The company's Hansen/Taylor Ranch uranium project sits within the Tallahassee Creek uranium district in Fremont County, Colorado, which also hosts 16 historical uranium mines dating back to the 1950s.

The project has a resource of 90.9 million pounds of uranium oxide at an average grade of 0.06% uranium oxide, making it the third largest uranium deposit in the US.

The Hansen deposit is the largest deposit in the area with a resource of 39.4Mlb uranium oxide and is the focus of Black Range's development efforts.

Hansen was discovered by previous owner Cyprus Mines Corporation (now Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold) in 1977, which completed a positive bankable feasibility and permitting but abandoned the development due to low uranium prices.

For that reason, it is not only the largest deposit but also the most advanced.

It has already been a busy year for Black Range, which completed a scoping study on the Hansen deposit earlier this year.

The study found that offsite milling would reduce capital costs to less than $US80 million ($A76.7 million), based on underground borehole mining and mineral separation with ablation to produce around 2 million pounds per annum of concentrate.

In an exciting development for Black Range, a heads of agreement with Wyoming-based Ablation Technologies was signed in July to progress and eventually commercialise the ablation technology, which the company expects could be a game-changer, not only for its project but for the uranium industry.

Ablation is a low-cost technology which mechanically separates uranium from the host rock without the need for chemicals.

Ore slurry is ejected from two opposing nozzles to create a high-energy impact zone, with the collusion of particles within the zone separating the coating of uranium from the underlying grain.

The uranium-bearing particles are then recovered in the fine fractions separated in a subsequent screening process.

Tests carried out on Black Range's Hansen deposit returned recoveries of around 95% of uranium oxide in around 10% of the test material, producing a concentrate grading around 1.2% uranium oxide suitable for sale.

The agreement established a 50:50 joint venture between Black Range and ABT, with Black Range to fund 100% of the costs which would later be recovered by ABT's share of future revenue.

Meanwhile, underground borehole mining involves the boring of a hole through overburden to the mineralisation using a conventional drill rig, after which the borehole is cased and sealed and the overburden drill rig is exchanged for a specialised mining rig with customised equipment, including a "fixed shrouded jet miner" which is lowered to the exposed face of the mineralisation to excavate material from the orebody using pressurised water supplied by surface pumps.

A continuous supply of air is used to depressurise the return pipe and create a vacuum to lift slurry of mineralised material through the drill pipe to the surface.

Once a borehole has been completely mined, the remaining cavity will be filled with a specialised cement slurry and backfilled and plugged with bentonite and cement before final completion with a soil cap.

Black Range government and regulatory affairs vice-president Rod Grebb told MiningNewsPremium that borehole mining was cheaper and more environmentally friendly.

"When we're finished here everything will look pretty much the same," he said, adding that the impact was only slightly larger than the exploration process.

It also gave the company the flexibility to target lower grade areas during periods of higher uranium prices.

The scoping study envisaged the use of two overburden rigs, three borehole rigs and one abandonment/backfill rig.

Grebb said the operation would be relatively small, employing around 60-80 people, but would have a huge positive economic impact on the nearby town of Cañon City, where Black Range has an office.

The project enjoys the support of the community and the owner of Taylor Ranch and Grebb live locally.

"I like to be a face and a presence," he said.

With the field season winding up now, the next step is to work on permitting for trial borehole mining, which will be conducted outside of the ore zone.

"We don't want to mess with the ore," Grebb said.

The permitting process is expected to take up to a year and Grebb said while there was bound to be some opposition, he expected to receive the permits at the end of the process.

"There are always going to be challengers no matter what we do," he said.

The company is targeting mine permitting by 2015 to allow first production in 2016.

A preliminary economic assessment is due to be released in the December quarter.