Toro and Cameco to join forces

The proposed Toro-Cameco joint venture plans to explore and develop the highly-prospective Birrindudu project in the Tanami region just inside Western Australia’s border with the Northern Territory.
Cameco is one of the world’s largest uranium producers, accounting for 15 per cent of global output from its mines in Canada and the United States.
Toro is already developing the advanced Wiluna uranium project in the same State.
The proposed Cameco JV provides Toro access to an unconformity-style uranium project with an exploration agreement already in place with the Kimberley Land Council and a work clearance meeting being scheduled. As operator, Toro has the opportunity to utilise excellent baseline electromagnetic and radiometric datasets along with Cameco’s expertise. Exploration targets and leads are already identified.
Most of the high grade uranium deposits in the world (Ranger in the Northern Territory and McArthur River in Canada) are unconformity style deposits, which Cameco has been targeting in exploration programs in the NT, WA and SA.
The terms of the Heads of Agreement with Cameco require Toro to drill a minimum of four diamond drill holes and expend a minimum of A$1 million during the initial two year earn in period to acquire a 50.1 per cent equity in Birrindudu. All exploration, feasibility and development beyond this point will be pro-rata funded.
Toro Energy’s managing director, Greg Hall, said, “Toro has continued its consistent exploration spend of approximately A$2.5 million per year, both on brownfield and significant new greenfield uranium opportunities. Birrindudu is also an ideal fit for our existing exploration assets, diversifying our underlying discovery and operational risk, particularly in WA and the NT, where we are advancing the Napperby project northwest of Alice Springs.”
The Birrindudu tenement package covers 1,760 square kilometres and lies approximately 250km southeast of Halls Creek in northeast WA, adjacent to the NT border. The project area encompasses Palaeoproterozoic metasedimentary Tanami Group that is unconformably overlain by the intracratonic platform sandstones Birrindudu Basin, analogous to the Alligator River Uranium Field, where there are established world-class deposits at Ranger, Jabiluka, Koongarra and Nabarlek.

Toro raises A$40 million
A total of A$40 million has been raised by Toro Energy as it forges ahead to have first production from its key Western Australian uranium project by 2012.
Proceeds from the capital raising will be sufficient to fund all approvals and completion of a bankable feasibility study by 2011 for Toro’s Wiluna uranium project along with other project and consolidation opportunities.
The funds were raised via oversubscribed placements at 15 cents per ordinary Toro share to a raft of Australian and international institutions and professional investors.
Toro’s major shareholder, Oz Minerals Limited, also elected to contribute nearly half of the total raised to maintain its 49.9 per cent shareholding in Toro.
Greg Hall said the increasingly strong support from the senior end of the equities market was a vote of confidence in the momentum and strategies behind the company’s drive to develop a near-term Australian uranium mining and project development business.
“Significantly, the proceeds announced today will now enable Toro from next month, to commit to and fully fund a bankable feasibility study and the approvals process for our wholly owned Wiluna uranium project so that we anticipate being able to make a development decision in 2011 to stay on track for first production in 2012,” he said.
“The proceeds also provide Toro with the opportunity to advance our other project and exploration work elsewhere in WA as well as Napperby in the Northern Territory, and to take advantage of consolidation opportunities in the sector.”