Richard Homsany

A pit re-optimisation, the inclusion of vanadium credits and a change of plant location has turbo-charged Toro Energy’s plan for its WA based Lake Maitland uranium project, leading to a potential 48 per cent hike in uranium production over the life of mine to 23.5 million pounds from 15.8 million pounds and potential vanadium oxide production of 12.2 million pounds.

Toro Energy has tabled more massive nickel sulphide discoveries at its Dusty project in Western Australia. The results from Toro’s latest campaign saw a drill hole intersecting 7.2 metres of visible nickel sulphides, grading 1.05 per cent nickel and 0.26 per cent copper from 252m downhole. The Dusty nickel project falls within Toro’s 100 per cent owned Yandal Gold Project in the State’s Mid West.

Toro Energy has recorded its third discovery of massive and semi-massive nickel sulphides at its Dusty nickel project in WA, taking the prospective strike length at the site to at least 7.5km. The latest discovery, named Jumping Jack, was from a 3.4m intersection from 240.3m including a 1.4m- thick lens of massive nickel sulphides. The Dusty project falls within Toro’s wholly owned Yandal gold project in WA’s north-eastern Goldfields.

Follow-up diamond drilling by Toro Energy at its recently discovered Jumping Jack deposit in WA’s north-eastern Goldfields has intersected more massive and semi-massive nickel sulphides. The company says spot analysis using X-ray fluorescence suggests a range of between 1.28 and 3.5 per cent nickel from a 2.3m intersection from 232.1m. Its follow-up hole was drilled about 18m east of where the initial Jumping Jack discovery was made earlier this month.

Toro Energy has continued its run of impressive results at the company’s Dusty nickel project in WA with the discovery of a fourth massive nickel sulphide zone from its ongoing diamond drill campaign. The latest discovery was highlighted after a drill hole hit a 3.6m section of massive sulphides from 244.1m. Toro says portable X-ray fluorescence analysis of the 3.6m intersection indicates grades between 1.45 and 3.66 per cent nickel.

Toro Energy says it can build its proposed standalone Lake Maitland uranium-vanadium operation for $270 million after a scoping estimation was completed by SRK Consulting Australasia and Strategic Metallurgy. The updated capital expenditure delivers a whopping $45 million reduction to the build compared to the $315 million estimate delivered around 10 years ago for the company’s Wiluna uranium operation.

Positive results are now in from Toro Energy’s scoping study into a standalone uranium-vanadium mining and processing operation at its Lake Maitland deposit within the company’s broader Wiluna uranium project in WA’s northern Goldfields region. After the cursory size-up, the standalone project currently holds a pre-tax net present value of $610 million and a total capital cost of $270 million.

Toro Energy has landed its thickest massive nickel sulphide intersection so far at its Dimma project in the Yandal greenstone belt in WA. The company says its latest diamond drilling campaign unveiled a 4.5m of continuous massive nickel sulphide from 194.3m downhole. All three drill holes drilled so far at Dimma have intersected massive nickel sulphides indicating the discovery remains open in all directions. Toro has now discovered four nickel sulphide zones and tested less than half of the 7km strike of its host Dusty komatiite rock unit.

Toro Energy has extended its Dimma nickel discovery with another massive nickel sulphide intersection of 2.4m with P-XRF analysis between 1.4 and 5.1 per cent nickel. Drilling intersected an 8.9m zone of visible nickel sulphide mineralisation from 327.2m downhole. Dimma is one of Toro’s four new nickel sulphide discoveries in a 7.5km long komatiite rock unit at WA’s Yandal greenstone belt.

Toro Energy’s latest diamond drilling campaign has extended its Dimma nickel discovery in WA’s Goldfields, with 2m of continuous massive nickel sulphide intersected from 147.2m. Management says its new results stretch the mineralisation at the deposit to 160m and that portable XRF analysis suggests nickel grades of between 1.5 and 3.4 per cent. The discovery remains open along strike in both directions and at depth.

Toro Energy has confirmed massive nickel sulphide hits at the Dimma discovery that forms part of its greater Dusty nickel project after the return of assays previously identified by X-ray fluorescence analysis. One diamond drillhole intersected 4.31m of massive nickel sulphides at 1.16 per cent nickel and 0.29 per cent copper, in addition to 0.386 grams per tonne platinum and palladium from 243.33m.

Toro Energy says high-confidence laboratory results confirming massive nickel sulphides at its Dimma discovery in Western Australia’s Goldfields region are double the thickness previously modelled on x-ray fluorescence scoping data. Previously thought to be 2.4m thick, Toro says it now has 4.31m of massive and semi-massive nickel-sulphide grading 1.37 per cent nickel, 0.13 per cent copper and 0.539g/t tonne platinum and palladium from 332m.

Toro Energy says geochemical analysis of assays from a hole drilled at its Dusty nickel project show two additional zones of nickel sulphides that extend its existing mineralisation closer to the surface. It has reported a 4.6m massive nickel sulphides intercept going 1.61 per cent nickel and 0.22 per cent copper from 194.2m at the base of the Dusty komatiite.

Galan Lithium’s Hombre Muerto West lithium brine project in Argentina is now full steam ahead after securing all permitting required to clear the way for construction. Phase-one production of lithium chloride, at what is Argentina’s highest-grade, lowest-impurity lithium brine deposit, will deliver 5400 tonnes per annum of lithium carbonate equivalent in a 40-year period starting in the first half of 2025.

On the back of a strong scoping study last year, Perth-based company Toro Energy has commissioned a pilot processing plant design and added vanadium to its Wiluna uranium project in Western Australia’s Goldfields region. The study into a standalone operation at its Lake Maitland deposit holds a pre-tax net present value of $610 million and a total capital cost of $270 million.

Toro Energy’s 100 per cent-owned Dusty nickel project in Western Australia’s Goldfields continues to grow, with the company’s latest assays showing an up-dip extension to the continuous lens of nickel-rich mineralisation, about 160m thick. Assays from Dimma’s fifth diamond hole showed 2.1m of massive nickel-sulphide grading 1.83 per cent nickel, 0.29 per cent copper and 0.55 grams per tonne platinum and palladium from 147.1m.

Toro Energy has kicked off its Lake Maitland extension study, which will also include uranium-vanadium ore from its Lake Way and Centipede-Millipede deposits that sit some 30km south-east of Wiluna in Western Australia. The company’s new assessment is aimed at adding considerable value to its original scoping study that forecast an annual EBITDA of $101 million during a 17.5-year mine life.

Galan Lithium and ASX-listed joint venture partner Redstone Resources have snatched up a pair of exclusive projects in two of Canada’s premier lithium provinces – a 5400-hectare patch in the rapidly-emerging James Bay region that is home to Patriot Battery Metals’ gigantic Corvette deposit, and a 1400ha lot in Ontario’s evolving “Electric Avenue”, which houses Frontier Metals’ massive PAK lithium discovery.

Toro Energy’s Wiluna uranium project may grow with the addition of ore from two of the company’s 100 per cent owned satellite deposits now being assessed as part of an extension study. Ore from the company’s Lake Way and Centipede-Millipede deposits, which are about 70km west of the project’s main Lake Maitland deposit, may add to the project’s already impressive financial metrics that predict a $100m a year EBITDA for 17.5 years.

Toro Energy has moved quickly to take advantage of the recent price spike in global uranium prices announcing plans to freshen up a previously released scoping study over its Lake Maitland project eyeing off the possibilities of what the current 16-year high price above US$100 a pound could mean for the prospects of its uranium project near Wiluna in WA.

With uranium prices soaring globally, Toro Energy has reconfirmed its commitment to constructing its Lake Maitland pilot plant to test ores from three uranium-vanadium deposits within a radius of 110km south-west of Wiluna in Western Australia. The company says its recently-commissioned pilot plant will test improved beneficiation and hydrometallurgical circuits that it has developed from its bench-scale research.

Toro Energy says it has expanded its uranium and vanadium resources at its Lake Way and Centipede-Millipede deposits near Wiluna by lowering the cut-off grade and creating new pit designs in light of the commodity’s booming global prices. The company says it is now using a 100ppm cut-off grade to bring it in line with its peers and to allow the expansion of resource envelopes.

Toro Energy is poised to launch drilling at its Wiluna uranium-vanadium play in Western Australia in a bid to provide sufficient ore samples to feed its upcoming pilot plant that is expected to begin operating in the next quarter. The company’s aim is to generate sufficient drill-core to provide a bulk sample of 20 tonnes to the pilot plant that is being designed in Perth.

ASX-listed Toro Energy has revealed proposals to spin out its portfolio of non-core nickel, gold, and base metal assets in Western Australia to focus solely on uranium. Projects flagged for the spin out into a new IPO include Toro’s wholly owned Dusty Nickel Project 50km east of the town of Wiluna and the Yandal Gold and Base Metal Project.

A surging uranium price has led Toro Energy to re-evaluate the mineral resource of its Dawson Hinkler deposit in Western Australia, leading to a 115 per cent increase in the site’s contained uranium oxide. Management says the market supports a lower cutoff grade for the deposit’s economics, allowing it to lift its resource from 9.44 million pounds of uranium oxide up to 20.29 million pounds.

Surging uranium prices have prompted Toro Energy to release an updated scoping study into its Lake Maitland project in Western Australia, with the new data showing a bulging EBITDA of more than $2.3 billion during its 17.5-year mine life. The latest figures assume prices of US$85 (AU$128.50) per pound of uranium oxide and US$5.67 (AU$8.57) per pound of vanadium oxide.

Toro Energy is closing in on the finalised design of a pilot plant that will allow it to test ores from three uranium-vanadium deposits at its project south-west of the WA town of Wiluna later this year. The plant will test improved beneficiation and hydrometallurgical circuits Toro has developed at near-production scale with an eye to incorporating the design flow sheet upgrade into future feasibility studies.

As market conditions continue to improve, Toro Energy has cranked up the resource estimate at its Lake Maitland deposit near Wiluna in WA to reveal a 12 per cent rise in its uranium resource and a 74 per cent jump in vanadium, after lowering the cut-off grade to 100 parts per million (ppm) to better align with its peers

Toro Energy has begun integrating its new vanadium resource into the recently updated Lake Maitland uranium resource block model near Wiluna. The move is set to dramatically impact the company’s previously tabled scoping study on the project that will now benefit from both uranium and vanadium sales. The combination of the two resources may also lead to economies of scale when it comes to mining according to the company.