Blue Sky Uranium Corp. has unveiled the results of a new Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) for the Ivana uranium-vanadium deposit, part of the Amarillo Grande Project located in the province of Río Negro. The updated assessment includes a new mineral resource estimate, with approximately 80% of the resources now in the Indicated category. "This assessment demonstrates a solid economy for a surface mining operation, with 11 years of production for both resources."
By Panorama Minero
The PEA highlights include an after-tax NPV of 8% for $227.7 million, an after-tax IRR of 38.9%, and an after-tax payback period of 1.9 years. The pre-production capital cost is estimated at $159.7 million, with a life-of-mine sustaining capital cost of $27.3 million.
The PEA is based on key assumptions, such as a uranium price of $75/lb U3O8, a vanadium price of $7.5/lb V2O5, 2 years of construction, and 11 years of production. It also considers an stripping ratio of 1.5:1, a dilution of 3%, and an average mining rate of 5.10 Mtpa. An average annual production of 1.5 million pounds of U3O8 is expected, with a total uranium production of 16.5 Mlbs U3O8.
As part of the announcement, Nikolaos Cacos, President and CEO of Blue Sky, pointed out that this PEA confirms that the Ivana deposit is a leading uranium-vanadium project, with the advantage of achieving low production and mine maintenance costs. The company plans to complete a feasibility study as soon as possible and will continue exploration at the Amarillo Grande project to discover and delineate new resources. Additionally, additional processing studies are underway to improve the economics of developing the Ivana deposit, which will be integrated into a Feasibility Study in the coming months, they expanded from the company.
