Häggån scoping study

Häggån Project Scoping Study


Aura Energy has announced a major milestone by validating economic viability of its giant Häggån uranium deposit in central Sweden with excellent results from a scoping study. These results give the green light for Aura to move into pre-feasibility in 2012.

Aura’s news is timely after several uranium announcements including China Guangdong Nuclear Power Corp declaring its offer for Kalahari Minerals and readying itself for a takeover bid for huge uranium mine owner Extract Resources. Canada’s Cameco Corp has also announced plans to double its uranium production to 40 million pounds a year by 2018 to accommodate extra demand from China and India.

Following are some key highlights from Aura’s scoping study:

  • Net Present Value (NPV) - US$1,090M (pre-tax, 10% discount rate)
  • Internal Rate of Return (IRR) 47%
  • Total life of mine capital costs of US$769 million, including sustaining capital
  • Payback in approximately 4.3 years, or less than a fifth of current project life
  • Operating costs of US$36/lb uranium net of by-products
  • Initial pit shells contain >741 million tonnes of mineralisation, with much of the Project undrilled
  • Nominal 30 Mtpa operation with a 25 year initial mine life
  • Low mining costs with strip ration of 0.75:1
  • Target initial production of 6.6 Mlbs (2995t) uranium, 14.8 Mlbs nickel and 3.6 Mlbs molybdenum
  • Uses low risk bio-heap leach technology used extensively in the copper industry in Chile 

 
Aura has the largest uranium resources of any ASX-listed uranium company, exceeding even ERA (619Mlbs) and Paladin Energy (503Mlbs); only BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto have larger uranium resources. A project of the dimensions defined in the scoping study would be in the top 10 uranium producing operations in the world, and in the lower part of the cost curve.

In other uranium news, the United States Department of Energy has announced a new funding initiative for manufacturing small model nuclear reactors. Smaller models can be beneficial in diversifying safety and environmental risks and require less time and cost to build, useful for the future nuclear power generation.

For more scoping study results, click here for the ASX announcement released on Tuesday 7 February, 2012. 

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