The project consists of two separate mining areas over a total length of 30km with the individual deposits ranging in length from 1km to 8km. The Mulga Rock East mining centre comprises the Ambassador and Princess deposits and the Mulga Rock West mining centre comprises the Shogun and Emperor deposits.

The MRP is classed as a carbonaceous-sedimentary hosted, supergene enriched, uranium deposit. Mineralisation is hosted predominantly by unconsolidated Eocene sediments (39 Ma) which are rich in organic matter and comprise river and estuarinelake sediments. The organic matter originated primarily from land-based plant matter that washed into the channels and deposited into tributaries along the edge of an oxbow bend, forming peat.

The uranium mineralisation is hosted by the organic matter in the reduced sediments below the redox front. Most of the uranium is adsorbed onto organic matter in an ionic form (i.e. uranium metal). The remainder of the mineralisation comprises ultra-fine grained uraninite (UO2) and mixed uranium oxides. The individual uranium-rich units consist of stacked lenses that have strong lateral continuity, and are spatially associated with the redox front that coincides with the present-day water table.

Uranium mineralisation is hosted by flat-lying, carbonaceous clastic sediments which are in turn overlain by weathered, oxidised sediments that range in thickness from 19m to 62m of waste overburden.

Most of the uranium is contained in the top mineralised lens. The ore zones are up to 38m thick, inclusive of interburden, with Ambassador and Princess deposits averaging 4.5m in thickness, and up to 8m in thickness at Shogun and Emperor with an average of 2.3m.

Ambassador and Princess mineralisation is strongly polymetallic in nature, with the majority of base and other metals adsorbed on to organic matter, with sulphides and sulphates accounting for the remainder. None of the other metals occur in a form or concentration which allows for eventual economic extraction and are therefore not reported as a Mineral Resource under the JORC Code (2012).

Due to the large lateral extent and horizontal geometry of the deposits, Vimy is proposing to use large-scale open pit ‘strip’ mining techniques like those used in mineral sands and other bulk mining operations. Strip mining commences with the excavation of an initial box cut to expose the ore, with the overburden placed in a surface landform. After mining the ore exposed by the first box cut, the resulting pit void is available to take the overburden from the next mining strip as mining moves along strike. In general, mining advances one strip at a time with previously mined areas progressively backfilled and rehabilitated. This mining method will result in ‘realtime rehabilitation’ leading to a smaller environmental footprint and significant savings in waste movement and end of mine life rehabilitation liability.

The regular geometry of the mining operation, with a fixed distance from the active mine face and backfill, lends itself to either a truck and shovel (T&S) operation, or continuous mechanised waste haulage system such as an in-pit crushing and conveying (IPCC) system. Vimy has investigated a number of mechanised mining systems, including drag line, dozer trap, bucket wheel excavator, and IPCC. These mechanised mining options have progressively been eliminated due to excessive capital cost or technical risk. For the purposes of the DFS, it has been determined that an owner-operator T&S operation is the most cost-effective mining approach for the MRP.

There are also a number of smaller high-grade and secondary satellite pits within the MRP. A conventional T&S mining method will be utilised for these pits where mining proceeds bench-by-bench in a vertical direction from surface with dumping of waste material ex-pit on overburden surface landforms. This method will also be used within the larger deposits where pit geometries are less favourable for strip mining as described above.

It should be noted that the low unit mining cost is a result of the large ultra-class mining fleet selected, free-dig nature of the overburden and short haul distance across the pit floor due to the strip mining method adopted.

- subscription is required.

There are many commercial uranium metallurgical processes applied to the extraction and recovery of uranium. Typically, a uranium hydrometallurgical processing facility will adopt one of two leach systems involving either sulphuric acid (acid leach) or sodium carbonate (alkaline leach). Acid leaching is preferred over an alkaline system due to the lower cost of sulphuric acid compared to sodium carbonate. Some uranium ores such as the calcrete (CaCO3) deposits are not amenable to acid leaching due to their high acid consumption, and therefore must adopt an alkaline leach process. In the case of the MRP, the uranium ore has a low acid consumption and is, therefore, amenable to the lower cost acid leach process.

Similarly, there are three main process options applied commercially for the recovery of uranium after leaching. The processes include Solvent Extraction (SX), Ion Exchange (IX), or Resin-in- pulp (RIP). For the MRP, RIP has been selected due to the ‘preg-borrowing’ n ........