Alligator Energy Ltd. has successfully extracted uranium from its first well test pattern at the Samphire uranium project in South Australia.
The field recovery trial (FRT) has yielded outstanding results that comfortably match or exceed the company’s initial scoping study assumptions, significantly de-risking the project’s economic outlook.
The trial, which utilises In-Situ Recovery (ISR) technology, hit Alligator’s target of 70 per cent uranium recovery over 70 pore volume exchanges.
Driven by highly favourable ground permeability, the extractor well delivered flow rates exceeding five litres per second during pump testing. This vastly outperforms typical global ISR operations, which generally sit between 0.5 and three litres per second.
Furthermore, the average uranium grade in solution reached 115 parts per million (ppm) uranium oxide, placing Samphire at the upper end of global ISR mining benchmarks of 70–120 ppm.
Alligator Energy CEO Andrea Marsland-Smith said: “Achieving our target of 70 per cent recovery in the time we had allocated is testament to the credible science behind our assumptions and the team’s operating experience.
“With our next well test commencing soon, it is important to build increasing confidence in our models that inform planning the next phase of development at Samphire and for the company.”
A major technical hurdle for the project was groundwater chemistry, but the trial successfully demonstrated that Alligator’s chloride mitigation strategy works. The ion exchange and elution processes proved highly efficient using a simple reagent mix.
Additionally, wellfield sulphuric acid consumption sat at a highly favourable 20 kilograms per tonne of ore, indicating minimal chemical loss.
The data gathered from this first pattern will feed directly into the project’s bankable feasibility study (BFS), influencing future plant design and well spacing.
Alligator plans to commence a second well pattern, deliberately targeting a lower-grade, less permeable zone at the deposit’s margins. Results from this tougher second phase are expected in the third quarter of 2026.
