Frontier Nuclear Inks Royalty Deal for Colorado Mine Waste Recovery

Frontier Nuclear and Minerals (NASDAQ:FNUC) has signed an agreement with DISA Technologies to extract uranium and critical minerals from historical waste dumps at the Maybell uranium project in Colorado.

Under the terms of the transaction, DISA will fully fund and operate the remediation program. Frontier will incur zero capital or operating expenditures while retaining a sliding-scale net revenue royalty of 2.5 to 4 percent.

Located in Moffat County, the Maybell site covers 9,497 acres comprising 480 federal mining claims and one state exploration lease.

Historical operations at the property previously yielded 5.3 million pounds of U3O8. Ground surveys have identified 17 separate prospective waste dumps on the property to date.

DISA will deploy its modular High-Pressure Slurry Ablation (HPSA) system across the site. The chemical-free process utilizes high-velocity slurry collisions to separate target minerals from aggregated waste material.

According to an independent treatability study conducted by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the HPSA technology reduces uranium concentrations in treated material by 61 to 94 percent, with comparable reductions in radium-226.

The EPA found the process concentrates over 90 percent of the uranium into just 17 percent of the total processed mass. This leaves the remaining bulk material clean enough to stay on site, significantly reducing regulated disposal volumes.

"We are pleased to have partnered with DISA to apply its breakthrough process to remediate abandoned uranium mine waste at our Maybell Project, and to recover valuable uranium and critical minerals, while addressing the environmental impacts of historical uranium mining," Frontier CEO Frank Wheatley said in the announcement.

"With uranium demand at multi-decade highs and the US Government actively prioritizing domestic critical mineral recovery, the timing could not be better to unlock the value contained in our Maybell project's legacy waste dumps," Wheatley added.

DISA will launch a six-month characterization program using assay and gamma probes to quantify recoverable minerals before applying for necessary operational permits.

In September 2025, DISA became the first company to receive a Service Providers License from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), providing a clear regulatory pathway for legacy waste remediation.

The federal government is actively supporting these initiatives under Secretarial Order No. 3436, which mandates federal agencies to prioritize domestic mineral recovery from existing mine waste.

Recent directives from the US Administration aim to quadruple domestic nuclear capacity by 2050, a target projected to push national uranium demand from 47 million pounds to approximately 190 million pounds annually.

The Colorado agreement advances parallel to Frontier’s international exploration portfolio. The company is currently finalizing a maiden mineral resource estimate for its Engo Valley uranium project in Namibia, a premier global mining jurisdiction, with completion targeted for the middle of the third quarter of 2026.

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Securities Disclosure: I, Giann Liguid, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.