Boss Energy ready to capitalise on recent uranium mining successes

Boss Energy (ASX: BOE) is set to accelerate its uranium exploration expansion plans following recent operational successes at the Honeymoon and Alta Mesa projects.

Speaking at the annual Diggers & Dealers event in Kalgoorlie, managing director Duncan Craib said that Boss has significant exploration upside at its 100%-owned Honeymoon project in South Australia and the 30%-owned Alta Mesa operation in South Texas.

While Boss is currently focused on ramping up production activities at both projects, it is also looking forward to taking advantage of the large, highly prospective acreage it has interests in at each site.

Full pipeline

Mr Craib told those in attendance that Boss has a full pipeline of near-mine and regional exploration targets in SA.

Boss has already had significant exploration success at Honeymoon, increasing the project’s JORC resource from 16.57 million pounds to 71.67Mlbs.

Mr Craib said that a further defined 36Mlbs sits outside of the Honeymoon mining licence, with Boss already identifying a substantial exploration target of 58Mlbs to 190Mlbs at grades up to 1,080 parts per million.

Following strong in-fill drilling results, Boss is now undertaking technical and economic studies on developing the satellite deposits as an additional production source.

Elsewhere, the company has been awarded the Kinloch project exploration tenements around 130 kilometres south of Honeymoon and three highly prospective exploration tenements on the Eyre Peninsula, giving it a total holding of over 6,000 sq km in SA.

Alta Mesa upside

It is a similar story in Texas, where there is significant exploration potential at Alta Mesa.

Boss’s 30% interest in the project includes a large, underexplored land package totalling around 800 sq km.

The Alta Mesa joint venture is looking to follow up the area’s significant exploration potential, with 52 miles of stacked uranium roll-front previously identified, but only 5 miles explored to date.

A key area of current interest is the recently discovered Middle C mineralised zone.

Uranium supply

On the pricing side, Mr Craib said that supply out to 2030 is tight across the cycle and, if Russian supply to the US is cut in response to US sanctions, it would put immediate upward pressure on markets.

He also suggested that supply from Kazakhstan will be more limited to the west as Russia and China take more supply from this area, with logistical issues and tax changes making material more expensive to mine.

Mr Craib said demand for reliable, clean energy is creating new markets for nuclear generation as a source of supply for data centres, expected to double by 2026.

Additionally, there is a revival of shut-down reactors and life extensions to existing reactors, with numerous new builds occurring across the globe.