MHC – Manhattan Gold Corporation Limited
Manhattan Corporation Has Australia’s 20th Largest Uranium Project Under Licence, And It’s Only Getting Bigger
By Alastair Ford
www.minesite.com/aus.html (free registration)
Anyone interested in the uranium and nuclear power space who doesn’t yet know who Alan Eggers is could do worse than check out the video on the homepage of the company’s website.
Although he squints modestly when he talks about it, as if to moderate the effects of the bright lights that he’s been exposed to since, Alan’s development and subsequent sale of ASX Top 200 company Summit Resources to Paladin for around A$1.2 billion was a consummate bit of business. Especially considering that Paladin itself isn’t worth a whole lot more than that now, following a precipitous share price plunge this year that’s forced chief executive John Borshoff onto the back foot and into taking a pay cut.
How the mighty fall. But it’s been a turbulent year for uranium companies generally, as the uranium spot price, after rising early in the year to US$70lb, took a dive and markets got spooked and spooked again by a nuclear accident at Japan’s Fukushima plant and the subsequent anti-nuclear fall-out that followed. And it was while all that was going on – while chancellor Merkel was reaffirming the phasing out of Germany’s nuclear programme and while the Chinese were raising red flags about their own development plans – that Alan last took the time to address a Minesite audience in London and to update his UK investors on the progress of the company he now runs, Manhattan Corporation.
Typically, he was his ever-ebullient self, in spite of the cross-winds that were blowing through the sector, and in spite of the barracking he received from a bearded member of the green lobby who expressed ill-researched opposition to nuclear power and was rather taken aback by Alan’s mastery of the statistical data.
The rest of the audience, however, was more interested in Alan’s prognostications on the industry in general and how it might come back from the Fukushima incident where the damage to the reactors have not caused any serious injuries or loss of lives , and on progress at Ponton in Western Australia, Manhattan’s leading project. Back in March the company announced that it had now proved up 26 million tonnes of ore grading 300 parts per million (ppm) U3O8 at Double 8, giving 17.2 million pounds of uranium oxide at a 200 ppm cut-off, with the further potential for another 2.5 to 5.5 million pounds.
In addition, Manhattan’s consultants, Hellman & Schofield, reckoned there was potential for the company to add between 8 to 16 million pounds to the company’s resource base at the Stallion South project, between 8 to 16 million pounds at the Highway South project, and between 15 to 30 million pounds at Ponton, all at a 200 ppm cut-off.
That’s not a bad jumping off point for any uranium junior, and in some sense has already propelled Manhattan into the big league. Double 8 at Ponton is, trumpets one of the bullet points in the latest quarterly results for the period to the end of September, the 20th largest uranium project in Australia, and the 7th largest in Western Australia. As the Hellman & Schofield report confirms, with further drilling, this Ponton uranium project is only going to get bigger.
The company has yet to attain Ministerial consent or have the area removed from the reserve to drill at any of Double 8, Ponton, Highway South or Stallion South, as all these projects lie within the boundaries of something known as the QVSNR, the Queen Victoria Spring Nature Reserve. The spring in question, according to Alan, is more of a sandy soak, than a fount of purity or well-being, but that apparently amounts to something in Australia, where there isn’t always enough water to go around.
Still, although the Ministers in question continue to adhere to the schizophrenic approach that Australia’s governments often seem to take towards mining, and have delayed the company’s plans to drill, that hasn’t stopped other work going ahead. It also hasn’t stopped Manhattan providing clear signposts as to how its projects will provide clear economic and social benefits to the local people and their government.
In August a scoping study by international engineering consultants Tetra Tech for an in-situ leach operation at Ponton was completed which showed how what Manhattan called “a project of national significance” might work. For a capital outlay of around A$130 million the company would construct an in-situ leach operation that would produce five million pounds of U3O8 per year, bringing in A$300 million in foreign exchange revenues and providing a further A$10 million in income tax and A$15 million in royalties to the various relevant authorities. It will also create 200 jobs in Western Australia, and support 1,000 more.
Perhaps Australia’s federal government’s recent U-turn to allow India access to Australian uranium, even if it does point its missiles directly at neighbour Pakistan, signifies a positive shift in bureaucratic attitudes towards uranium mining in Australia. If so, the local arguments in favour of development of Manhattan’s Ponton uranium project look compelling.
Especially when set in the context of uranium fuel supply shortfalls looming in 2013 and the following list of favourable things about uranium that Manhattan provides on its website: uranium and nuclear power address climate change; uranium and nuclear power are competitive; Uranium and nuclear power are safe; uranium and nuclear power is clean, green, nonpolluting and carbon free; uranium and nuclear power provides energy security; uranium and nuclear power is the lowest emission form of base load power; uranium and nuclear power provides economic benefits; uranium and nuclear power helps meet emission targets; uranium and nuclear power is stand alone and do not require government subsidies.
In the end, the weight of the argument will burst the bureaucratic dam and Manhattan investors will be the winners. But there may be a little while to wait yet.
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