Resource estimates

Domestic. Estimates of U.S. uranium resources for reasonably assured resources, estimated additional resources, and speculative resources at costs of 80, 130, and 260/kg of uranium are given in Table 1 (18). These estimates include only conventional uranium resources, which principally include sandstone deposits of the Colorado Plateaus, the Wyoming basins, and the Gulf Coastal Plain of Texas. Marine phosphorite deposits in central Elorida, the western United States, and other areas contain low grade uranium having 30—150 ppm U that can be recovered as a by-product from wet-process phosphoric acid. Because of relatively low uranium prices, on the order of 20.67/kg U (19), in situ leach and by-product plants accounted for 76% of total uranium production in 1992 (20). 

Estimates of speculative lesouices (SR) at 130/kg uianium and those having an unassigned cost range are provided ia Table 4 (23). These resources, which total about 11.28 x 10 t, would be ia addition to the reasonably assured and estimated additional resources. Estimates of uranium resources from unconventional and by-product sources are presented ia Table 5 (24). These resources total about 7 x 10 t for phosphates, 0.013 x 10 t for nonferrous ores, 0.016 x 10 t for carbonates, and 0.014 x 10 t for lignites. These would be ia addition to the reasonably assured resources, estimated additional resources, and the speculative resources (24). 

Resource estimates are divided into separate categories reflecting different levels of confidence in the quantities reported, and further separated into categories based on the cost of production. A listing of uranium resources by country is given in Table 3. 

Table 6.3-1 compares resource estimates from NUREG/... 

Mineral resources are broadly divided into discovered and the undiscovered categories. Features such as size, quality, characteristics and exact location of individual resources are matters of almost pure speculation for the latter. Undiscovered resources are unlikely to contribute much to the total supply in the immediate future. In the case of discovered resources estimates can be made, with an indication of the degree of reliability, of the timing and the future rates of production on a deposit-by-deposit basis. Using such estimation the occurrence and the likely rate of future availability can be combined in plots such as those shown in Figure 1.18 for discovered resources. Three situations are depicted. The first corresponds to future supply from sources that are reliable, the second to likely sources... 

The Beaufort-Mackenzie Basin hosts immense unconventional natural gas hydrate reserves that are often co-located with conventional petroleum resources. Osadetz et al. (2005) reported that the conventional resources are co-located with an immense gas hydrate resource estimated between 2.4 x 1012 and 87 x 1012 m3 of raw natural gas. Because the expected decline in conventional natural gas production from the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin cannot be replaced by conventional production from frontier regions alone, this immense hydrate resource offers a solution to replace the expected decline in conventional gas reserves. 

World oil resources, estimated, 18 606t World oil supplies, 24 256 World outside centrally planned economies (WOCA), 17 522... 

Resource estimates and current production The vast majority of the world s oil-sand deposits is located in Canada. Of the total in-place volume of around 1700 Gb of bitumen, only slightly less than 20% is assumed to be recoverable. The EUR of Canadian crude bitumen, i.e., reserves, resources and cumulative production as of the end of 2006, amounted to around 316 Gb. Taking the remaining reserves of around 174 Gb into account, Canada ranks second following Saudi Arabia in global oil reserves (see Table 3.3). However, the practice of including oil sands in official... 

Resource estimates and current production According to the USGS, total resources of extra-heavy oil in place worldwide are estimated at around 1350 Gb, of which about 90% are located in the Orinoco Belt in Venezuela. It is estimated that between 240 and 270 Gb of the Venezuelan resources in place are ultimately recoverable. The synthetic crude produced from heavy oil is considered to be refined oil and is, therefore, not subject to OPEC quotas, unlike Venezuela s conventional oil production. 

In the following, the remaining potential of conventional natural gas will be addressed. As it is beyond the limits of this publication to investigate data discrepancies between different statistics in more detail, the estimates of the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR) will be used, as they are derived from an assessment of the most important primary sources, and also include resource estimates at country level. Nevertheless, the consequences of different estimates of the EUR of natural gas on the time window of the mid-depletion point will be analysed in Section 3.4.4. 

Resource estimates and current production Natural gas from coal is present wherever coal is found and, as coal is found in great quantities throughout the world (see Section 3.5), natural gas from coal may represent a large energy source. As for all types of unconventional gas, the published reserve and resource figures show great variations and are often based on estimations from incomplete data. In addition, as... 

Potential resource bases and the economic benefits of using the resource are being determined for unconventional natural gas sources. Numerous assessments have been performed by DOE, the gas industry, and other groups. The ranges of resource estimates from these assessments are summarized below. 

Using these approaches, it has been estimated that the resource burden at the transferring site could be reduced to between half and one quarter of standard resource estimates. Similarly, the resource burden at the receiving site is similarly reduced (Raska et al., 2010)... 

Cutting D. Anthony, E.G. 2005. Exploration summary and mineral resource estimate for the Angel Hill Gold Zone West Cedartree Gold Project. Houston Lake Mining, 495 p. 

Currently, Uracan Resources Limited owns claims to the Main Double S Zone, as well as two other mineralized zones (Middle Zone and TJ Zone) within the North Shore Property. These three zones combined contain a total inferred resource estimate of 154.9 million tonnes at an average grade of 0.012% UaOs and contain 18.48 million kilograms (40.73 million pounds) of uranium using a 0.009% cut off (Uracan website). These resources outcrop at surface, are open at depth and along strike. 

The objective of data validation and verification, along with strict QA/QC procedures, is to ensure the quality of data for reliable mineral resource estimates. 

Data collected, stored and validated is of no use unless it is stored in a meaningful way to ensure easy retrieval and presentation. Tournigan Energy Ltd. implemented these QA/QC procedures at an early stage on their projects, before stepping into detailed exploration and mineral resource estimates. 

Dunbar, P. El Rassi, D. 2008. A Technical Review of the Mount Pleasant Property, Including an Updated Mineral Resource Estimate on the Fire Tower Zone, Southwestern New Brunswick. 43-101 Report to Adex Mining Inc. by Watt, Griffis and McQuat Limited (available on SEDAR), 149p. 

Drilling results in the Blake Bahama Ridge have given promise for recovery of energy from hydrate reserves. Hydrate recovery results from ODP Leg 164 in the Blake Bahama Ridge seem to confirm the large resource estimation (Pauli et al., 1997, 2000 Lorenson and Collett, 2000). 

A second concern for the large estimates of methane in hydrate results from the Leg 164 drilling by Holbrook et al. (1996) who suggest downscaling the estimates in Table 7.1 by as much as a factor of three. However, even if such errors are real, the amount of gas in hydrates remains enormous. Ginsburg and Soloviev note that most resource estimates in Table 7.1 rely upon the equation g = 5x/ixkxZx , where Q = gas content (m3), S = hydrate area (m2), h = hydrate thickness (m), K = sediment porosity (%), Z = fractional pore filling, and E = gas expansion (164 vol. gas/vol. hydrate). 

The most detailed method of U.S. hydrate resource estimation has been by Collett (1995, 1996). He assigned probabilities to 12 different factors to estimate the hydrate resources within the United States at 9 x 1015 m3 of gas. Collett (1995) notes the high degree of uncertainty places the above mean value between the 95% probability level (3x 1015 m3) and the 5% probability level (19x 1015 m3). However, in the United States, the mean hydrate value indicates 300 times more hydrated gas than the gas in the total remaining recoverable conventional reserves. 

Country Reasonably assured resources Estimated additional resources ... 

F-2 Annual production scenarios for the mean resource estimate showing sharp and rounded peaks, 1900-2125,196... 

FIGURE F-2 Annual production scenarios for the mean resource estimate showing sharp and rounded peaks, 1900-2125. Growth rate leading to either peak is 2 percent. Sharp peak occurs in 2037 followed by decline at reserve to production ratio of 10. Rounded peak occurs in 2030 followed by decline at 5 percent. U.S. volumes were added to the USGS (2000) foreign volumes estimate to obtain a world total of 3,000 billion barrels (mean value) of ultimately recoverable resources. SOURCE EIA (2000). 

---