With the mining lease now in place, Mega Uranium will increase its development and test work activities on the site, including trenching, bulk sampling for metallurgical studies, water studies and other project development work. The results of this work will be incorporated in the definitive feasibility study, which is scheduled for completion by end of June 2010, and the environmental review and management program, which is scheduled for submission by end September 2010.
The mining lease is the first mining lease to be granted for a uranium project in Western Australia since the newly elected State Government announced in November 2008 that it had removed the ban on uranium mine development in Western Australia.
The calcrete-style Lake Maitland deposit is located close to infrastructure in the Eastern Goldfields region of central Western Australia, 108 kilometers southeast of Wiluna. At a 100ppm U3O8 cut-off, it contains a NI43-101-compliant Indicated Resource of 28.7 million tonnes grading 376 parts per million U3O8 (23.8Mlbs U3O8) and an Inferred Resource of 3.6 million tonnes grading 274 parts per million U3O8 (2.2Mlbs U3O8). The deposit is conducive to simple, low cost, open pit mining as it occurs in the form of a single, coherent, horizontal layer, 1-3 meters thick (average 1.7 meters), lying only 1-2 meters from surface. Due to the soft nature of the ore and overburden, drilling and blasting will not be required. Metallurgical test work to date indicates satisfactory uranium recoveries of greater than 90% using atmospheric alkaline leaching.
Under agreements signed in June 2009, the Japan Australia Uranium Resources Development Company Ltd (JAURD), through its subsidiary JAURD International Lake Maitland Project Pty. Ltd., and ITOCHU Corporation, through its subsidiary ITOCHU Minerals and Energy of Australia Pty. Ltd., can acquire an aggregate 35% interest in the Lake Maitland resource through staged payments totaling $49 million.