Page 13 - pd282-May20-mag-web_Neat

the date of signing.
“Then there’s the time waiting for those
delivery dates to come up. Even once
they’ve pushed the button on McArthur
River, Cameo has said it will take about
14 months to get that operation up and
running again.
“The reality is there’s few pounds
around the world that can actually come
as new production at under $US50/lb,
$US60/lb or $US70/lb, but I do think
we need to see prices continue to rise
Brandon Munro significantly before there’s going to be Mike Young
any real incentive for new production to
ter? It’s still under water. come on, other than a few hundred thou- supply and they want to see new supply
“The real change will be when that sand pounds here and there.” from good jurisdictions and they also re-
price breaks through into potential areas Both Vimy and Bannerman have com- ally encourage juniors coming into the
of pain for utilities. In other words, short- pleted DFS reports for their respective market.
ages declared, fear setting in and ac- undeveloped Mulga Rock and Etango “So, what’s basically happened with
knowledgment there will be a shortage… uranium projects in Western Australia COVID is it’s drastically accelerated a
it’s not a sector for fools.” and Namibia, and would appear to be at process that was under way, that Bran-
As the founder of Paladin Energy Ltd, the starting gate for any new production don and I have both been on air several
Borshoff has experienced what it takes to potentially come online in the next few times discussing, and now everyone is
to both start up and shut down a uranium years. seeing it at large and everyone is getting
mine and he fears some on the gravy train as it
in the industry are poised were.”
to make potentially fatal COMMODITY PRICE PERFORMANCE YEAR TO DATE Deep Yellow is pushing
mistakes. ahead with plans to com-
“This whole concept plete a PFS on its Tumas
of the mothballed ca- 30% +27% Uranium project in Namibia this
pacity coming online is year despite the com-
not as simple as people 20% pany being somewhat
might think – you have to +16% Gold restricted in what it can
re-engage, you have to 10% do due to the COVID-19
re-finance, teams have pandemic.
to be found, all sorts of 0% Borshoff has outlined
aspects; they’re not just a nine-month game plan
sitting there with the en- -10% -11% Silver for his company to stick
gines idling as soon as -17% Zinc to during the various pe-
-17% Nickel
the price reaches a cer- -20% -18% Copper riods of lockdown and
tain level,” he said. -30% working from home.
“Yes, there’s going “I don’t believe this is
to be some eager to -40% the new norm for working
get started, but I would in companies like what
say to them don’t waste Source: Westmetall, TradeTech : 16 April 2020 I’m running, but we’re
sweat on getting a pro- adopting systems for us
ject to market if you’re to remain as productive
not maximising the op- as we can and I’m happy
portunity for your shareholders, as will Young said his company was doing a with what we’ve got,” he said.
occur with the supply dynamic as it is.” “refresh” of its DFS published more than “Work is proceeding on schedule. We
Munro said companies such as Came- two years ago as it prepares to take ad- still hope to complete it [PFS] in the mid-
co and Paladin would want to see the vantage of the opportunity to be part of dle of the next half, so September/Octo-
uranium price sustaining a level “in the the next contracting cycle. ber, and our work towards that I think will
high 40s” before being incentivised to “Going forward I think there’s going to be pleasantly surprising. There was a lot
restart McArthur River and Langer-Hein- be a paradigm shift with respect to the more in our scoping study [published in
rich, respectively. utilities in terms of their security of sup- January] than one would presume be-
He concurred with Borshoff that no ex- ply and that bodes well for Brandon and cause of the team that we had working
isting mine can be easily rebooted with a I because the way utilities manage their on it and because of the knowledge we
simple flick of the switch. contracts, they do what’s called portfo- have of both the project and the uranium
“It’s not a case of them, let’s say lio management, where they basically sector.”
Cameco, signing a nice portfolio of con- baseload their requirements with some – Michael Washbourne
tracts that enables it to sell all of that new bigger producers and then they basically
McArthur River production and then start have several tranches of other produc-
the next month,” Munro said. “Long-term ers,” Young said.
contracts typically start three years from “They desperately want to see new

aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT MaY 2020 Page 13