Australian Uranium Investing: Hansen Uranium Project Historian Overview

Published on Thursday February 17 2011

BLACK RANGE MINERALS LIMITED

Here's some info I've gathered over recent years regarding the

Hansen Uranium Project

Hansen Property - Location and Access

The Hansen Property is comprised of NZ Uranium LLC's 49% interest in 2,560 acres in four sections of land: Sections 21, 22, 27 and 28 of Township 17 S, Range 73

W, 6th P. Meridan, Fremont County, Colorado.

The Hansen Property is located approximately 70 miles southwest of Denver, Colorado. Access on to the Property is by light duty roads connecting with State Highway 9 and U.S. Highway 50 about 30 miles to the southeast.

Hansen Property - Climate and Physiography

The Hansen Property is located at 8,250 feet elevation in the open, grassy mountain valley of Middle Tallahassee Creek. The southwestern two thirds of the Hansen Property lies primarily in a flat alluvial plain while the northeastern third lies on a small, flat plateau above the alluvial plain. A small portion of the Property also lies on the steep slope between these two physiographic features.

The Ore body, is located at modest depth and in sediments saturated with water of such poor chemical quality as to be unsuitable for other uses.

Hansen Property – History

The Hansen Property has a long history under Cyprus Minerals, having been named after James Hansen, a former Sr. V.P. of Mineral Exploration. In 1978 Cyprus sold a 49% interest in the property to Wyoming Mineral Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of Westinghouse Electric Corp. Both companies planned to bring the Property into production by 1983 but when uranium prices dropped in the early 1980's Cyrpus dropped the project but retained the land. In 1996 New Mexico and Arizona Land Company, the parent company of NZ Uranium LLC, bought Cyprus' interest in the Hansen Property and 49% interest in the mineral resource was sold to NZ Uranium LLC.

Hansen Property - Geology and Mineralization

Uranium mineralization at the Hansen Property is hosted by the Eocene age Echo Park Formation. In the vicinity of the Property, these rocks consist primarily of interbedded sandstone siltstone, claystone and conglomerate of fluvial origin.

Thickness of the Echo Park Formation varies from 0 to more than 800 feet. Also present locally at the Hansen Property are all three members of the Tallahassee Creek conglomerate which can be seen deposited in scour channel within the Echo Park members.

Uranium mineralization occurs as stratiform lenses within clayey sandstones, sandy mudstones and pebble to boulder conglomerates belonging to the lower members of the Echo Park Formation.

The Hansen Property is historically described as a roll front type uranium deposit but does not display the typical crescent shape of a reduction-oxidation (redox) boundary, and hence ore zone geometry, that is sometimes observed elsewhere in these deposits. In general the mineralization is reduced but is surrounded by oxidized sediments.

Numerous historic resource estimates exist for the Hansen Property which range from a minimum of 18 million pounds to a maximum of 33 million pounds. This wide variation results from a variety of methods used to calculate the resource and differences in cutoff grades and thicknesses of mineralization.

In 1978, Guenter Moldzio, as a consultant to Cyprus Exploration Company calculated an average resource of 24.5 million pounds of in-place uranium. These resource estimates are considered to be reliable and relevant but are based on prior data and reports obtained and prepared by previous operators, none of which have been independently confirmed by us. Accordingly, the historical estimates should not be relied upon.

The Hansen Property will require considerable further evaluation which our management and consultants intend to carry out in due course.

Hansen Property - Proposed Work Program and Budget

We have not performed any work to date on the Hansen Property. Our current plans for the Property are limited to compilation of historical work as there are over 140 reports written about the Hansen Property.

Have just recently Added
(Further History of the Hansen Uranium Project)

Cyprus, Westinghouse planned mine, the Hansen property has a long history with Cyprus Mines Corp, where it was known as Cyprus Hansen.

In 1978, Cyprus sold a 49 percent interest in the property to Wyoming Mineral Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of Westinghouse Electric Corp. Westinghouse, which at the time was a major supplier of nuclear reactors, was hungry for uranium. Westinghouse was then faced with 14 lawsuits filed by 20 utilities after it canceled uranium fuel supply contracts in September 1975.

The suits sought delivery of 69 million to 85 million pounds of uranium at contract prices over the following two decades.

Westinghouse was suing, too. It had antitrust suits going against 29 foreign and domestic uranium producers and their agents, alleging price fixing and allocation of uranium markets.

Back in 1978, Cyprus estimated reserves at the site were about 30 million pounds.

Hansen was named for James G. Hansen, Cyprus' former senior vice president for mineral exploration.

Open-pit mine planned.

Cyprus was to be operator for all exploration, development and production at Hansen. Funding for licensing, development and construction of the open-pit mine and 3,000 tpd mill was to be provided by the two firms on a pro rata basis.

When Westinghouse bought in in 1978, the firms were looking at production by 1983.

But by 1980, the price of uranium had began to flag. In the early '70s, uranium sold for around $6 per pound, a price that rose as high as $43 by mid-1979. A year later, however, it had dropped to $30, a five-year low, on its way down.

The reason was oversupply. In 1979, producers turned out 37 million pounds of uranium oxide, while utilities consumed only24.8 million pounds.

Rich Canadian competition.

At the same time, rich new deposits were being discovered in Canada and Australia with up to 30 times the grade as domestic ore, which averaged only 2.2 pounds per ton in 1979, down from 4.2 pounds in 1969.

By that time, Amoco (Standard Oil Co. of Indiana) had acquired Cyprus and the new company soon decided to abandon the Hansen project, which had a price tag of $225 million.

The decision also came soon after the Three Mile Island reactor incident, which further eroded uranium's image and demand.

Amoco and Westinghouse planned to wait until the market for uranium became more stable -- a situation that wasn't to occur.

Canary Events Black Range Minerals Presentation By Managing Director Mike Haynes Speaking Specifically On The Taylor/Hansen Uranium Deposit

July 2009