Aura Energy boosts uranium resource at Tiris flagship by 55pc

Aura increases Tiris’ mineral resources by 55% to 91.3 Mlbs U₃O₈
Resource growth adds confidence in future expansion and scale opportunities
Company plans to progress a development decision in late 2024 or early 2025
Mine scheduling and optimisation will now be undertaken

Special Report: Aura Energy has increased the global mineral resources at its Tiris project in Mauritania by 55% to 91.3 Mlbs uranium, up from 58.9 Mlbs.

The boost is thanks to a recent 15,262m drill program which delivered a 28.9 Mlbs U₃O₈ increase in the Tiris East mineral resources.

Notably, this was delivered at a discovery cost of only US$ 0.14 per lb U3O8, which means there’s potential to materially enhance the project’s already excellent FEED economics of NPV8 US$388m and IRR 36% after tax.

“The resource growth at Tiris confirms our view that this is an important uranium province with the capacity for further growth upside,” Aura Energy’s (ASX:AEE) managing director and CEO Andrew Grove said.

“The board believes that the very significant increase in mineral resources resulting from the successful drilling campaign will have a materially positive impact on Tiris’ economics and has been delivered at a very low discovery cost of just US$ 0.14 per lb.”

Future resource growth potential

In addition, measured and indicated mineral resources were increased by 35%, adding 10.3 Mlbs U₃O₈ and providing further confidence to Aura’s Front End Engineering Design (FEED) production schedule.

Not to mention, the additional mineral resources were defined from extensions to known mineralisation and exhibit the same characteristics as the current shallow free digging (less than six metres deep) mineralisation that has proven exceptional beneficiation characteristics (no crushing or grinding) which gives rise to Tiris’ robust economics.

The company says the drilling results and the increase in mineral resources both demonstrate significant future resource growth potential at Tiris from ongoing exploration activities and presents ‘real opportunities’ to increase the project’s future scale beyond the current 17-year mine life at 2 Mlbs pa U₃O₈ production.

Pic: Typical landscape within Tiris project area, trench illustrating soft sandy overburden with gravelly free digging calcrete ore generally less than 6 metres deep. Source: AEE.

Funding and development by 2025

The resource increase also reinforces company commitment to progress towards a development decision in late 2024 or early 2025.

“Mineralisation was identified not only from high strength radiometric anomalies, but from areas of low strength anomalies, significantly increasing the exploration potential of the area as these low-level anomalies have been ignored in past exploration,” Grove said.

“More opportunities remain to expand the known mineralisation within the current granted tenements.

“In addition, the potential for future discoveries within the 13,000km2 of new tenement applications is significant as we have only just begun exploration over this district-scale opportunity.

“The increased Mineral Resource inventory will further support the funding and development of the Tiris Uranium Project in the near future.”

Mine scheduling and optimisation including a review of the ore reserve estimate will now be undertaken on the enhanced mineral resources.

This article was developed in collaboration with Aura Energy, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.