We take a deep dive into African nations with significant uranium mining potential and the intrepid ASX explorers looking to strike while the iron is hot.
Namibia may be the driest country in sub-Saharan Africa, but untapped uranium-rich deposits continue to attract foreign investors as the world moves away from fossil fuels.
The semi-arid southwest African nation is Africa’s largest producer of the ore and the world’s third largest, accounting for 11% of global production in 2022.
Its 48-year history with the energy metal dates back to 1928, when uranium was first discovered in the Namib Desert, and was finally produced by Rio Tinto in 1976 after the Rossing mine – the world’s largest, longest-running open pit uranium mine – came on stream. .
These are two generations of Namibians familiar with uranium.
While nuclear power continues to be illegal in many places around the world, including Australia, Elvate Uranium (ASX:EL8) chief executive Murray Hill says it is growing in acceptance among Namibians who are not afraid of it.
“There have been three uranium mines developed in Namibia in the last 16 years and two mining licenses were granted to our counterparts – Bannerman and Deep Yellow – last December,” he says.
“It’s a great country to do business, it’s the only country with a dedicated uranium compound, the conduit between exploration, operating resource companies, the public and other stakeholders.”
EL8’s growing uranium portfolio in Namibia
EL8 owns the largest acreage of uranium tenements in Namibia with the Koppies and Merenica shallow uranium deposits in the Central Erongo area.
The company sits at 57.8 Mlb U3O8 at Koppies after upgrading its resource by 20% in early April with three rigs still in operation.
An infill drilling program is underway to upgrade the inferred resource to the higher confidence indicated category, which has sufficient certainty for mine planning.
The explorer has also demonstrated exploration success having made four discoveries in the last four years (Koppies, Hirabeb, Capri and Namib IV) thanks in large part to historical information from previous owners, General Mining.
“They explored the Erongo area back in the 1970s and 1980s, which provided a guide to where they thought uranium might be,” says Murray.
“Our initial focus was upstream of known deposits where we believed there could have been extensions to known mineralization.
“We also used a combination of airborne radiometrics and EM, as well as ground walking to confirm the target areas selected from the airborne surveys.
“But when I’m thinking about where the next big uranium discovery could be in Africa, I’d lean towards a country with low geopolitical risk,” he says.
“It would be a country where exploration is possible without fear of coups or anything like that, and that country would be Namibia.”
The spotlight in Senegal
Next on our grand tour is Senegal, which according to the World Bank, has cemented its reputation as a stable African nation since gaining independence from France in 1960.
The country’s growing mining sector produces phosphates, gold, mineral sands, manganese and industrial clays which accounted for 40% of the country’s export earnings, 2.2% of GDP and 5.3% of government revenue in 2019.
Recent mining exploration activities have resulted in major gold discoveries including TSX-V-listed Endeavor’s Sabodala-Massawa expansion project, Resolute Mining’s (ASX:RSG) Mako gold mine and Chesser Resources’ (ASX:CHZ) Diamba Sud gold project ).
But foreign interest in the diversity of Senegal’s mineral wealth is also growing with multiple companies exploring deposits such as iron ore, zircon, titanium and uranium.
Seeking to replicate the success of Namibia’s robust uranium production industry, ASX newcomers such as Haranga Resources (ASX:HAR) are branching out into countries such as Senegal in the hope of making new uranium discoveries.
HAR identified a “significant exploration target” for uranium mining at the Saraya project in 2022 after conducting a review of historical drill results.
A drill program of 541 historic holes and 22 holes resulted in the release of an inferred resource of 12.45 Mt grading 587 parts per million eU3O8 for 16.1 Mlbs of U3O8 content last October.
But there could be more where they came from with several anomalies even greater than the yet untested resource.
As part of HAR’s strategic exploration, 91 new drill holes have been drilled and analyzed at the Sanela prospect with 29 recording significant pXRF measurements on saprolite samples.
These results returned concentrations ranging from 14 ppm to 81 ppm.
The project received an additional shot in the arm after test work confirmed that uranium could be leached at rates consistent with other projects.
An upgrade of resources is expected by the end of June.
Utilization of Tanzania’s resources
Tanzania is another African country that is emerging as a major hub for the mining of green energy transition minerals.
The East African nation has 13% of the world’s graphite deposits, is home to huge natural gas reserves, produced about 3,000 metric tons of copper in 2022 and held about 58,200 tons of uranium resources in 2021.
Despite past challenges and government intervention, the country’s abundant mineral resources could position the country as a key player in the global supply chain of critical minerals.
One company looking to grab a slice of Tanzania’s mineral wealth is Moab Minerals (ASX:MOM) following its deal to acquire 81.85% of Linx Resources, owners of the Manyoni and Octavo uranium projects.
Manyoni is located 100km north-west of the Tanzanian capital Dodoma and was previously explored by ASX-listed company Uranex – now Magnis Energy Technologies (ASX:MNS).
The Uranex work identified six distinct resource areas and led to the definition of a 20.5 Mlb U3O8 resource at a grade of 147 ppm U3O8 in 2010 under the older JORC 2004 code.
MOM chief executive Malcolm Day says project acquisitions are a potential company builder.
“The immediate task is to upgrade the historic resource at Manyoni to JORC 2012 and at the same time increase the resource with additional drilling in potential areas,” he says.
Meanwhile, Octavo, which is more popular, is home to a high-prospect area next to Rosatom’s world-class uranium mine at Nyota, which was previously owned by ASX lister Mantra Resources before its 2011 takeover. .
Nyota has a measured and indicated mineral resource estimate of 187 million tonnes at 306 ppm, containing 124.6 million pounds of uranium, representing one of the largest uranium reserves in the world.
Work at Octavo is focused on acquiring airborne radiometric and magnetic survey data expected to deliver uranium targets for ground-based monitoring.
Movers and shakers in Mauritania
Bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Western Sahara to the north, Algeria to the northeast, and Senegal to the southwest, Mauritania is a dominant country in northwest Africa, known primarily for its iron ore production.
The country produced 13 million tonnes of the material in 2022, but rare earth, vanadium, phosphate and uranium mining projects are also under development.
Aura Energy (ASX:AEE) believes the Tiris project can be developed to represent a globally significant uranium province as drilling continues to define new areas of extensive, shallow, high-grade uranium mineralization.
Tiris, an established asset with 113 Mt at 236 ppm U3O8, for a restricted resource of 58.9 Mlb U3O8, represents a calcium-type uranium deposit – the largest of the surface deposits – that had not been reported in Mauritania prior to its discoveries Aura.
AEE’s finding prompted the Mauritian government to grant the company a 30-year exploration and development term guarantee in February 2023, allowing mining operations to take place over a 30-year period.
The company raised more than US$18 million in March for rapid pre-development after a front-end engineering design (FEED) study estimated Capex at a relatively low US$230 million with a payback of 2.5 years and a 17-year life.
With a development decision expected later this year, the soon-to-be producer is focused on proving its resource base through drilling for future expansion opportunities beyond the current proposed production rate of 2 Mlbs per year.
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