Pacmag Metals Discovers Uranium Mineralization At Church Deposit, North Dakota, US

Published: 19-Aug-2009

PacMag Metals Limited (PacMag Metals) has reported that a single column leach metallurgical test has returned positive results for the potential recovery of uranium and molybdenum from the company’s Church uranium germanium, molybdenum deposit in North Dakota, US. The Church deposit was the first area drill tested within the Sentinel Project, and represents only a small portion of the total prospective project area.

The directors wish to caution investors that this initial single leach test may not be representative of the metallurgical performance of the mineralization as a whole and that the sample was from a single drill hole and is therefore not necessarily representative of the overall deposit. Notwithstanding this caveat the acid leach result on raw wet lignite ore is encouraging and has prompted immediate additional column leach metallurgical testwork.

An initial estimate of the potential capital requirement for a 250,000 tonne per annum heap leach is $19.7 million which is significantly less than that which would be required for a drying-roasting-leaching processing facility, which envisaged capital costs in the range of $63 to $105 million.

The Church area has become a test area to assess the continuity, grade and metallurgical characteristics of the uranium, molybdenum, germanium mineralisation hosted within regionally continuous lignite seams.

Mining in the late 1960's from a small open pit (now rehabilitated) that occurs within the Church lease is reported as producing approximately 40,000 tons of ore grading 0.175% U3O8 from near surface. This open pit and others within the district are all near surface, rarely exceeding a depth of 15 meters. Furthermore, a 40 ton bulk sample taken approximately 1km north-west of the open pit located on PacMag Metals' tenure, returned an average grade of 0.13% U3O8. Mining in the district ceased in the late 1960's when U3O8 was at $7 per pound. The recovery of molybdenum and germanium was not reported.

Previous metallurgical testwork by the company has successfully demonstrated that the dried and calcined mineralisation is amenable to acid and alkaline leaching, with high metal recoveries (97% U3O8, 70% MoO3, 66% Ge). The drying and calcining process beneficiates (upgrades) the mineralisation by an average of 76%, reducing the tonnes of ore to be leached to one fifth from that mined. Furthermore, initial scoping level financial modelling indicates a conceptual project that is operating cash flow positive under a range of development scenarios.

Future activities will now focus on additional metallurgical testwork, along with ongoing evaluation of the company’s surrounding land holdings, where numerous high-grade surface samples have indicated strong potential for additional resources to be defined in the district such as results up to 0.2% U3O8 and 0.62% MoO3 reported a further 5km and 10km north of the Church Deposit respectively.

The company has ascribed an Exploration Target for its regional landholdings of between 3 to 6 million dry tonnes at grades of 0.05% to 0.1% U3O8 and 0.05% to 0.1% MoO3 (5 – 10 million pounds U3O8), with 6 – 18 million tonnes of germanium rich lignite at grades of 65 to 100 g/t GeO2 (450 – 1350 tonnes GeO2).

The company is looking to secure a development partner by the end of the year to accelerate the assessment of the Sentinel project.

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