At the Diggers & Dealers Mining Forum 2026 in Kalgoorlie, uranium returned to the heart of Australia’s mining debate — not with vague promises, but with hard numbers and actionable plans. DevEx Resources used the conference stage to announce a strategic pivot already well underway: the company has fully repositioned itself around uranium exploration and development in the Northern Territory, with the stated goal of becoming a producer of 10 million pounds per year across two or three assets.
Managing director Marnie Finlayson, who spent 17 years at Rio Tinto before taking the helm at DevEx, laid out the rationale clearly. Global electricity demand is growing at a pace that renewables alone struggle to match. The figure she cited is telling: by 2030, artificial intelligence alone will require 945 terawatt-hours of energy — equivalent to Japan’s entire annual consumption. In DevEx’s view, nuclear power is the most direct answer to this pressure, serving as a “green baseload power solution.” The company had completed its strategic realignment in February 2025 and arrived at Kalgoorlie with A$27 million in cash and three drill targets either active or about to get underway in the Northern Territory.
The choice of location is no coincidence. The Northern Territory is home to the Alligator Rivers Uranium Province, one of the world’s most uranium-rich regions, with a geology that management explicitly compares to Canada’s Athabasca Basin — the province behind some of the planet’s most significant high-grade mines. DevEx holds more than 14,000 square kilometres of prospective ground in the area. Its flagship project, Nabarlek, sits on the site of Australia’s historically highest-grade uranium mine, which produced 24 million pounds at 1.84% U₃O₈. Drilling campaigns in 2023 and 2024 have already intersected high-grade mineralisation, with planning for the next phase now underway.
DevEx’s strategy rests on three pillars: direct exploration in the Northern Territory, acquisition of advanced uranium assets, and partnership agreements with Indigenous communities and local authorities. This is no improvised approach. The company is advancing the Murphy West project through a joint venture with Barkly Rare Earths, with the right to earn up to 75% of uranium rights by spending A$3.5 million over five years. Surface sampling has already identified kilometre-scale multi-element anomalies.
All of this is unfolding against the backdrop of an Australia that is rethinking its long-standing political resistance to nuclear energy. At Diggers & Dealers 2026, uranium was more than an exploration story — it was the intersection of the global energy transition and the natural resources of a country that has them in abundance. If demand for nuclear power continues its upward trajectory — and all signs point that way — the Northern Territory could emerge as one of the world’s most significant uranium supply basins over the coming decade.
