First uranium sales on the horizon for Boss

Boss Energy is expecting to complete its first uranium sale in July, with the payment to be received in the September 2024 quarter.

The company has sought to align its production strategy and timetable with the global uranium market by maximising its ability to capitalise on favourable supply and demand fundamentals.

Boss’ commissioning process at its Honeymoon uranium project in South Australia is also on track, with key metrics exceeding feasibility study forecasts.

Results of the uranium-rich pregnant leach solution (PLS) from the wellfields, IX column resin loading and high-grade IX column eluate have outperformed expectations.

Tenors from the individual wellfields into the PLS are averaging 80–100 milligrams per litre (mg/L), whereas Honeymoon’s feasibility study assumed a PLS grade of 47 mg/L based on the project’s previous results.

Boss also demonstrated loading rates of up to 36g/L, which was 33 per cent higher than the feasibility study’s estimates. The increase means Honeymoon’s ion exchange circuit is creating more uranium per cycle than anticipated.

“We are very pleased with the commissioning progress to date,” Boss Energy managing director Duncan Craib said. “We are meeting or exceeding key feasibility study forecasts and the processing technology is performing as our extensive test work showed it would.

“These early production results provide confidence that we are on-track to meet our ramp up targets. Ramp-up timing has been designed to align with a rising uranium market. We believe we will be hitting our straps as the uranium price rises in the near term.”

Boss will now focus on the optimisation of the ion exchange, elution and precipitation processes to achieve continuous operations at Honeymoon. It will also work to enter into more binding sales agreements to sell uranium amid rising prices.

So far, Boss has signed two binding sales agreements to sell 1.8 million pounds of triuranium octoxide – a compound of uranium – to major European and US power utilities over eight years from 2024 to 2032.

Subscribe to Australian Mining and receive the latest news on product announcements, industry developments, commodities and more.