Deep Yellow Limited will start an ore reserve upgrade drilling program at the Tumas 3 deposit on February 21, 2024.
Tumas 3 is located in EPL3496 in Namibia, and Deep Yellow holds the deposit through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Reptile Uranium Namibia (Pty) Ltd.
The project’s licence issued in December 2023 expires on September 21, 2043.
The program will comprise reverse circulation and diamond core drilling and has been developed with the primary objective of increasing drill spacing across targeted areas of Tumas 3 to 50 m x 50 m to enable the company to convert some of the 67 probable reserves to a proven status under the JORC mineral resource code.
Diamond drilling will aim to obtain sufficient quality samples for density determinations required for the reserve re-estimation.
The ore reserve status upgrade is required to enable the definition of sufficient proven mineral reserves for the first seven years of operation and to allow detailed mine scheduling to commence.
This package will support the project’s debt financing. The reverse drilling will comprise 650 holes for 13,000m, covering the pit locations planned to be mined in the first seven years of operations, as defined in the Tumas definitive feasibility study.
Tumas 3 is the largest uranium deposit along the Tumas palaeodrainage. Together with Tumas 1, 1 East, Tumas 2 and Tubas deposits, the palaeodrainage contains 25 U3O8 inferred, and 108 U3O8 indicated resources, of which 67 U3O8 are contained in a probable ore reserve.
The program will take up to 15 weeks, with assay results expected by April. The company plans to release an updated Ore Reserve status for Tumas 3 in 2024.
Deep Yellow also owns the Omahola project, the Nova JV with the Japanese agency JOGMEC, and the Yellow Dune JV.
Together with the Tumas 1, 1 East, Tumas 2 and Tubas deposits, the palaeodrainage contains about 139 million pounds of U3O8 inferred and indicated resources, of which 67.3 million pounds are currently held in a probable ore reserve.
