Thursday 23 February 2006
ABC NT Country Hour

Report by Cameron Wilson

Lucy Creek could be home to a new uranium mine after a significant discovery in the area about 200 kilometres east of Alice Springs.

Early exploration has uncovered uranium mineralisation but drilling is now needed to determine the viability of any future mine. Managing director of Arafura Resources Alistair Stephens says the initial signs are promising.

"We are looking at drilling out uranium resources in 2006, with success in that, and follow up drilling, then we would develop a mine plan and go through a lengthy permitting operation. It wouldn't be unreasonable to think you could be in uranium production within 5 years time. We are also drilling for uranium to establish a resource for capital raising purposes. The sizes of the deposit could vary. But in general we would be looking for projects that have about 10 to 20 or 30 million pounds of contained uranium. Bearing in mind that uranium price in Australian dollars is about $50 per pound. So a 30 million pound uranium deposit has potential value in the ground of $1.5 billion."

"A lot of work needs to be done to actually determine whether it's economically recoverable but but at this stage its a very good leader."

Mr Stephens said drilling is planned for the coming months but it will be some time before a decision is made to develop a mine.

"We're at the very pointy end of the start and in reality its a minimum of five years I think before you would say that a mine could be developed."