Consolidated Uranium Incorporated (CU) is based in Vancouver, B.C., Canada. It has announced the start of a set of comprehensive work programs. One such program involves the reopening of the underground workings of its Tony M uranium mine. It has been fifteen years since the mine last produced uranium. CU also plans to investigate the vanadium potential of the underground Tony M mine.
The Tony M mine is fully developed and permitted. It produced almost one million pounds of U3O8 during two different periods of operation from 1979-1984 and from 2007-20008. The Tony M is one of three past-producing uranium mines in Utah owned by CU.
Historically, it had been thought that there was no significant vanadium in the mine. However, during the process of completing a NI 43-101 technical report on the project, an inverse relationship between uranium and vanadium mineralization was discovered. This resulted in a recommendation by SLR International Corporation, which wrote the technical report, to reopen the underground for a sampling program as well as carrying out a drilling program.
Martin Tunney is the President and COO of CU. He said, “We view the reopening of the underground as a first step in the restart of the Tony M Mine. Any vanadium mineralization of economic value would allow us to reach that goal that much faster.”
The NI 43-101 technical report for the Tony M is dated September 9, 2022. It estimates indicated mineral resources of six million six hundred thousand pounds of U3O8 and inferred resources of two million two hundred thousand pounds. The 2023 drilling program will include as many as fifty-nine vertical drill holes, totaling about thirty-eight thousand feet across the deposit. The underground sampling programs are designed to collect detailed information on vanadium mineralization with the ultimate goal of calculating a vanadium mineral resource. It might also allow for some of the current estimated mineral resources to be converted from the inferred to the indicated category.
Phil Williams is the Chairman and CEO of CU. He said, "With uranium market fundamentals showing significant strength and the unquestionable need and political support for domestic US uranium production, we believe advancing the Tony M project toward a near term production decision is the correct course of action. The programs announced today will not only provide detailed information to guide ultimate mining of the Tony M resource, by potentially upgrading mineral resources into the indicated category and allowing us to evaluate the conditions of the extensive underground workings, but, if successful, could add meaningful value to the deposit through the possible addition of vanadium resources not previously evaluated.”
The Tony M, the Daneros and the Rim mines were part of a portfolio of permitted, past-producing conventional uranium and vanadium mines in Utah and Colorado which CU acquired from Energy Fuels Incorporated in 2021.
Virginia Energy Resources (VER) owns the Coles Hill mine which is the biggest underdeveloped uranium project in the U.S. CU last year agreed to buy VER in a transaction worth about thirty-two million dollars. CU also has past-producing and development projects Argentina, Australia and Canada.