In a remarkable move, Deep Yellow has managed to convert nearly 100 per cent of one of its world-class uranium resources at the Tumas 3 deposit in Namibia from “inferred” to the higher confidence, “indicated” category, upgrading just over 24 million pounds of eU3O8 grading 313 parts per million.
A comprehensive infill drilling program is responsible for the incredible resource conversion rate, which initially aimed to convert just 50% of the resources from inferred to indicated.
The John Borshoff led uranium developer managed to exceed its expectations, taking 96.4% into the indicated resource category. It has also defined additional inferred resources that feed into the global Tumas 3 resource total, which now stands at 36.8Mlb grading 328ppm eU3O8.
Assays from this round of drilling and from some of the Tumas 3 maiden resource estimation were determined from radiometric gamma data measured at 5cm intervals down hole.
This data is converted into equivalent eU3O8, or uranium values and samples will be submitted to a lab with confirmed assay values expected around May this year.
Deep Yellow Managing Director Mr John Borshoff said: “the resultant MRE upgrade just completed from infill drilling of the central part of the Tumas 3 deposit has been nothing short of astounding.”
The Perth-based company has executed a text book strategy of exploration, discovery, resource development and is now well on the way to delivering a prefeasibility study at its Namibian Tumas project in the near term – and just as the uranium price is starting to head north.
The total resources at the Tumas 1, 2 and 3 deposits are now well in excess of the assumptions used in the initial project scoping study, which means that the PFS most likely wont be just a regurgitation of the scoping study and should contain some additional lucrative numbers not seen in the scoping study.
Since 2017, Deep Yellow has tripled its resource base at the Tumas project and said it is now sitting at a very economical discovery cost of 11.5 cents per pound of U3O8.
Deep Yellow’s total resource now stands at 108.2Mlb grading 324ppm U3O8 for 77.4Mlb worth of uranium.
The Tumas 3 deposit itself has now been defined over a strike length of 7.5km. It is between 200m and 1500m wide and from 3m to 25m deep.
The project stacks up well metallurgically too, with Deep Yellow recently tabling some first pass tests that showed uranium recoveries during beneficiation coming in at or higher than 97.5%.
There are two broad uranium ore deposit types that Deep Yellow is focused on in Namibia - sediment hosted, paleochannel related and alaskite, or granite related deposits.
Uranium mineralisation at the Tumas project occurs as a secondary enrichment in calcrete-rich paleochannels, sheet wash sediments and in the adjacent weathered bedrock.
Calcrete is a weathered “crust” that is a mixture of sand and silt, cemented by minerals such as calcite, dolomite and gypsum where the weathering process can sometimes concentrate metals such as uranium.
Deep Yellow said that Tumas 3 is a discrete deposit and sits on its own apart from the Tumas 1, Tumas 1E, Tumas 2 and Tubas Red Sand and Calcrete deposits.
The potentially mineralised paleochannels west of the Tumas 3, Tubas Red Sands and Calcrete deposits are largely untouched by exploration and Deep Yellow estimates that only 60% of the known system has been tested.
Mr Borshoff said: “The Tumas paleochannel holds a further 55Mlb of uranium in the Inferred Resource category available for future upgrading to Indicated Resource status.”
“The results, as currently announced, provide great confidence that we will have a resource base much larger than that currently being modelled in the Tumas PFS and augers very well for the broader future of this Project.”
There is clearly a touch of blue sky showing at Deep Yellow and with the uranium price taking its cue recently by hiking from about USD$24/lb to USD$34/lb, Deep Yellow’s punt against the trend might just pay off.
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