Low cost recoveries lift U3O8 Corp.

Initial metallurgical testing at U3O8 Corp.‘s (UWE-V) Berlin project in Colombia are in and the prospect of lower extraction costs had the company’s shares riding high.

The tests returned metallurgical recoveries of 97% for uranium, 97% for phosphate and 79% for vanadium and other metals. But more impressive than the grades themselves was the process by which they were achieved.

Testing showed that a two-step process composed of an initial acidic ferric iron leach followed by an acid wash using hydrochloric or sulphuric acid was sufficient to get the metal out of the rock, and it is the first step, the Ferric leach, which will prove crucial to the economics of the project.

A ferric leach is an established method of uranium extraction and has been used at uranium mines such as Elliot Lake. For U3O8 Corp. the process is important because it can source the key regeant, ferric iron, from pyrite that is right on site.

Sourcing ferric iron from Berlin isn’t the whole story, however, as the company would still need to buy fresh sulphuric acid, albeit in lower quantities than would be the case otherwise.

With the sulphuric acid costs and power charges built in, the company estimates the ferric leach process would only cost between $60 and $95 per tonne of ore extracted. Those metrics, however, have yet to be confirmed by an independent scoping study.

The ferric leach process requires less acid consumption than other methods because no acid is added to control pH in the first step of the process. Instead the ferric sulphate reacts naturally with water to generate jarosite and sulphuric acid, as acid demand increases.

After the ferric leach, only weak hydrochloric and sulphuric acid solutions at low temperatures were needed to liberate the metals contained in the residue left from the first step.

Roughly two thirds of the in-situ value of the ore at Berlin is made up of uranium, phosphate and vanadium. But the metals in the final one third also attained solid recovery rates of 96% for yttrium (a heavy rare earth metal), 82% for neodymium, 95% for zinc, 64% for nickel, 54% for molybdenum and 46% for rhenium.

Those metals would likely serve as by-products credits at a future mine.

U3O8 says its maiden resource estimate for Berlin is due out shortly. The sediment-hosted site does have a non-compliant historic resource of 12.9 million tonnes grading 0.13% U3O8.

In Toronto on Jan. 12, news of the metallurgical results sent the company’s shares up 19% or 8¢ to 51¢ on 1.13 million shares traded.