Taylor Ranch/Hansen Uranium Project, Colorado, USA

The 100% owned Taylor Ranch Uranium Project is located approximately 150 kilometres southwest of Denver in Colorado, USA. It lies immediately north of the Hansen uranium deposit in the Tallahassee Creek District of Colorado, which the Company recently secured exclusive rights to acquire a 100% interest in. Together these assets are referred to as the Taylor Ranch/Hansen Uranium Project.

The combined assets host more than 90 million pounds of U₃O₈, making it one of the largest uranium projects within the USA - a country that annually consumes around 50 million pounds of U₃O₈ per annum (or ~27% of the world's uranium consumption) yet produces less than 5 million pounds of U₃O₈ per year (or <2.5% of total annual global uranium consumption).

Location of the Taylor Ranch/Hansen Uranium Project, Colorado, USA.

Taylor Ranch Uranium Project

Since December 2006 Black Range Minerals has secured a 100% interest in more than 9,500 acres at its Taylor Ranch Uranium Project. This area had been relatively poorly explored during the 1970-80s, but was known to host considerable extensions of the same mineralising system that formed the Hansen deposit.

Since 2006, the Company has conducted extensive drilling programmes resulting in the delineation of JORC compliant indicated and inferred resources of:

39.3Mt at 0.059% U₃O₈ for 51.1 million pounds of U₃O₈, or
8.9Mt at 0.12% U₃O₈ for 23.5 million pounds of U₃O₈

Location of uranium deposits within Black Range's Taylor Ranch/Hansen Uranium Project.

Drilling at the Taylor Ranch Uranium Project, Colorado, USA.

Taylor Ranch JORC Resources

At various cut-off grades the JORC Code compliant indicated and inferred resource base at the Taylor Ranch Uranium Project comprises:

138.8Mt at 0.027% U₃O₈ for 83.8 million pounds of U₃O₈¹, or
¹Applying a cut-off grade of 0.01% U₃O₈

47.8Mt at 0.057% U₃O₈ for 60.2 million pounds of U₃O₈², or
²Applying a cut-off grade of 0.025% U₃O₈

8.9Mt at 0.12% U₃O₈ for 23.5 million pounds of U₃O₈^3
3Applying a cut-off grade of 0.075% U₃O₈

Considerable potential remains to expand the resource base with further exploration.

Hansen Uranium Project

Immediately south of, and adjacent to the Taylor Ranch Uranium Project is the Hansen Uranium Project, which the Company recently secured exclusive rights to acquire a 100% interest in.

The Hansen Project hosts a series of uranium deposits within the same mineralized trend that hosts the deposits within the Taylor Ranch Project, and includes the North Hansen, Hansen and Picnic Tree uranium deposits. The Hansen Uranium Deposit is the largest of all of the uranium deposits within the mineralized trend (including those in the Taylor Ranch Project).

The Hansen Uranium Deposit was discovered in 1977. It immediately became the focus of a concerted exploration programme by previous owners that led to the definition of approximately 30 million pounds of mineable U₃O₈ at a grade of ~0.08% U₃O₈. A previous owner completed a positive bankable feasibility study on the Hansen deposit in the early 1980s and all permits were in place to commence open cut and underground mining and to construct an on-site processing facility. However the global uranium price collapsed prior to commencement of construction and until recently no further work was undertaken.

Schematic cross-section through the Hansen Uranium Deposit.