(1) See the March 2, 2012 technical report: "Berlin Project, Colombia - National Instrument NI 43-101 Report" prepared by Coffey Mining Pty Ltd. and on U3O8 Corp's web site at www.u3o8corp.com and on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Based on the initial resource and scout drilling results, management believes that there is a conceptual uranium target of 20-23Mt at 0.09% to 0.11% U3O8 (approx. 45-50Mlb U3O8) on 6.3km of the Berlin trend. Potential quantity and grades are conceptual in nature. There has been insufficient exploration to define a mineral resource north of the current Berlin resource area, and it is uncertain if further exploration will result in additional mineral resources being delineated on the property.
Mining Plan
The PEA is based on an underground mine on the maiden resource and assumes that approximately 80% of the resource is mined with 20% left as pillars for mine support. After a first year mine production of 250,000t of mineralized material, the mine would ramp up to a production rate of 500,000t during a 15-year mine life. Planned daily output from the operation is 1,428t of mineralized material and 716t of waste.
Mineralization at Berlin lies in a specific layer that is "U"-shaped in cross section. The steeply inclined parts of the deposit require mining by cut and fill methods while the shallowly inclined parts use room and pillar mining techniques. Mine access is from a portal located at an elevation of 805 metres ("m") above mean sea level via a 760m ramp at a 15% inclination.
Crushing and semi-autogenous (SAG) milling will be done in an underground chamber so that dust can be controlled to the highest safety standards. All tailings from the plant site will be pumped back underground and used as backfill in the mined-out areas.
Metallurgy and Processing
A complete flow sheet was developed from extensive metallurgical test work on intercepts from 35% of all bore holes drilled in the initial resource area at Berlin. The process route has been designed to efficiently extract multiple commodities, to be versatile in terms of reagent consumption, to be compatible with standard recovery methods and to create an environmentally benign tailing. The three main components of this process are:
(1) beneficiation of the crushed mineralized material using acetic acid (vinegar) to remove calcite and concentrate the valuable commodities into 40-47% of the original mass, which makes the subsequent extraction and recovery processes more efficient, reduces capital and operating costs and decreases the volume of tailings by 50-60%;
(2) extraction of the metals and phosphate into a pregnant liquor solution ("PLS") by an acidic ferric iron leach method. The rates of extraction achieved for each metal and phosphate is shown in Table 8; and
(3) recovery of the individual elements from the PLS by conventional ion exchange, solvent extraction and direct precipitation.
Table 8 - Extraction Rates of the Metals and Phosphate from the Berlin Deposit
----------------------------------------------------------------------------Commodity Extraction %----------------------------------------------------------------------------Uranium 96.1----------------------------------------------------------------------------Phosphate 98.9----------------------------------------------------------------------------Vanadium 66.3----------------------------------------------------------------------------Yttrium 86.1----------------------------------------------------------------------------Neodymium 59.6----------------------------------------------------------------------------Nickel 65.9----------------------------------------------------------------------------Molybdenum 51.4----------------------------------------------------------------------------Rhenium 32.8----------------------------------------------------------------------------Zinc 95.9----------------------------------------------------------------------------
