Boss Energy Limited (ASX: BOE) is on target to restart production at the Honeymoon uranium project by year end with the completion of a pivotal achievement at the South Australian development.
The company is celebrating the completion of the first wellfield as it nears completion on related gypsum pond and water treatment plants.
Managing Director Duncan Craib said completion of this milestone ensures Honeymoon remains on track for production in the December quarter, 2023.
Preparatory work to commence flushing the start-up wellfields is now underway.
“The project development is proceeding to plan and remains on time and on budget as we move towards the restart of Honeymoon,” Mr Craib said.
“Our timing is looking ideal, with the uranium market continuing to tighten and the spot price moving up.”
“Boss remains fully-funded through to production, with cash on hand of $103 million and a strategic uranium stockpile valued at $105 million based on current spot prices. The company has no long-term debt”.
Mr Craib said committed expenditure now totals 77%, or $81.5 milion, of the budgeted ~$105.4 million capex.
All critical path items remain on track for delivery in line with the project schedule. More than 135 procurement packages have been issued. The packages awarded to date are in line with the cost estimates contained in the front-end engineering design (FEED) released in March 2022.
The project reached a key point in its redevelopment with completion of construction of the three start-up wellfields. This comprises 86 drilled and cased new production wells and 31 recompletions of existing wells.
Pressure testing and line flushing of the first wellfield has been completed and the liquid disposal line (3km) and associated pumps and instrumentation have been commissioned.
The next stage is to run structured pumping tests. The purpose of this work is to ensure the pump set- points are correct, and that the wells are hydraulically connected to one another in the orebody.
This will pave the way to start wellfield flushing and commissioning.
Ground water extraction and construction of the new raw water system is also on target to begin delivering to the processing plant in coming weeks. The necessary reagent areas are in the final stages of preparation for receiving their first fill.
All significant procurement items have been delivered and installed, raw water supply and liquid disposal lines (180mm poly pipe of approximately 5,800 metres) have been welded, completed and ready for use.
Installation of lining material for the 25,000-ton gypsum pond is nearing completion for full operational use.
The 250m3 /hour RO plant mechanicals are installed, with electrical and final piping nearing completion. The RO pant consists of 6 containers of filters, pumps and reverse osmosis tubes with associated chemical dosing systems.