Toro Energy is closing in on the finalised design of a pilot plant that will allow it to test ores from three uranium-vanadium deposits at its project south-west of the Western Australian town of Wiluna later this year.
The pilot plant will test improved beneficiation and hydrometallurgical circuits that Toro has developed from its bench-scale research, at near-production scale, with an eye to incorporating the design flow sheet upgrade into the company’s future feasibility studies.
Sonic drill programs have been designed to supply material feed to the pilot plant to test geometallurgical models from all three of Toro’s uranium deposits – Lake Maitland, Lake Way and Centipede-Millipede. It is part of the company’s consideration for a mining operation that extends beyond a Lake Maitland standalone to a bigger Wiluna uranium project.
Together, the company’s deposits feature a significant mineral resource of 62.7 million pounds of contained uranium oxide.
The upcoming trials will test at least 20 dry tonnes of potential ore collected through sonic drill programs. It will not only assess the multi-deposit feed material, but will also represent Toro’s initial testing of the integrated plant itself, as previous desktop studies had only investigated individual aspects of the overall circuit.
Management is continuing to advance its Wiluna uranium project towards production, anticipating that global pro-nuclear and uranium mining headwinds and a recent strengthening of the global uranium market will in the near term extinguish the current moratorium on uranium mining in WA.
Toro Energy executive chairman Richard Homsany said: “Toro continues to advance important workstreams across our flagship Wiluna Uranium Project in WA and we are pleased to report that work on the pilot plant design is nearing completion. The pilot plant is an important step in demonstrating the potential scale and value of not only the Lake Maitland Uranium deposit, but of the entire Wiluna Uranium Project.”
The Wiluna uranium project contains a resource estimate of 52 million tonnes at a grade of 548 parts per million uranium oxide for the 62.7 million pounds and is considered amenable to shallow open-pit mining methods. The open pit depth is designed to be no more than 15m, owing to the surficial deposit styles.
Additionally, the project includes a combined total JORC vanadium resource estimate of 96.3 million tonnes at a grade of 322ppm vanadium pentoxide for a total of 68.3 million pounds.
Toro recently revealed an updated scoping study for Lake Maitland, forecasting a pre-tax net present value (NPV) of $832.8 million, a pre-tax internal rate of return (IRR) of 48 per cent and a payback period of 2.1 years. The company expects an average EBITDA of $131.6 million per annum through the 17.5-year mine life and a capital cost estimate of $291 million, with a low C1 operating cost of US$17.28 (AU$26.13) per pound of uranium oxide in the first seven years while the resource is being processed.
With the uranium market currently in a steep ascendancy and sitting at about US$86 (AU$130) per pound, Toro appears primed for future development should its pilot plant and government policies align with its predictions.
Management says it also has financing options that include three utility companies including Japan Australia Uranium and Japan’s ITOCHU Corporation, which combined, have the right to acquire up to 35 per cent of the Lake Maitland project for a payment of US$39.6 million (AU$55.6 million).
Toro is adamant it will remain ready to progress its Wiluna uranium project into production when government policy aligns with perceived public sentiment. The pilot plant remains pivotal in proving the project’s value and will be a stimulating catalyst for the company’s testing later this year.
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By Andrew Todd
