Impact: Slightly Positive
Forsys Metals (FSY) reported results for metallurgical column leaching test work, and details for a work plan for further optimizing heap leach conditions and ore-sorting test work, at its 100%-owned Norasa uranium project in Namibia. Metallurgical testing was designed to simulate heap leaching and resulted in recoveries of up to 87% from 16 column leach tests while assessing the amenability for bulk ore sorting. These are positive preliminary metallurgical results for Forsys as it begins to focus on how the Norasa project would fare in a potentially lower cost, heap leach environment. The goal is to decrease required Capex and Opex costs for what is generally considered a low-grade, hard rock uranium deposit type. While some of the higher grade (400-500 ppm U3O8) alaskites in operation are using conventional processing technology, there are other projects with grades <300 ppm that could incorporate a heap leach operation. Results from initial test work suggest heap leaching might be a good choice, and now further testwork will look at how to optimize the process. Changes in irrigation rates, crush/grind size, acid strength, cycle duration and use of a flocculant may help improve recoveries, reagent consumption and leach kinetics. These improvements should ultimately improve economics. Like other alaskite projects, Valencia is a large, low-grade, bulk tonnage deposit, and any improvements would be very beneficial. Further testwork will require a boxcut to access bulk fresh rock material for large scale column leach tests.
