Guy on Rocks: Aura Energy builds Mauritaniun uranium momentum
Guy Le Page looks at Aura Energy's acceleration heading into the development phase of its Tiris uranium project in Mauritania.
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News.com.au
43 minutes ago
- News.com.au
'More Pounds Please': Nuclear fuel buyers call up uranium miners as shortages loom
Uranium miners have enjoyed catalysts in recent weeks, led by Donald Trump's exec orders But the real story could be contracting as AI demand grows and China looks to become world's top nuclear nation Aura Energy boss Andrew Grove says Mauritania developer is well placed to meet the market There have been catalysts aplenty for the uranium and nuclear markets in recent weeks. On May 23, US President Donald Trump signed four executive orders around nuclear energy, with the main aim being to 'expedite and promote the production and operation of nuclear energy'. Other objectives of the orders were around the deployment of advanced nuclear technologies to support national security objectives, including powering artificial intelligence computing infrastructure and national security installations, the streamlining of nuclear reactor technology, and the reform of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The executive orders have been described as the most aggressive US policy on nuclear energy in decades. Another interesting recent development has been the continued emergence of big technology companies as serious nuclear customers. Last week, Facebook owner Meta announced it had signed a 20-year agreement to buy nuclear power from US-based Constellation Energy from 2027. 'This transaction also follows similar nuclear-based power purchase agreements struck by Amazon, Google, Microsoft, etc,' Canaccord Genuity analyst James Bullen said. 'While potentially some way off, the larger miners did indicate that big tech was showing interest in direct offtake agreements to secure their nuclear future.' Nuclear gabfest wraps Last week, the World Nuclear Fuel Market conference was held in Sydney, the first time in its 51-year history it had been held in Australia. Aura Energy (ASX:AEE) managing director Andrew Grove was there and told Stockhead the company had a good spread of meetings with utilities. Both Grove and Bullen said the Chinese were increasingly active, with Canaccord forecasting Chinese nuclear capacity to overtake the US by 2030. 'While Western utilities and producers referred, with tongue in cheek, to a game of contracting 'chicken' in one of the more entertaining panels, CNNC was clearly batting its eyelids to the producers and seeking 'more pounds please',' Bullen said. Bullen noted that China's CGN Mining last week entered into a supply contract with its controlling shareholder CGNPC with a 30% fixed-price component of US$94 per pound with the remainder to be purchased at spot. 'While this is a related party transaction, it sets, in our view, a clear benchmark in a Chinese market where electricity prices are set by the National Development and Reform Commission.' On the flipside, Grove said US utilities weren't as aggressive – yet. 'You get the feeling that they've got enough near-term inventory, that they're not too panicked,' he said. 'Plus, they've spent the last 15 or 20 years where they can go and buy uranium whenever they feel like it so there hasn't been a lot of pressure on them to go and buy it. 'China's very aggressive in terms of running around the world trying to lock up supply, so I guess the US market has to counter that somehow.' Grove said Aura was getting close to signing a contract with a major US utility. Diversity becoming important Grove said utilities, particularly US utilities, recognised that they needed diversity of supply. 'There was a pretty strong message from the utilities that they want to support new supply, because there's some risk around stuff coming into Russia and some risk around stuff coming out of Kazakhstan,' he said. 'And for the big ones, they're starting to engage with greenfields like us and then probably one of them will give us a smaller contract that doesn't put their fuel supply at risk but helps facilitate new production coming on board.' Bullen echoed those comments, saying that utilities and traders indicated a willingness to not only contract, but also pre-pay. 'In short, they increasingly recognise the challenges associated with financing developments and, for the right projects, will use their balance sheet and credit rating to support them,' he said. Bullen noted that the term price of US$80/lb had incentivised restarts but not the greenfield developments which are required to meet the projected 1.3 billion pounds of demand between now and 2045. 'With a busy contracting period expected in the 2H, we remain highly constructive on medium-term uranium pricing,' he said. Tiris progressing Aura is fortunate in that it doesn't need to rely on a higher uranium price to push the button on its Tiris project in Mauritania. The project is expected to produce 1.8Mlb per annum of uranium over 25 years at forecast all-in sustaining costs of US$35.70/lb. 'It's got quite strong cashflows to support any level of debt at much lower prices than the spot prices today,' Grove said. Aura has been working hard on locking in the funding for the US$230 million development, with the help of advisors Orimco and Macquarie. 'We're working towards a debt funding of 50-60%, which is about US$260 million, from a sovereign Western development bank,' Grove said. 'There's also an indicative term sheet from a private equity group, which could supply something around the same sort of quantum and then we're looking at a number of strategic investors which could buy a small portion of the asset and help augment the debt funding, plus some other strategic investors that could fund the whole project.' Grove said the development bank could make a board approval in September. 'Everyone else has to meet that timeline, otherwise they're going to miss out,' he said. 'We're looking at pulling it all together around the September mark at this stage … so in the background, we're getting everything technically ready to be able to pull the trigger on execution. 'We're trying to position ourselves for 2027 production, so we're not deferring because of the price – we're working hard to deliver the funding and then we'll commit to the development.'
ABC News
12 hours ago
- ABC News
Kalgoorlie pipeline set for $543 million upgrade
The Kalgoorlie pipeline is one of the nation's great infrastructure projects. It's up there with the Snowy Mountain scheme and the Overland telegraph line as a visionary nation building project. The WA State Government has announced it will spend more than half a billion dollars upgrading the capacity of the historic Goldfields Water Supply Scheme. Water Minister Don Punch says 543 million dollars will be allocated in the forthcoming State Budget to increase its daily capacity by more than 7 million litres by 20-27.
News.com.au
14 hours ago
- News.com.au
Resources Top 5: Coal player fuels rare gains as silver and gold stocks roll out the drill rigs
Australian Pacific Coal heads our list today for sustained daily gains Inaugural diamond drilling at the Elizabeth Hill project in Western Australia's Pilbara region struck shallow, high-grade silver An 8100m drill program is underway across the Tin Can trend at the Newman project of Peregrine Gold Your standout resources stocks for Wednesday, June 11, 2025. Australian Pacific Coal (ASX:AQC) Australian Pacific Coal is making progress after resuming underground mining at the Dartbrook Coal Mine in the Hunter Valley of NSW earlier this year following a restart program in 2024. Shares lifted 21.88% to a daily high of 7.8c and closed at 7.1c. On June 2 the company advised that it is well on the way to meeting the final two Conditions Subsequent (CS) of a senior secured finance facility with Vitol Asia Pte Ltd for Dartbrook. One remaining CS requires the project to rail 20,000 tonnes of produced coal in a consecutive 30-day period. The Dartbrook JV recently commenced a washed coal railing, with further railings continuing whilst the wash plant nears completion of its recommissioning. The JV has contracts in-place to rail the required tonnage and remains focused on commencing exports of its high-quality thermal coal product in the near future once more steady-state production is reached. There is about 150,000 tonnes of ROM coal stockpiled. The other CS outstanding relates to the registration of the Trepang Lease with the NSW Land Registry Service, which is under way. AQC said the outstanding matters were largely administrative and it had no reason to believe that they would not be satisfied in due course. Located about 10km northwest of Muswellbrook, Dartbrook has access to world-class infrastructure, a skilled workforce and support industries utilised by major mining companies in the region. Vitol has expressed its continued support and commitment towards the project, as evidenced by the recent increase in funding it made available to the project of US$4.2 million on May 30, 2025. West Coast Silver (ASX:WCE) Increasing safe haven investment demand along with growing demand for industrial uses, including solar panels, has seen silver break the back of long-term resistance at US$35/oz and currently trading at around US$36.40 (~A$55.86). These factors are leading to increasing supply deficits and seeing interest in silver producers, developers and explorers steadily improve. Among them are West Coast Silver which hit a new 12-month high of 10.5c in morning trading before closing lower at 8.9c after inaugural diamond drilling at its Elizabeth Hill project in Western Australia's Pilbara region struck shallow, high-grade silver. Notable preliminary results from the first two diamond holes include 2m at 6951g/t silver from a down-hole depth of 27m in the first hole, 25WCDD001, and 12m at 153g/t silver from the surface in the second hole, 25WWCDD002. Anomalous lead, zinc and copper values were also returned from these holes, which were selected to test the potential for shallow, high-grade mineralisation. While the results are based on portable XRF readings and assays are awaited, they indicate that the drill program has achieved its objectives. Should a significant silver resource be defined, West Coast Silver could have a clear line to production given that Elizabeth Hill is an historical mine that only needed low-cost gravity separation to recover native silver. Systematic core logging is underway to improve the company's understanding of Elizabeth Hill while regional soil samples have been sent to the laboratory for assessment before being used to help define the next steps. 'We are extremely pleased with this exceptional start to our maiden drill program,' executive chairman Bruce Garlick said. 'To intersect high-grade silver from surface in our first two holes is a tremendous result and validates our belief in the near-surface potential at Elizabeth Hill. 'The grades seen in 25WCDD001 are particularly encouraging and point to a strong future for the project.' Elizabeth Hill is one of Australia's high-grade silver projects and has a proven history with 1.2Moz of silver produced from just 16,830t of ore at a head grade of 2,194g/t. This was obtained during 12 months of production before the mining operation ceased in 2000 due to low silver prices of around US$5/oz. Encouragingly for WCE, the previous operations had a simplistic processing technique with native silver recovered via low-cost gravity separation. Untapped potential remains in the ground with the deposit open at depth while a recent consolidation of the land package offers potential to discover more Elizabeth Hill style deposits. Through the consolidation of the surrounding land packages into a single contiguous 180km2 package, significant exploration and growth potential exists both near mine and regionally. This land package holds a significant portion of the Munni Munni fault system which is considered prospective for Elizabeth Hill look-a-like silver deposits. The project is on a mining lease in a Tier-1 mining jurisdiction and with a potential processing option at the nearby Radio Hill site. Peregrine Gold (ASX:PGD) Any Western Australian explorer with links to Mark Creasy attracts more attention than most others owing to the legendary prospector's high success rate. One such company is Peregrine Gold which has Creasy as its top backer while former Azure Minerals chairman Brian Thomas is also on board as non-executive chairman. Adding further to these credentials is technical director George Merhi, who has a history of success as exploration manager for the Creasy Group and Novo Resources, particularly in the Pilbara region. It is little wonder then that Peregrine was 14.29% higher at 16c after launching an 8100m drill program across the Tin Can trend at the Newman gold project in the Pilbara. After landing all necessary approvals, the aircore program is underway testing the extent of an open 1km-long gold and arsenic anomaly identified from geochemical sampling. This includes areas with 'subtle' chargeability anomalies identified through Induced Polarisation, which may indicate the presence of sulphide mineralisation. The 81-hole aircore program will average around 100m per hole with results expected in the next quarter. During the drilling Peregrine will test for extensions to the Tin Can West discovery, which previously returned 4m at 9g/t gold from 12m along with 8m at 8.33g/t from 56m, 8m at 6.53g/t from 48m, 4m at 11.35g/t from 28m and 4m at 10.82g/t from 32m. After wrapping up the Tin Can program, the company expects to begin initial aircore drilling at the Epithermal prospect, subject to a final review of survey results. 'We are excited to commence aircore drilling at Tin Can,' Peregrine's technical director George Merhi said. 'The team is eager to see what this round of drilling will discover as we have a compelling fertile target of substantial scale which has already generated high-grade gold mineralisation as evidenced by prior drilling results. 'Following the drilling at Tin Can we can look forward to commencing first phase aircore drilling at the Epithermal prospect.' The Newman gold project spans 1900km2, about 30km southwest of Newman. Asian Battery Metals (ASX:AZ9) Asian Battery Metals has enhanced its standing in Mongolia on confirming high-grade mineralisation at the Oval copper-nickel discovery with shares climbing 10.35% to a daily high of 3.2c before retreating to 2.7c. The Oval is one of 30 promising targets identified at the Yambat project, which covers 106.07km2 in the north-central part of Gobi-Altai Province. Previous drill hole OVD0213 ranked among the highest-grade intercepts drilled in recent years delivering grades of 6.08% copper and 3.19% nickel over 8.8m. And now, assays from phase 3 drilling have flagged a massive sulphide intercept in hole OVD034 which correlates well with previous results of 1.3m at 4.70% Cu, 3.65% Ni, 1.19g/t E3 (gold-platinum-palladium) and 0.12% cobalt from 79.6m. Hole OVD033 confirmed strong mineralisation down-dip from the phase 1 standout hole OVD0211 with 27.7m at 1.36% Cu, 0.86% Ni, 0.44 g/t E3 and 0.04% Co from 92.3m and 6.7m at 1.17% Cu and 0.96% Ni from 159.8m. Hole OVD032 intersected deeper, high-tenor sulphides, including 0.5m at 1.39% Cu, 1.91% Ni, 0.62g/t E3 and 0.07% Co from 293.7m. Asian Battery Metals (ASX:AZ9) said the results confirmed Oval as a new magmatic mafic intrusion related copper-nickel sulphide system in southwestern Mongolia. Visual logging of recent holes OVD036 and OVD0404 has indicated further strong intervals of massive sulphides, suggesting the system remains potentially open along strike and at depth. Additional assay results from these holes are expected in late June. The plan now is to start a ground-based EM survey later this month to guide follow-up drilling and test for deeper feeder zones. Ordell Minerals (ASX:ORD) (Up on no news) As drilling continues at the Barimaia gold project in the Murchison region of WA, Ordell Minerals is awaiting first results with bated breath, as are investors who sent shares up as much as 17.02% to 55c before closing at 49.5c. A multi-pronged, 5000m campaign is targeting extensions and new discoveries within the expanded 7km-long Barimaia Intrusion. First pass reverse circulation (RC) drilling is targeting discovery opportunities outlined by recent aircore drilling along strike from the 2.5km zone of mineralisation defined at the McNabs and McNabs East prospects. The company expects diamond drilling to start in the first half of June. Extensions to the host granodiorite intrusion identified by recent aircore drilling will also be systematically followed up in the second half of 2025. The flagship Barimaia project represents an advanced exploration project with significant historical drilling results. Ordell acquired an 80.3% interest in Barimaia from Genesis Minerals (ASX:GMD), which is now a major shareholder of Ordell with an 8% shareholding. Barimaia, which was never systematically explored due to Genesis' strategic focus on its assets in the Leonora region, is in a Tier-1 mining jurisdiction in proximity to several gold processing plants and adjacent to Ramelius Resources' Mt Magnet mill. Ordell's exploration at Barimaia is targeting new discoveries of a similar style to the Eridanus deposit, which forms part of Ramelius' Mt Magnet operations. Eridanus is ~6km northwest of Barimaia and hosts a resource of 21Mt at 1.7g/t Au for 1.2Moz of contained gold, with an additional +300,000oz already mined from the open pit.
