U3O8 Corp. has total indicated and inferred resources of 48 million pounds of uranium, estimated in compliance with National Instrument 43-101 (“NI 43-101”), in three deposits in South America: in Argentina, Colombia and Guyana.

U3O8 Corp.’s 100%-owned Laguna Salada Deposit is located in Argentina – a jurisdiction that has seen a radical U-turn to free-market, business friendly economic policies since a new government was elected in December 2015. Laguna Salada is an extremely low-grade deposit, but the simplicity of mining of the soft gravel in which the uranium and vanadium occur leads to production cost estimates that are amongst the lowest in the uranium industry. A preliminary economic assessment (“PEA”) estimated the cash cost of production to be US$22 per pound of uranium, net of a vanadium by-product credit.

The Laguna Salada Deposit is U3O8 Corp.’s top-ranked project for development in the short-term and the next steps are:

• Trial mining and proof pilot plant test work to produce a small amount of yellowcake at a facility within Argentina as a proof of concept and also as a means of refining cost-estimates for incorporation in a full feasibility study;
• The PEA shows that the economics of the project are strongly geared to deposit size – so we need to upgrade uranium discoveries in the same gravel to resources so that the next economic study can be done on a larger uranium-vanadium resource.

The Company’s wholly-owned Berlin Deposit in Colombia contains a uranium resource that also contains other elements that are used in the battery, agriculture and high-tech industries. About two thirds of the project’s revenue is estimated to be generated from the other commodities, according to the PEA that has been completed on the deposit. The PEA suggests that the value of the potential by-products could cover the cost of mining and extraction of the uranium, making the Berlin Deposit potentially one of the lowest cost producers in the uranium industry.

• The next step on the Berlin Deposit is additional metallurgical work to test whether newer technology could potentially lower estimated production costs further.

Internal estimates on the production cost from U3O8 Corp.’s Kurupung uranium deposit in Guyana indicate that the deposit would be a higher-cost uranium producer and so it is ranked behind the deposits in Argentina and Colombia for development within U3O8 Corp.’s portfolio. Nuclear power plants provide constant base-load electricity 24/7 without producing greenhouse gases – although some greenhouse gases are emitted in the mining and production of yellowcake at the mine-site, its transport, and processing into the rods that fuel the reactors.

• The next step is test work on the efficiency of extraction of zirconium, a potential by-product that occurs with the uranium. Successful test work could lead to a reduction of production cost estimates, which may result in a re-ranking of the project.