Uranium explorer Deep Yellow is making strides towards extending the mine life of its Tumas project to a targeted 30 years, with a recent drill programme unearthing additional resources to prolong the current life-of-mine (LoM).
The primary objective of the reverse circulation resource expansion and infill drilling programme completed to the west of the Tumas 3 deposit was to identify additional resources to extend the current 22.5-year LoM.
Based on this work, the drill programme has successfully increased the Tumas 3 mineral resource, delivering an 11% uplift in indicated mineral resources to 60.6-million pounds at 325 parts per million (ppm) uranium oxide-equivalent (eU3O8), using a 100 ppm cut-off grade
The drill programme also identified a further 1.2-million pounds of inferred mineral resources in the same area.
Tumas 3 is the biggest uranium deposit along the Tumas palaeodrainage. Together with the Tumas 1, 1 East, Tumas 2 and Tubas deposits, the palaeodrainage contains about 139-million pounds of U3O8 inferred and indicated resources, of which 67.3-million pounds are currently contained in a probable ore reserve.
“The Tumas palaeochannel already holds 30-million pounds of uranium oxide in the inferred resource category which is available for future upgrading to an indicated resource status. The results from this programme, together with the resource growth potential through future exploration across the Tumas project area, provide us great confidence that we can deliver on our long-term LoM target at Tumas,” said MD John Borshoff.
Deep Yellow is a uranium development company focused on building a global, multi-project, tier-one production platform. Deep Yellow has systematically explored and significantly expanded resources at Tumas over the past five years, establishing the project as one of the largest undeveloped uranium deposits globally.
Deep Yellow has assembled an accomplished and experienced team to advance Tumas to production. The management team and board collectively provide expertise spanning uranium exploration, project development, mining operations and nuclear fuel markets.
CEO John Borshoff is recognized as one of the uranium sector’s most experienced leaders, with decades of experience including founding and leading Paladin Energy during a period of rapid growth. The team has direct experience discovering, permitting, financing, constructing and operating similar uranium mines in Namibia including Paladin’s Langer Heinrich Mine.
This experience allows Deep Yellow to understand the geological controls on uranium mineralization in Namibian palaeochannel deposits. The project team’s collective knowledge has underpinned the significant exploration success achieved at Tumas over recent years.
In late 2015, Deep Yellow acquired the Tumas Project which contained an identified resource of 14 million lbs U3O8. The company recognized the strong potential to significantly expand resources through systematic exploration targeting extensions of the known Tumas palaeochannel uranium deposits.
Exploration since 2016 has included airborne geophysics, ground radiometric surveys, geological mapping and over 700 resource drill holes. This work resulted in a greater than 10-fold increase in estimated uranium resources at Tumas to the current 140 million lbs U3O8. The deposits remain open with further resource upside.
The Tumas deposits comprise shallow channels filled by porous sediments (calcrete) which host uranium mineralization in the form of carnotite. The calcrete layers range from 5 to 30 metres thick, averaging 15 metres. The shallow, flat-lying nature of the Tumas deposits makes them highly amenable to extraction via conventional open-pit mining methods.
Metallurgical test work has demonstrated the uranium at Tumas can be efficiently extracted using a simple process flow sheet comprising alkaline leaching, resin-in-pulp recovery followed by precipitation and drying to produce a saleable uranium product. The alkaline leach process does not require acid or pressure oxidation, enabling lower processing costs.
In addition to the flagship Tumas Project, Deep Yellow controls a vast exploration portfolio covering 3,645km2 within Namibia’s prime uranium belt. This includes early-stage targets across two project areas – Nova Joint Venture and Omahola Project. Airborne surveys have identified over 150km paleaochannel targets that represent priority exploration targets.
Targeted exploration drilling has intersected uranium mineralization at several prospects across Deep Yellow’s tenements confirming the strong potential for further discoveries. Ongoing exploration aims to define additional satellite uranium deposits that could supplement the Taumas resource base and extend project life.