Aura Energy Ltd (ASX:AEE, AIM:AURA) is trading higher after delivering a major increase to the mineral resource estimate (MRE) for Tiris Uranium Project in Mauritania with the success of drilling in 2024 resulting in a 55% lift in contained uranium and a 35% increase in measured and indicated resources.
The Tiris global mineral resource now stands at 184 million tonnes at 225 parts per million (ppm) for 91.3 million pounds U3O8 at a 100ppm cut-off grade, up from 58.9 million pounds with this resource including the Tiris East and Oum Ferkik project areas.
Drilling has resulted in a 28.9 million pounds increase in the Tiris East Project’s resources which now total 76.6 million pounds and this was delivered at a discovery cost of only US$0.14 per pound.
Shares higher
Investors have welcomed the resource update with AEE shares 15.38% higher in ASX trading intra-day to A$0.15.
Strong drilling results and the subsequent increase in mineral resources provide the company with confidence for significant future resource growth potential at Tiris as exploration continues.
In April, Aura completed an aircore drilling program of 2,995 holes for 15,262 metres of drilling to evaluate a previously announced exploration target of between 8 million pounds and 32 million pounds. The drilling program was aimed at assessing additional resource potential at Tiris East.
The MRE increase of 32.4 million pounds exceeded the upper end of the exploration target range, providing strong support to Aura’s exploration methodology, and is a strong indication to the mineralisation potential of the regional leases that are under application.
Higher confidence
Drilling also delivered a 10.3 million pounds or 35% increase in measured and indicated resources, which stand at 83 million tonnes at 219ppm for 39.9 million pounds, and a 76% increase in total inferred resource to 51.4 million pounds.
In addition to targeting extensions to known mineralisation and testing previously un-drilled radiometric anomalies around Tiris East, the program considered several conceptual targets over low-level radiometric anomalies.
Several of these conceptual targets returned very positive results, further increasing exploration potential of the area.
The major increase in the Tiris mineral resources reinforces Auras’ commitment to progress Tiris towards a development decision in late 2024 or early 2025.
It also offers significant potential to materially enhance the already excellent FEED economics of NPV8 US$388 million and IRR 36% after tax, and presents real opportunities to increase the project’s future scale beyond the current 17-year mine life at 2 million pounds per annum of uranium production.
“An important uranium province”
Aura Energy managing director and CEO Andrew Grove said: "The resource growth at Tiris confirms our view that this is an important uranium province with the capacity for further growth upside.
"The board believes that the very significant increase in mineral resources resulting from the successful drilling campaign will have a materially positive impact on Tiris’ economics and has been delivered at a very low discovery cost of just US$0.14 per pound.
“Mineralisation was identified not only from high strength radiometric anomalies but from areas of low strength anomalies, significantly increasing the exploration potential of the area as these low-level anomalies have been ignored in past exploration.
“More opportunities remain to expand the known mineralisation within the current granted tenements. In addition, the potential for future discoveries within the 13,000 square kilometres of new tenement applications is significant as we have only just begun exploration over this district-scale opportunity.
"The increased mineral resource inventory will further support the funding and development of the Tiris Uranium Project in the near future.”