In December 2006, the Company acquired a portfolio of uranium royalties in the Grants Mineral District of New Mexico, USA from United Nuclear Corporation, a wholly owned indirect subsidiary of General Electric Company. The royalty portfolio covers several separate parcels of mineral leases (Section 8, a portion of Section 17, and the Mancos area, which comprises all of Section 13 and portions of Section 12 and 7) in the ChurchRock area of McKinley County which is located 20 miles northeast of Gallup, New Mexico (the “ChurchRock Properties”). The ChurchRock Properties are presently owned by a subsidiary of Uranium Resources, Inc. (“URI”), a U.S. publicly traded uranium producer, which acquired them from United Nuclear in a series of transactions between 1986 and 1991.
SLIDING SCALE ROYALTY STRUCTURE
The royalty is a gross revenue based sliding scale royalty, ranging from 5-25% based on term uranium prices, but is also indexed to inflation based on the Producer Price Index – All Commodities (“PPI”) index. At the last calculation date, and using the April 2012 PPI value, the Royalty will be based on gross sales prices of U3O8 with a royalty of 15.9% on a current term price of US$61.50/lb, with a maximum royalty of 25% when sales prices reach US$87.58/lb or higher update.
| Example: | $50 | 13% | Current Term Price: US$61.50 |
| $60 | 18% | ||
| $80 | 25% | (Maximum Royalty) |
Laramide paid United Nuclear US$9.25 million in cash, of which $4.1 million (US$3.5 million) has already been paid at closing, with the remaining payments subject to permitting and production milestones as described in the Company’s MD&A.
URI’s most current guidance for ChurchRock is a feasibility study in mid-2012, followed by construction in 2012, and initial production in late 2013 at a rate of one million pounds per annum starting in Section 8.
KEY ATTRIBUTES
Churchrock: 7.8 million tons @ 0.12% U3O8 = 18.6 million lbs U3O8
Mancos: 5.2 million tons @ 0.11% U3O8 = 11.3 million lbs U3O8
FUTURE OUTLOOK
NRC reactivated ISR licence in 2011
Feasibility Study expected in Q3 2012
Financing and Construction planned in second half 2012 and first half of 2013
Production in late 2013
URI entered into project consolidation and financing transaction with Resource Capital Funds.
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