Boss Energy appears to be in the box seat as the Honeymoon uranium mine continues to exceed key feasibility study estimates.
Boss managing director Duncan Craib said the outperformance was reflected in results of the uranium-rich pregnant leach solution from the wellfields, ion exchange column resin loading and high grade IX column eluate.
At the wellfields, tenors from individual wellfields into the PLS averaged 80-100 milligrams per litre, compared to an assumed PLS grade of 47mg/L.
The lixiviant chemistry has also shown superior performance at commercial throughput rates, with increased leach efficiency leading to better loading on the ion exchange resin.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
That could reduce operating costs given less reagents and power would be required per drum of uranium.
Loading of uranium from the PLS onto the IX resin has increased 33% on the feasibility estimate, with loading rates up to 36 grams per litre.
Craib said that meant Honeymoon's ion exchange circuit was making more uranium per cycle than designed.
He said higher resin loading would drive a more efficient use of reagents.
Stripping uranium from the loaded resin was at 100%, with the resulting high-grade concentrated eluate greater than 7g/L.
Craib said the focus at Honeymoon had shifted to optimisation of the IX exchange, elution and precipitation processes to achieve continuous operations.
"We are meeting or exceeding key feasibility study forecasts and the processing technology is performing as our extensive testwork showed it would," he said.
"These early production results provide confidence that we are on track to meet our ramp-up targets, with ramp-up timing designed to align with a rising uranium market."
Craib said Boss would be hitting its straps as the uranium price rises in the near term.
