Heap leach recovery proves best-suited for Omahola uranium project

Deep Yellow, a Namibian exploration company recently announced that it had concluded an in-house preliminary economic analysis for its flagship Omahola project to mine uranium in the Namib Naukluft Park. In its pursuit to develop the Omahola project, the heap leach recovery process was identified as the preferred development strategy for the project, optimising the preferred processing route for the project. It was originally envisaged that a tank leach operation would have been utilised due to its high average uranium grade.
Further exploration will be carried out on the MS7 deposit on account of the results obtained in the in-house study, indicating that the exercise would be economically justified, Deep Yellow reported.
The MS7 deposit will feed into the Omahola project in addition to the INCA and Ongolo deposits situated in the Namib-Nauklaft Park. Deep Yellow also recently explored various processing techniques for its Tubas Sands project.

Managing Director of Deep Yellow, Greg Cochran said, “We are pleased with the results obtained in this in-house preliminary economic analysis which have confirmed that the Omahola Project is better suited to a heap leach development strategy. Whilst further refinements could still be made, we now have a foundation on which we can build and the next step, of re-evaluating the resource base at a lower cut-off, is clear. It is also pleasing to note that on the back of this analysis we can also justify deeper drilling at MS7 which may expand that resource’s potential.”
With regards to its Tubas Sands project, Deep Yellow had completed a preliminary techno-economic trade-off study for this project. Production of a sand concentrate for sale to an existing Namibian producer is being considered, in the form of an intermediate uranium concentrate product. Negotiations with Namibian partners were said to be on-going, Deep Yellow reported.
As at 2013, Deep Yellow had completed early stage project viability studies for the Omahola and Tubas Sands projects. Deep Yellow currently holds a mining licence with a further two applications pending, and nine exploratory licences and has struck an iron-rich resource, it has dubbed Shiyela.