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AFRIcA

Bright aura for

resurrected

uranium developer

A
Aura energy has designed the Tiris uranium project in ura energy has designed the Tiris uranium project in
Mauritania to allow an expanded 3 mlbpa production rateauritania to allow an expanded 3 mlbpa production rate
M
ura Energy Ltd managing director whatever financing situation we could to Reeve believes it may be any mo-
APeter Reeve believes the company’s get the study complete. ment now that utilities will move to lock
advanced approvals and competitive “We’re fairly rare within the peer in long-term pricing contracts which
cost estimates for its “zero-emission” Ti- group for having a completed DFS and should move the spot prince along
ris uranium project in Mauritania will push for having the environmental and de- once again, hopefully breaking its cur-
it across the production line ahead of its velopment permits granted. We’ve got rent barrier of roughly $US39/lb.
peers. all the key ingredients needed to push “Clearly, there has been a reliance
“It’s a small project with small capital it off. from long-term utilities contracts on
that we can get into production quicker “We’ve just got to get some financing the spot price, and they have felt quite
than pretty well all of the peer group,” into place and start our detailed engi- comfortable to just rely on that,” he
Reeve told Paydirt. “That’s the thing that neering. We could then be in produc- said. “They thought the price wasn’t
sets the edge on others for Aura.” tion 18 months after that.” going to have a run.
Aura crept back onto the scene in Sep- Development plans for Tiris have ac- “The Sprott Trust has now given a little
tember after recommencing trading fol- celerated after Aura completed a $US10 bit more transparency to the price, it has
lowing a period of suspension, re-joining million offtake financing deal with Curzon put the price up on a scoreboard that the
the race with an updated DFS, neces- Uranium Trading Ltd, with options to ex- utilities can see on a daily basis. It has
sary permits granted, a 10% increase to tend to $US20 million. The seven-year made them say, ‘I can’t rely on the old
its resource for 56 mlb of uranium and a contract will be activated once produc- opaque market’.
production start scheduled for 2024. tion starts. “At one stage, all of these utilities will
Tiris is estimated to produce 1 mlbpa Curzon will become a 15% buyer of have to move and start to sign up for
after a $US74.8 million capex with AISC the proposed production for 800,000lb longer term contracts. The move to lock-
of $US29.81/lb. Such a price-per-pound at fixed prices, or 750,000lb at market- ing in those contracts will keep the price
is significantly cheaper than peers such linked pricing. Aura will use the funds for high and I would expect to see it higher
as Bannerman Energy Ltd ($US40.3/lb) working capital costs. this time next year.”
and Paladin Energy Ltd ($US30.9/lb). “The Curzon money is quite significant Despite all of Aura’s edges in the ura-
One drawback is Tiris’ lower annual because it’s a maximum $US20 million nium race, its share price remains in the
production rate compared to Bannerman when we’ve only got a capital cost of same realm as its peers at 28c/share.
(3.5 mlbpa), Boss Energy Ltd (2 mlbpa) just under $US74 million,” Reeve said. “Because we’ve been off the radar
and Paladin (5.9 mlbpa). However, Tiris’ “We’ve had a very good relationship with for a little while, perhaps people have
design allows for an expanded produc- Curzon for a number of years now. When lost track of where we are,” Reeve said.
tion rate of 3 mlbpa should the company the uranium price started to move earlier “When you are a uranium investor, the
elect to head down that path. this year, this deal was a natural progres- question you might have is, ‘who can get
Nevertheless, there is plenty for Reeve sion between the two of us. into production the earliest in the urani-
to smile about with low operating costs “Obviously, it’s in their interest to see um cycle?’.
due to shallow free-digging minerali- us in production and to help get us into “Uranium cycles don’t last forever,
sation that affords no drilling, blasting, production. That’s what we’re using it for, which is why you don’t want large capital
crushing or grinding. as one of those building blocks to pro- costs. You want a small capital cost that
“It was hard to get the DFS finished duction and they wanted to be a part of it. you can finance quickly, start construc-
when the uranium price was low and Our steps now are we want to see a ura- tion quickly and get into production.”
funds were hard to come by for a junior nium price that is sustained at a higher
miner,” he said. “But we really pressed in level and stabilised.” – Fraser Palamara

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