Peninsula Energy, along with its US subsidiary Strata Energy, has announced that its Lance Projects in Wyoming, US, are on schedule for a production restart in December 2024, despite a two-month delay in the delivery of refurbished yellowcake dryers.
The final expansion capital cost is projected at approximately $48.8m, following a cost increase of $9.5m over previous estimates.
The preconditioning operations for the Lance Projects' Header House 11 began in early November, after a delay due to commissioning challenges with new acid storage and delivery systems.
With these issues resolved and operations at full capacity, the header house is functioning at around 67% of the design flow rate. This, coupled with flowrate variability, has led Peninsula to revise its production guidance for 2025 to roughly 600,000 pounds of Triuranium octoxide (U3O8) and to withdraw other guidance for the year.
The company claims that these delays will not affect the cumulative production estimate for 2026 and 2027.
The expansion of the Ross uranium recovery plant at Lance is progressing, with the phase two expansion set to increase production capacity and include a complete central processing plant (CPP) for dry yellowcake production.
Peninsula and its contractors, Samuel Engineering and Samuel EPC, have agreed on a fixed lump sum contract for the CPP.
Major construction has moved indoors, with the plant expected to house a 5,000-galllons-per-minute uranium recovery ion-exchange process with the capability to produce up to two million pounds of U3O8 annually.
The Ross and Kendrick areas together contain a joint ore reserves committee (JORC)-compliant resource base of 26.2 million pounds dry yellowcake (U3O8), sufficient for at least ten years of production.
Peninsula managing director and CEO Wayne Heili said: “Our teams of workers are busy across the Lance Projects preparing for the resumption of uranium production operations before the end of the year. The progress is evident on many fronts and the team is to be commended for continuing to proceed with safety at the forefront while keeping to the overall schedule.
“While some aspects of the project development are slightly lagging earlier projections, it is pleasing to know there are no indications that the impacts will extend beyond the initial ramp-up phase.”
