Read it and weep....From the SEG Oct 2014 paper on U deposits in the Athabaska Basin:
That smaller (less than 150 million
pounds U3O8) high-grade unconformityhosted
uranium deposits are currently
uneconomic is not supposition—unfortunately,
it is fact. Despite a plethora of
discoveries since 1990 (not including
any Cluff, Eagle Point, or McArthur
deposits)—sequentially, Shea, P Patch,
Tamarack, Millennium, Maverick, Caribou,
Centennial, Midwest A, Roughrider,
Phoenix, J Zone, Patterson Lake South,
and Gryphon—the authors, at this time,
are not aware that any of these deposits
are scheduled for production, nor are
any of the other larger deposits found
since 1969. Currently, there are only
three mines in production in the Athabasca
Basin: McArthur, Cigar, and Eagle
Point. Commodity price is a major but
obviously not the only issue, as most
of these unmined deposits were found
prior to the price run-up
in the mid- 2000s, yet still remain in the ground.
Each nonproducing
unconformity- hosted deposit has
its small size as a “fatal flaw” which can
only be obviated by a “Cigar Lake-style”
remedy—the deposit must be large
enough to allow absorption of the huge
capital and operating costs required to
enter and sustain production (and even
Cigar Lake, like McArthur, did not have
to build or permit a dedicated mill and
tailings facility). Unless a single deposit
or group of deposits totals somewhere
in the 150-million-pound higher-grade
U3O8 range and is near a mill and permitted
tailings facility, then these individual
projects, if too small or too deep for an
open pit, yet not large enough to bear
the higher costs of underground mining,
will likely remain stranded in resources
and will not be converted to reserves.
The merger with DML is senseless as the only value DML has is a trivial amount of enterprise value from toll milling that is worth only a few cents/share. As for their properties, they have no value at this time because they cannot be converted to reserves. Regarding NXE, if shear zone A3 proves to be as large or larger than A2, it will get to over 200 million pounds which is large enough for a stand alone mill. Dump FCU and buy NXE. You have been told the facts.....