Aura Energy (ASX: AEE) has announced a major upgrade to the global mineral resource estimate (MRE) at its Tiris uranium project in Mauritania.
The new total comprises the Tiris East and Oum Ferkik prospects and sits at 184 million tonnes grading 225 parts per million for 91.3 million pounds of uranium oxide at a 100ppm cut-off.
It reflects a 55% increase in contained uranium oxide from the previous estimate reported in 2023 of 113Mt at 236ppm for 58.9Mlb.
Extensions targeted
The MRE upgrade follows a 2,995-hole air-core drilling program for 15,262 metres earlier this year designed to assess additional resource potential at Tiris East.
It targeted extensions to known mineralisation and tested previously undrilled radiometric anomalies around the prospect.
The total number of drill holes represented a 37% increase on those available for previous resource calculations.
Increased resource
Drilling delivered a 10.3Mlb (or 35%) increase in the measured and indicated resources to 83Mt at 219ppm for 39.9Mlb uranium oxide and a 76% increase in the total inferred resource to 102Mt at 229ppm for 51.4Mlb uranium oxide.
The increase of 32.4Mlb uranium oxide exceeded the upper end of the exploration target range and is believed to be a strong indication of the mineralisation potential available in regional leases currently under application.
Drilling also considered several conceptual targets over low-level radiometric anomalies, several of which returned positive results to further increase the area’s exploration potential.
Development decision
The MRE increase has reinforced Aura’s commitment to progressing Tiris towards a development decision early next year.
The company said it offers “significant potential to materially enhance the already excellent front-end engineering and design economics”, which include a net present value of US$388 million and an internal after-tax rate of return of 36%.
It also presents “real opportunities” to increase the project’s future scale beyond the current 17-year mine life at 2Mlbpa uranium oxide production.
The enhanced mineral resources will now be subject to mine scheduling and optimisation, including a review of ore reserve estimates.
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