TORO Energy Ltd has clarified statements last week that it was among the top five most likely uranium project contenders in Western Australia to move to commercial fruition.
TORO Energy Ltd has clarified statements last week that it was among the top five most likely uranium project contenders in Western Australia to move to commercial fruition.
The Adelaide-based company's managing director, Greg Hall, this week qualified earlier comments by saying that Toro Energy was in the box seat among only a handful of companies with potential commercial scale uranium prospects throughout WA.
Uranium mining was prohibited in WA under the Carpenter government, despite the state containing some of the largest undeveloped yellowcake deposits in the world.
Mr Hall said only BHP Billiton's Yeelirrie Channel prospect, Energy and Minerals Australia Ltd's Mulga Rock Deposit, Cameco Corporation's Kintyre uranium exploration project, and Paladin Energy Ltd's Manyingee and Oobagooma/Yampi projects were locally based projects in the same league as Toro's Lake Way-Centipede uranium project in Wiluna.
BHP Billiton, Toro and Paladin have well advanced projects, however Toro's Wiluna project, while not the largest potential WA project, is possibly the most advanced.
"We're more advanced than these other companies because we've done a prefeasibility study and are looking at an optimisation study," Mr Hall told WA Business News.
"We've got a pretty reasonable size tonnage at Wiluna so we advanced to prefeasibility [study], and we're the only ones to get that far."
The change of government in WA has set the scene for an influx of investors to stocks that provide direct exposure to the state's uranium industry.
While many companies are dusting off old plans for developing uranium mines at WA's rich deposits, mining and profits from these deposits could be many years away.
However, investors have embraced the new pro-uranium Liberal government's policy, with a flurry of investors assessing which uranium explorers are most likely to eventuate as producers.
Mr Hall said WA's leading uranium deposits would become economically viable if current long-term uranium prices stayed at about $US80 a pound of U3O8.
"Uranium has been a political animal in Australia and we don't think that it should be," he said.
Although the new government is pro-uranium stance has opened the door to investors, the turmoil affecting the global financial markets has played its part in limiting activity.
Toro Energy was trading at 20 cents on September 30, down from 23.5 on September 24 and 22 cents on September 23.
In February last year, Paladin Energy was trading at more than $10 but stocks fell to $3.75 earlier this month.
The company made a revival to $4.40 on September 22 before dipping to $4.18 on September 29
