It has been a tough year for the company with corporate raids from the United Kingdom and an attempted board ousting that has ended with managing director Peter McIntyre resigning from his position.
Despite the boardroom drama, Extract has continued to push ahead with exploration at its flagship Rossing South project.
The resource upgrade announced today has upped resources at Rossing South to 145Mlb of uranium at a grade of 449 parts per million uranium.
The overall estimate includes an indicated resource of 21 million tonnes at 527ppm uranium for 24Mlb uranium, and an inferred resource of 126Mt at 436ppm uranium for 121Mlb uranium.
Perth-based Extract said Rossing South was proving itself as the highest-grade granite-hosted uranium deposit in Namibia.
The next step for the company is to define a resource at the Zone 2 area, with the resource due in August.
The project has attracted a great deal of interest, with Rio Tinto buying into the company last year, and the corporate drama from UK companies Kalahari Minerals and Polo Resources proving Extract has attracted a lot of attention.
Extract managing director Peter McIntyre has been a casualty of this attention and will step down from his position with Extract on September 15 after Alternative Investment Market-listed Kalahari, Extract’s largest shareholder, sought to remove McIntyre and replace him with its own chairman, Mark Hohnen.
The company is looking for a new MD to replace McIntyre.
Representatives from Rio Tinto and Polo have also joined the company’s board, while another representative from Kalahari will also be joining Extract’s board.
McIntyre told MiningNews.net today the Zone 2 deposit could potentially reach or exceed the upper limit of the company’s previous targets, with some market watchers suggesting the project could grow beyond 300Mlb.
“Both zones are still open and that’s the result of really only 18 months of drilling,” he said.
McIntyre said he wanted to get the company “well and truly on the right track” towards production before he steps down in September.
Part of this is finalising the first part of the feasibility studies into the Rossing South project.
“The first part is the scoping phase and we’re sitting back and looking at what we’ve got here,” McIntyre said.
“The scoping phase will be nearing completion by the end of this month and we’ll be quite interested to go to the market and say ‘this is what we’re talking about in general in terms of the size of the operation’, and this is where we’ll direct the next stage of the feasibility around these parameters.”
Extract is also conducting an internal strategic review process with Rothschild Australia.
McIntyre said the review process was looking at the various development “scenarios” before the company.
“We’re trying to consolidate that whole process and focus the board in respect to the opportunities,” he said.
“One of the scenarios, for example, is a standalone, full-on project development. That’s a very real scenario for us and that’s almost our base case, and that will come out the scoping study we’re doing for the feasibility.”
McIntyre today said the company was leaving all development options on the table, and that options such as joint ventures or other deals would be considered in light of what made the most commercial sense, and what would be the best deal for shareholders.
The outgoing MD told MNn this morning that after his departure he would still be closely watching Extract.
“I have a material shareholding in this company … I’ve never sold a share since I’ve been with the group,” he said.
“Personally, I want to see this project come into production.”
McIntyre said the project was important for Namibia and its economy, as well as Extract’s shareholders, and it also had personal importance.
Shares in the company were last traded at $6.34, up 10c this morning on the resource upgrade.
