Tubas needs partners to mine

Deep Yellow seeking investors to develop Tubas Sands

Peter Christians, Country Manager of Deep Yellow this week confirmed that it is seeking partners to develop its Tubas Sands uranium deposit as a stand alone project. This, he mentioned, would allow Deep Yellow to start mining albeit on a small scale citing its size and the fact that the area lies in a national park as considerations that have to be included in the final project strategy. Deep Yellow intends to mine Tubas Sands until its flagship Omahola project would come on stream.
The Tubas project would in the interim supply a host of prospective Namibian buyers and could possibly later supply the Omahola project. Reptile Uranium Namibia (RUN), Deep Yellow’s Namibian subsidiary has already entered into negotiations with prospective partners to develop the Tubas mining resource.
The material will be sold as an intermediate product, to be processed on site. The ore would be upgraded through a physical beneficiation process and would be transported to the buyers either via truck or piped as slurry. A processing plant is to be constructed and has already garnered the necessary regulatory approval required by the Ministry of Environment and Tourism, Christians added. A separate Environmental Impact Assessment, however, has to be submitted and must look at the transportation of the uranium concentrate to its prospective buyers, he explained.

Further feasibility studies will need to be conducted in 2015 with regards to the Tubas Sands project and are scheduled to be completed around June, a recent quarterly update stated. “A physical beneficiation option consisting of ore scrubbing, classification and dewatering to produce an upgraded sand concentrate for sale to existing Namibian producers has been selected as the preferred strategy,” the quarterly said.
Projects under consideration by Deep Yellow include their flagship Omahola Project as well as the Tubas Sands project. Exploration is on-going with regards to its Shiyela Iron project and a joint-venture, Nova Energy, which Deep Yellow’s subsidiary, Reptile Uranium, is developing with Toro Energy Ltd, an Australian uranium outfit.
The Omahola project will comprise a processing plant and will treat ore from its Ongolo and MS7 Alaskite deposits and the INCA uraniferous magnetite deposit. Expected to run for an estimated 12 years, Omahola will become Deep Yellow’s leading mining project. Tubas Sands was initially planned to feed into the Omahola project and Christians stated on a positive note, that this option is still a strong possibility.