Plant construction and wellfield development activities at the Lance Uranium Project of Peninsula Energy Ltd (ASX:PEN, OTCQB:PENMF) in Wyoming, USA, are on schedule and within budget ahead of a planned production restart later this year.
The production restart will be marked by the progressive commissioning of the new process plant circuits following the initial recovery of uranium from wellfield solutions delivered to the plant.
Peninsula managing director and CEO Wayne Heili said: “As we hit the midway point of 2024, we remain on track to resume uranium production operations by the end of this year.
“We are very pleased to confirm that our preparations are proceeding smoothly and on schedule. Procurement commitments are being made on or ahead of schedule and costs for plant construction are tracking to budget.”
Plant construction
Peninsula is working to expand the production capacity of the Ross process plant at Lance and to include the complete central processing plant (CPP) capability of producing a finished dry yellowcake product.
The company advises that construction activities to expand the plant capacity and capability are progressing as scheduled with Samuel Engineering appointed to construct the additional plant facilities.
Samuel’s construction team is on-site and actively progressing the construction activities. Once construction is complete, the Lance Projects will be home to a 5,000 gallons per minute (GPM) uranium recovery ion-exchange process plant with a complete capability to independently produce up to 2 million pounds per annum of dry yellowcake (U3O8) product.
Construction efforts to date have been focused on preparing the building foundations and the work has progressed as scheduled and on budget. Equipment procurement also remains on schedule with 74% of the major equipment ordered with expected delivery on schedule. Overall, equipment costs are tracking the budget projections.
Wellfield development
In addition to plant construction activities, Peninsula continues to advance development of the new wellfield facilities, with the previously developed wellfield areas (of Mine Units 1 and 2) now available to resume uranium recovery operations.
Peninsula is actively developing a new wellfield production area named Mine Unit 3 (MU-3). Ten contract drilling rigs are now on site to install production pattern wells (injection and production wells) in the new MU-3 area.
- Well installation for the entire mine unit is currently 47% complete.
- Installation of the production pattern wells in MU-3, Header House number 11 (HH-11), which will be the first module placed into production, is 85% complete.
- Construction of pipelines, powerlines and wellfield infrastructure for MU-3 are advancing as scheduled.
- Overall, the MU-3 infrastructure installation is 70% complete at this time with no significant issues anticipated to completion.
- The surface facilities for HH-11 which include the header house building, well plumbing and electrical connections, and metre runs are approximately 55% complete.
- HH-11 is on schedule to commence preconditioning operations in 3Q2024.
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