Häggån Project

Ownership: 100% Aura
Location: Storsjön District in Sweden
Coverage Area: 110 km²
JORC Compliant Inferred Resource: 631 million pounds U₃O₈
Grade: Average grade of 160 ppm U₃O₈ plus credits from co-products: molybdenum, vanadium, nickel and zinc
 Status: Significant upgrade to JORC resource in August 2011; excellent initial bioleaching testwork results; scoping study completed; pre-feasibility planning underway

Aura’s wholly owned Häggån Project covers 110 kilometres squared in the Storsjön District in Sweden. The first uranium operation from the Alum Shale began at Kvarntorp in southern Sweden in 1965. The Häggån Project forms part of a large uranium field in Central Sweden. The uranium occurs with molybdenum, nickel, vanadium and zinc in black shales. The shales form a near continuous sheet throughout the section of the project that Aura drilled in its 2008 -2011 programmes, with thicknesses ranging between 20 metres to more than 250 metres.  

Independent resource consultants Hellman & Schofield Pty Ltd recently established an upgrade to the JORC inferred resource at Häggån from 291 to 631 million pounds of uranium at 100ppm cut-off. This places Häggån in the top three largest undeveloped uranium resources in the world. The huge resource covers only 15% of the Häggån project and Aura believes there is significant potential for further increases.

A Scoping Study on the Häggån Project was completed in February 2012 by independent consultants RMDSTEM Limited and examined a range of heap leach options with incredibly positive results. Results demonstrated the bacterial heap leach option showed a robust project with low capital cost relative to cash flow generated. Aura will now focus on moving the project into pre-feasibility. Click here to read more about the scoping study results.

Aura also recently received exceptional results for bioleach testwork on the Häggån permit. Results from the agitation leach tests have indicated up to 90% uranium extraction, as well as 90% zinc, 55% nickel and 45% molybdenum. Bioleaching may provide a potential low capital and operating cost treatment route for Aura. Click here to view the bio-heap leaching process.

Bioleaching may provide a potential low capital and operating cost treatment route for Aura.  It also captures value from other co-products enhancing project economics.  Talvivaara in Finland, a nickel copper mine which is also based on shales, recovers uranium as a by-product from 17 ppm U₃O₈ ore through bio-heap leaching. Aura has previously reported that high levels of recovery (up to 93%) of uranium have been obtained from initial bench-scale conventional acid leaching tests.