Wednesday, 28 March, 2007

by Alison Bevege
NT News Business week

The push to mine uranium at Rum Jungle is a step closer after Territory metals miner Compass Resources announced it would conduct a feasibility study on its Mt Fitch deposit.

A recent scoping study by the company found that on current spot uranium prices, the project, 100km south of Darwin, looks viable.

"We used a range of prices for the analysis, from $US60 to $US90 per pound", Compass managing director Richard Swann said.

The Mt Fitch deposit reportedly contains 14.5 million pounds of uranium oxide at a grade of 0.79 pounds per tonne.

Though the high price of uranium has parked a flood of new ventures, and the Labour Party has now dropped the 'no new mines' policy, Mr Swann does not believe that the spot price of uranium will come under pressure from new ventures any time soon. "The demand world-wide for uranium is on the increase and supply is declining," Mr Swann said.

"I don't see any impact or downward pressure on price for quite some time."

Mr Swann was cautious about putting a timeframe on the possible development. "We still have a lot of work to do before we’d go into the permitting phase. I don’t think we’ll see much happen in the next year."

NOTE: the writer owns shares in Compass Resources.