The primary uranium mineralisation in the Karoo rocks conforms to sandstone-hosted fluvial channel type deposit (Nash et al., 1981; Turner, 1988).

The Karoo basins of sub-Sahara Africa comprise what may be the world’s largest sandstone-hosted uranium province. Compared to the well-known uranium-bearing sandstone basins of the western US, the area of the Karoo basins is about 30% greater, but their known uranium content as of 2003 was only about 7% of that in the US basins. Whereas both areas contain broadly similar, little deformed, predominantly non-marine strata, mainly of Mesozoic age, the order of magnitude lower apparent uranium content of the Karoo basins indicates that they are relatively underexplored (Roux, 1998; Bowell et al., 2009).

Mineralisation

Mutanga, Dibwe and Dibwe East
Mineralisation appears to be later than at least some of the normal faults which cut the Escarpment Grit Formation. This is evident from the good correlation of the radiometric logging data between adjacent holes within the Mutanga mineral deposit separated by interpreted faulting (Lusambo, V. 2011).

The source of the uranium is believed to be the surrounding Proterozoic gneisses and plutonic basement rocks. Having been weathered from these rocks, the uranium was dissolved, transported in solution and precipitated under reducing conditions in siltstones and sandstones. Post lithification fluctuations in the groundwater table caused dissolution ........

The preliminary mining plan for the Mutanga Uranium Project includes the flowing deposits: Dibwe East (“DE”), Dibwe (“DI”), Gwabe (“GW”), Mutanga (“MU”) and Njame (“NJ”).

The deposits are amenable to conventional, shallow open cast mining methods utilising excavators and trucks with relatively low stripping ratios. Ore and waste is in a cemented sandstone that will require blasting. Pit optimisations were run for considered deposits to determine pit limits and pushback development. Production schedules have been prepared for all deposits using a cut-off grade of 129 ppm U3O8 and a plant feed rate of 4.0 Mt per annum (“Mtpa”).

A number of economic and technical parameters used for this study are based on assumptions and historical studies. These parameters will be further interrogated and updated in future studies. A base case metal price of 50USD/lb U3O8 was used for the pit optimisation results in a Run of Mine (“RoM") inventory to cover 11 years of production from the six considered deposits.

Mining losses and dilution were applied as 10% and 10% global values. Diluting grade used was 0.0 ppm U3O8. The total pit inventory for mineralized material is 40.8 Mt at 333 ppm U3O8. The overall strip ratio for the Project is 3.4 (t:t), but varies from 1.4 to 6.0 (t:t) depending on the deposit.

At the time of writing, the pit design is preliminary and SRK only developed wireframes with appropriate sensitivity analysis. The mining product ........

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