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GoviEx Uranium Inc (TSX-V:GXU, OTCQX:GVXXF) CEO Daniel Major talked with Proactive about the recent progress at the company's Mutanga Project in Zambia.
Major shared that they are reporting uranium recoveries of 90% or better at Mutanga and Dibbwi East, surpassing previous expectations.
The company had previously recorded an average recovery of 88%, making this an encouraging step forward as GoviEx progresses toward a full feasibility study.
Proactive: You reported what you say are impressive recoveries at your Mutanga Project in Zambia. So positive news as you progress towards a feasibility study for the project?
Daniel Major: Oh, absolutely. This was a major part of that feasibility study. For those who don't know the project, we had merged two companies to get projects together. They had previously gone to pre-feasibility study. We wanted to redo all of this. But I think where you have to look at this in context is we've taken the metallurgical test work a lot further as well. Previously, they had only gone to a two-meter column, and we've gone up to six-meter columns. It's the equivalent of infill drilling, but the results here are better. We've generally got better recoveries, and we continue to see low acid consumptions. We had to do this work because there was no previous work done on Dibbwi East and particularly on Dibbwi East Primary.
So, these are all the fundamental bits. And what it's really showing and underpinning is that the Mutanga project feasibility study is going to show high recoveries and low acid consumption. At the moment, our current process is just finalizing numbers, but we're working through operating and capital costs. We're doing a few final trade-offs that these numbers have provided us with.
I just want to put it in perspective. You're talking about uranium recoveries of 90% or better at Mutanga and Dibbwi East. Is that what you would expect, or is this better than expected?
The average we used before was 88%, so this is certainly an improvement. As I mentioned, the previous work was based on less aggressive test work. This has taken it all the way, so it's better than we expected. The other thing that's important for us under this test work is we've shown that we can get quite high stacks, which is important. Good percolation is crucial, and it shows we can go to an on-off stack. The reason for the on-off stack is that the capital is much lower compared to a full-height stack. There are a lot of benefits, including lower capital for the project by being able to make these technical changes.
You mentioned the feasibility study by the end of the year. What are the next steps as you move towards that?
The final step now is pulling all of those numbers together. We're quite advanced in that process. As you get numbers in, you interrogate them occasionally and think, "Maybe we could do something slightly different -- let's get another quote." Also, we have to ensure there isn't duplication across disciplines. As I said, in the next few weeks, we'll be looking at putting out a press release. Then, the full feasibility study report, 43-101, will go to the market. Once that's out and the results are positive, which we're optimistic about, we will move into the financing stage. We also need to finalize the ESIA because Dibbwi East wasn't part of the previous ESIA. We're bringing it up to IFC standards, and that process will continue as we secure financing. We'll also look at what early works we can do next year to try and accelerate the project.
Quotes have been lightly edited for clarity and style