Toro Energy (ASX:TOE) has initiated another assessment of the Scoping Study completed in 2022 of the Lake Maitland Uranium-Vanadium Project amid improving market conditions.
Mining engineers at SRK Consulting Australasia (SRK) will be carrying out the updated study, which will be evaluating financial outcomes using the latest, more ‘favourable’ commodity pricing and exchange rate guidance.
Toro, which has a market capitalisation of $57.97 million, says the pit optimisation will also be reassessed.
Executive Chairman Richard Homsany says assessing Lake Maitland will run in conjunction with the company’s extension study, as this news service previously reported.
“A stand-alone Lake Maitland uranium vanadium processing operation is potentially quite robust and viable.
Preserving the optionality available to Toro moving forward, whether to develop a standalone Lake Maitland deposit or a broader Wiluna Project amongst various production and processing scenarios, is a very valuable aspect of our uranium asset.”
Toro says the potential standalone Lake Maitland operation contemplates the possible viability of only mining potential uranium ore from the uranium deposit and processing it in a facility directly onsite, next to the mining pit.
Further, none of the other uranium deposits owned by the company would be utilised.
The Scoping Study also contemplates producing a uranium peroxide product for sale, which involves stripping vanadium from the uranium processing flow stream. This is liberated from the uranium ore mineral, a potassium uranium vanadate, along with the uranium during leaching, to produce a low value sodium hexavanadate, as a by-product.
Further, the study assumed a price of US$70 per pound U3O8 and US$5.67/lb V2O5 with an exchange rate of US$:A$0.70 to arrive at an net present value (NPV) pre-tax of $610 million over a 17.5 year mine life. The study also showed an annual average production of 1.3 million pounds U3O8 and 0.7 million pounds V2O5 and payback of 2.5 years.
Last week, the price of uranium tipped past US$100/lb for the first time in 16 years, with some analysts forecasting the price to rise higher this year.
Toro notes the Lake Maitland pit optimisation increased potential production by 8 million pounds U3O8 and 11.9 million pounds V2O5 based on these assumptions.
Toro Energy is a uranium developer and explorer with assets in Western Australia. The company’s Wiluna Uranium Project comprises the Centipede, Millipede, Lake Maitland, and Lake Way deposits.
As of 30 September 2023, the company had $3.909 million cash and cash equivalents at hand, according to its latest quarterly report.
Write to Aaliyah Rogan at Mining.com.au
Images: Toro Energy
