SRK Consulting and SGS Bateman have been awarded for their previous work for GoviEx Uranium, with the two set to carry out a feasibility study on the company’s ’s Madaouela uranium project in Niger.

The two companies were part of the team that completed the prefeasibility study and environmental permitting work on Madaouela, with GoviEx saying both have considerable experience in uranium and African project development.

Chairman Govind Friedland said: “We are excited to commence this next stage in the development of the Madaouela project. GoviEx has steadily and actively focused on value accretion for our projects while staying in tune with the state of the market; our appointment of SRK and SGS corresponds with a recovering uranium market price. GoviEx will continue to advance our projects with discretionary spending commensurate with improving market fundamentals.”

Further recovery and cost optimisation will be the focus of the feasibility study, GoviEx said.

The key highlights from the prefeasibility study were a mineral resource of 111 Mlb U3O8 in the measured and indicated categories, and 28 Mlb U3O8 in the inferred category, probable reserves of 60.54 Mlb U3O8, forecast uranium recovery of 93.7%, annual production of 2.69 Mlb U3O8 for 21 years at a cash cost of $24.49/Ib, and start-up capital expenditure of $359 million.

Since the publication of this study, the company has added 11.67 MIb U3O8 in the measured and indicated categories (of which 5.96 Mlb relates to the open-pit amenable Miriam deposit) and 9.35 Mlb U3O8 in the inferred category, plus developed a potential process design that could improve project economics (membrane separation).

The Madoauela project is around 10 km south of the town of Arlit and Orano Mining’s mining subsidiaries of Cominak and Somair, in north-central Niger. Deposits are hosted within sandstones of the Tim Mersoi Basin. The mine permit was approved in January 2016, with environmental approval gained in July 2015.