The Lance Central Processing Plant (Image: Peninsula Energy)
Operations restarted within selected areas of Mine Unit 1 at the in-situ leach - also known as in-situ recovery - project on 18 December. The project is owned by Australia-based owner Peninsula Energy Ltd. Strata Energy Inc is the company's 100%-owned US subsidiary.
Since Lance last produced uranium commercially in 2019, it has transitioned to low-pH operations. In September last year, Peninsula decided to bring forward plans for a central resin processing plant at Lance after a toll-milling agreement to process loaded resins from the operation at Uranium Energy Corp's Irigaray central processing plant fell through. When complete, the process plant will be able to produce up to 2 million pounds U3O8 (76,929 tU) of dry yellowcake product per year.
The production stream from Mine Unit 1 is being routed to the rebuilt Phase 1 satellite plant ion exchange system for uranium capture, and the captured uranium will be stored on the ion exchange resin until the second phase of the new on-site recovery plant is completed in early 2025, the company said. It expects the resin elution and precipitation circuits in the Phase 2 plant area to be completed by mid-January, when first elutions and yellowcake precipitation can begin. The completed construction of the yellowcake filtration and drying circuits are currently scheduled for February, which would lead to production of the first dry yellowcake product by early March.
The processing plant interior (Image: Peninsula Energy)
"This is a very exciting moment for the team and our shareholders to have finally pressed the button on starting production," Peninsula Managing Director and CEO Yayne Heili said, adding that the milestone had been "years in the making, a lot of hard work, and with a fair share of challenges".
"Importantly, Peninsula is now North America's newest fully independent uranium producer. We have restarted Lance at an opportune time, with the long-term fundamentals and demand for uranium incredibly strong, as nuclear energy grows into the leading and most reliable clean energy solution," he said.
