. This established the maiden Ore Reserve for the PFS, outlined below, providing Probable Ore Reserves of 31Mlb at 344ppm U3O8 using a 150ppm cut-off grade.”
The final MRE was reported at a number of cut-off grades from 100ppm to 200ppm eU3O8 and the Mineral Resources derived from these cut-off grades indicate that the mineralisation remains robust and consistent.
