Paladin readies for Canada exploration

Uranium miner Paladin Energy was set to launch an looking at programme at its Aurora uranium assets, in Canada, following the Nunatsiavut government amended laws to lift a moratorium on uranium mining and development on Labrador Inuit Lands.Paladin holds five deposits within the Labrador Inuit Lands, during its subsidiary Aurora Energy. The deposits are estimated to host some 15.1-million pounds of uranium oxide precise resources and 68.7-million pounds of inferred resources across six deposits.

Drilling was predictable to start in the third quarter of the 2012 calendar year, and would focus on infill and addition drilling of the Michelin uranium deposit. Expansion of the current resource base was estimated both by drilling and within the current deposit perimeter, where significant areas remained untried and extensions along strike.

Paladin said in a declaration that clearance would also be sought for the reopening of the Michelin adit, constructed by British Newfoundland Exploration (Brinex), in order to obtain samples for metallurgical purposes and to better identify the continuity of the mineralisation and the geological setting of the deposit. Previous looking at by Brinex and Aurora demonstrated the high propsectivity of f the claim package beyond the Michelin area, Paladin said, adding that there were a number of high priority areas that required ground-based geophysical surveys and geological mapping, as well as reconsideration of existing drilling data in order to identify new drill targets.

Rio Tinto seen stoking bid war for Hathor

Cameco, Canada's largest uranium miner, raised its offer for Hathor by 20 percent to C$4.50 a share, top a friendly bid from Rio Tinto at C$4.15 given that Rio Tinto had been in talks with Hathor since early 2010, investors expect Rio Tinto is excited to take over the company and would have a bit more up its sleeve to top Cameco, especially because the target is not large.

"It wouldn't be out of character for them to come up with a high bid. In the scheme of Rio, we're not talking about a lot of money," said Peter Chilton, an market analyst at Constellation Capital Management, which owns Rio Tinto shares, Rio Tinto decline to comment on the latest bid by Cameco.

Rio Tinto mines uranium in Australia, during its ERA unit, and owns the Rossing uranium mine in Namibia, but its Australian assets face environmental obstacles and the Namibia mine is considered fairly low grade the main attraction in Hathor is its great exploration-stage Roughrider project in the uranium-rich Athabasca region of Saskatchewan in Western Canada, which has the potential to make at least 5 million pounds of uranium a year.

Paladin's Kayelekera mine costs offset uranium profits

NET losses by uranium miner Paladin Energy sank to $US123.4 million ($120m) in the quarter ended September 30, as a $US178.9m harm on its Kayelekera mine wiped out modest profits from its uranium sales in a quarterly activities report, Paladin said that revenues in the quarter additional than doubled to $US103m from $US49 1m in the same quarter the year before.

But rising production costs still left the company in the red after amortisation and depreciation, and weakness in the uranium price forced Paladin to write down the haulage value of Kayelekera, a mine in northern Malawi with a resource of 19.1m tonnes.

Paladin said its selling price in the September quarter was an average $US51 per pound, against $US55 over the year to the end of June the regular production cost from Kayelekera and the bigger Langer Heinrich mine in Namibia during both periods was $US35.

Extract capital upgrades uranium project

The promote will make it one of the top five uranium deposits in the world. The emerging uranium miner says the size and grade of the latest resource confirms Rossing South as one of the most important uranium discoveries made in the past decade. Managing director Jonathan Leslie said the enlarge in the resource from the original discovery in February 2008 showed the project had "an amazing trajectory". "The main purpose is to confirm up the resource so we can get into mining, but it's also important to make people aware that the whole prospectivity of that area is enormous and is now a world class ranked deposit in terms of size," he told The Australian.

"The project has been progressively moving up the ranking list and we expect it to go on." Extract announced yesterday that indicated capital showed 257 million pounds of uranium oxide at zones one and two of the deposit, which is division of its Husab uranium project in Namibia. It added that the overall deposit was upgraded 37 per cent. The company said the increased resource also recognized the deposit as one of the highest-grade, granite hosted uranium deposits in Namibia. Rossing South neighbours mining giant Rio Tinto's huge Rossing project, which saw the mining major take a 15 per cent stake in Extract in 2008. Extract's stock is tightly held, as Rio also holds an curiosity in Kalahari Minerals, whose main investment is a 41 per cent interest in Extract.

Japan's Itochu also secured a 10.3 per cent stake in the rising miner last month, which upped the trading house's interest in the mine, as it also has a 14.9 per cent bet in Kalahari Minerals. Extract was also the centre of market conjecture last month that it could lose the right to mine the massive put, after Russia and Namibia signed a five-year uranium co-operation agreement. Following the signing, it was recommended in Russian news agencies that Russia's state-owned nuclear company Rosatom had applied to develop Rossing South and would be ready to spend $US1 billion ($1.1bn) on uranium development in the country.

Australian’s uranium miner market value up 48%

The market valuation of Australian companies with one or more uranium projects grew faster than that of their Canadian peers over the last 12 months, explore by Resource Capital Research (RCR) has shown. In a report on global uranium companies, released on Wednesday, RCR said that the market assessment of Australian uranium companies had risen by 48% over the last 12 months, compared with Canadian uranium companies, which recorded a 29% increase.

However, the market assessment fell over the past month, with Australian companies suffering a 4% decline and Canadian uranium firms a 2% drop.Over the past three months, the market estimation fell by 16% for Australian miners and 15% for Canadian miners.RCR said in its June uranium report that in the past month, the uranium mining majors have had mixed share price performance.

The share price of the largest-listed uranium-miner, Cameco, fell by 6%, while Denison Mines’ stock share price dropped by 1% . Uranium One’s share price surged by a 24%, on the back of a deal with Atomredmetzoloto, or ARMZ. The Russian company will enlarge its holding in Uranium One to at least 51%. Share prices for Energy Resources of Australia (ERA) were up 7% while Paladin’s share prices remained unaffected.

Paladin hail Uranium One stake sales

Paladin Energy on Wednesday welcome news that uranium producer Uranium One (UUU), which is scheduled on the JSE, had disposed of its interest in its company. Paladin said the move leaves it as the only completely independent, publicly listed pure play uranium manufacturer in the world. Uranium One said on Tuesday that it "recently sold substantially all of its previously acquired shares of Paladin Energy".

It said the sale proceeds would supplement the capital capital available to the company for the cash outflows contemplated by its proposed acquisition of two more mines in Kazakhstan. The company plans to get JSC Atomredmetzoloto's (ARMZ) 50 percent interest in the Akbastau Uranium Mine and its 49.67 percent interest in the Zarechnoye Uranium Mine.

"The acquisition will increase Uranium One's steady state production from its Kazakhstan assets by just about 60 percent, from approximately 10 million pounds to approximately 16 million pounds," Uranium One said in a statement.ARMZ currently holds 23.1 percent of Uranium One's outstanding general shares.

Uranium miner died in rock fall

A 28-year-old uranium mine from Moab died Wednesday morning after he was hit by declining rock in the Pandora mine near LaSal, San Juan County. County Sheriff Mike Lacy known the victim of the 7:30 a.m. accident as Hunter Diehl. The federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) was notified of the accident and sent an inspector Wednesday to inspect.

Ron Hochstein, president and CEO of Denver-based Denison Mines (USA) Corp., which owns the mine, said Diehl was working with a partner, using an 8-foot-long crowbar-like tool to break loose rocks from underground tunnel walls and roofs lengthened by blasting. "There was a rock fall, from the mine's roof or perhaps the wall, we are not sure," Hochstein said.

Sheriff Lacy said Diehl's co-worker saw the victim blinking his head-lamp light, came to his support and talked to Diehl before going for help. When the co-worker returned, he found Diehl unconscious.Cardiopulmonary revival failed to revive the victim underground. He was transported to San Juan County Hospital in Monticello, where he was pronounced dead."They have safety meetings every day," Hochstein said, noting that rock falls "happened to be one of the safety topics" Wednesday morning before Diehl and two dozen miners went underground to a variety of working sections of the mine.