GTR’s scoping study on track for Q2 2025

Published 05-MAR-2025 11:25 A.M.

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Our US uranium Investment GTI Energy (ASX: GTR) is getting closer to its scoping study for its project in Wyoming.

This morning, GTR put out an update on the key inputs that have been completed for its study, including fieldwork, metallurgical studies, hydrogeological testing and lab testing of the project’s geology.

GTR recently completed four monitor wells which all showed that the project's geology would support ISR mining - a big technical tick for GTR’s project.

ISR mining is a little different to hard rock mining, it’s when a company pumps solution into the ground, dissolves the uranium and then pumps it back up to surface for processing.

(Check out our deep dive on ISR mining later in today’s Quick Take)

To be able to do this type of mining, the project geology needs to be amenable to this type of mining.

So while it might seem like a technical announcement, the fact that GTR is confirming its project is amenable to ISR mining, we think is good progress from the company.

ISR mining is also typically lower cost, relative to hard rock mining, so it will be interesting to see how GTR’s project stacks up economically when the scoping study comes out in Q2.

We think it could surprise to the upside, especially given GTR’s current market cap at $XM (at 0.3c per share).

Where is GTR doing the scoping study?

GTR IS working toward a scoping study for its most advanced project - Lo Herma.

Lo Herma is where GTR holds the majority of its resources (8.57m lbs) and it's the project that is closest to processing infrastructure.

(GTR, across its three projects has a 10.23m lb uranium JORC resource)

Lo Herma sits ~16km away from Cameco’s Smith Ranch-Highland plant (the USA’s biggest ISR uranium production facility).

Proximity to existing infrastructure is important because it reduces the amount of capital required to get a project into production.

Hypothetically, GTR could just start mining and sending its uranium off to Cameco’s facility for toll treating without the need to develop a whole new processing plant.

It could also just produce pre-cursor materials that someone like a Cameco could buy from GTR.

We should know more about which of these options is most feasible when the scoping study comes out next quarter.

Here is where GTR’s project is and where the USA’s biggest ISR uranium plant is:

More on ISR uranium - what exactly is it?

ISR stands for In Situ Recoverable... uranium.

Also called Insitu Leach (ISL) mining, ISR projects are:

among the lowest cost from both a CAPEX and OPEX perspective, AND;
have a far lower environmental impact versus conventional hard rock mining.

ISR projects are very different to the standard method of mining which is to dig a large hole in the ground and extract minerals/metals.

Instead ISR projects are more similar to oil & gas projects - they involve pumping acid solution into the ground where the uranium resource is, dissolving the resource and then pumping it back up to surface to be processed.

(Source)

Below is a visual representation of the differences (left is a conventional hard rock uranium mine and on the right an ISR mine).

The visual differences between the two types of mining are enough to understand where these cost advantages come from.

Particularly with regards to the cost of extracting the waste rock material from conventional uranium mining before the miner can get to the valuable uranium.

Below is a chart showing the CAPEX differences between ISR and conventional mines: