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Uranium demand exceeds supply –

December 17th, 2013

world-uranium-production-demand

Uranium mine production has not met annual nuclear fuel demand for the past 25 years. Although mine production has been closing this gaping supply deficit, a substantial shortfall still exists between mined uranium and reactor demand.

Since 1993, the Russian-USA “Megatons to Megawatts” program has mostly filled that shortfall, supplying about 9000 tonnes of U per year by converting highly-enriched uranium from USSR atomic bombs into low-enriched uranium for nuclear fuel. This uranium has provided 1of 10 Americans with electricity over the past 20 years. However, the last tranche from that agreement was shipped in late November. Read the full article pdf by “The Mercenary Geologist”

Aura Energy (ASX: AEE) SEVEN-FOLD U3O8 GRADE INCREASE CONFIRMED AVERAGE FEED GRADE RESULT ~ 2500 PPM

December 2nd, 2013

FURTHER REGUIBAT PROJECT BENEFICIATION TESTS CONTINUE TO PROVIDE EXCEPTIONAL RESULTS SEVEN-FOLD U3O8 GRADE INCREASE CONFIRMED AVERAGE FEED GRADE RESULT ~ 2500 PPM

Aura Energy Ltd (ASX: AEE, “Aura”) is pleased to announce that mineralogical investigation has confirmed the beneficiation potential of the Reguibat Project in Mauritania. This result confirms findings reported on 26th of September and 8th of October 2013 that significant upgrade of the Reguibat material is achieved through a simple beneficiation process leading to recovery of uranium using standard leaching conditions.

“The excellent ongoing Reguibat Project testwork continues to provide exciting and significant results which will impact on the future Project.” Aura’s Managing Director, Dr Bob Beeson, said.

“The further increase in the grade of the uranium-bearing material to 2,500ppm U3O8 through beneficiation provides additional encouragement that the Reguibat Project will require only modest-sized leaching facilities. Reguibat will be a relatively low capital cost and low operating cost option for extracting the uranium for each tonne of material mined.”

The additional size analysis conducted in these tests demonstrated that, by further reducing the screening size than previously reported, 89% of the mass could be rejected, while retaining 86% of the uranium. The average concentration of the product was 2,476ppm U3O8. This represents an upgrade factor of 7, achievable using simple beneficiation processes.

The high product grade with the resource grade of 334ppm U3O8. The composite sample of -300μm material from beneficiation tests from the upper level of a single mineralised zone, Ain Sder Zone 1, underwent mineralogy and additional size analysis. Mineralogical analysis using the QEMSCAN system showed that the deportment of uranium was exclusively with the carnotite mineral group. The carnotite occurs as extremely fine, liberated grains. The sulphate mineral content of the fine fractions was low.

”Reguibat is almost unique among calcrete uranium projects in that the beneficiation and leaching characteristics identified to date improve the Project substantially. Many calcrete projects are metallurgically problematic because of the difficulty of beneficiation, and long leach times. This is clearly not the case with Reguibat which shows excellent beneficiation and fast leach times,” Dr Beeson said.
The company is evaluating the commercial implications of these results.