Standard Minerals Inc, a company 75%-owned by Metals One (MET1), has signed a binding agreement with DISA Technologies in respect of the Radium Mountain and Wedding Bell uranium projects in Colorado.
The agreement was previously trailed as a term sheet back in August.
DISA will evaluate and, if successful, treat historically abandoned uranium mine waste dumps and recover saleable uranium and other critical minerals concentrates at the Colorado projects.
Standard will be paid a gross revenue share of any saleable uranium and other critical mineral concentrates recovered from waste at its Colorado projects. DISA's modular mobile plants use the patented High-Pressure Slurry Ablation system and will be deployed at various waste dumps identified by ground survey.
DISA will be the operator of the Colorado projects and pay all associated costs of economic evaluation, permitting, treatment and ongoing remediation. There will be no capex or opex payable by Standard.
What’s more, DISA has now received its final U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Service Providers License to remediate abandoned uranium mine waste.
"Signing this Binding Agreement means that Metals One is on track to go from waste to potential development at two of our uranium projects within 12-24 months,” said Dan Maling, managing director of Metals One.
“DISA is in the business of remediating historically abandoned uranium mine waste dumps, and it is now the first company in the U.S to have received a Service Providers License for this work from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. We believe their patented HSPA technology makes both economic and environmental sense, recovering valuable uranium and critical minerals whilst rehabilitating historic sites."
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It’s great to see a potential path to production for one of Metal’s One’s major investments here, and within a relatively short timeline too. A certain amount of permitting is still required, and DISA needs to complete its “characterisation” of the potential dumps. At the moment 13 have been identified, but there could be more, and the gross revenue share could mean that significant cash will flow upwards towards Metals One for some time to come.