Perth-based gold, nickel and uranium explorer, Impact Minerals has been granted exploration licences covering about 20,000 sq km in eastern Botswana, specifically for the exploration of uranium.
Perth-based gold, nickel and uranium explorer, Impact Minerals has been granted exploration licences covering about 20,000 sq km in eastern Botswana, specifically for the exploration of uranium.
The expansion of Impact's exploration programme into Botswana is a major strategic addition to its existing projects in Queensland and Western Australia, where Impact currently owns about 40% of the inferred resource of uranium oxide within the Nowthanna uranium deposit.
The full announcement is pasted below:
ASX-listed Impact Minerals Ltd has secured its first overseas expansion in the uranium sector with the granting of a significant exploration licence footprint covering 20,000 sq km in eastern Botswana in the African continent.
The Company's maiden and strategic international foray adds to Perth-based Impact's existing uranium exploration interests in Western Australia and Queensland, which in themselves form part of a broader commodities portfolio comprising nickel and gold assets in Australia.
The Botswana licences will allow Impact to specifically explore for deposits of uranium in an area in Botswana adjacent to known near-surface deposits of uranium mineralisation.
First work will commence as early as next month, with the Australian explorer also announcing today it is already in discussion with other parties with a view to joint uranium exploration in Botswana.
The Botswana licences cover about 350 km of the strike extensions of rocks that host deposits and prospects near the town of Serule.
They include licences adjacent to the Mokobaesi deposit reported by ACAP Resources Ltd to contain about 30 million lbs of U3O8 and the Foley Prospect, a recent discovery reported by African Energy Ltd.
Impact's licences are variably prospective for three types of uranium deposits:
- Deposits such as Mokabaesi which are hosted by Karoo sedimentary rocks and which host uranium deposits in many places in southern Africa;
- Uranium hosted by calcrete in palaeochannels, a style of mineralisation well known in Australia and Namibia. In Botswana, the palaeochannels form part of the Kalahari Group sediments that are extensive within the Impact licences; and
- Impact's licences cover significant areas of salt lakes which, in Australia, are known to host uranium deposits, including the Nowthanna deposit (Western Australia) that is 40% owned by Impact. In Botswana, ACAP has the Sua Pan salt lake prospect adjacent to Impact's licences.
Impact's managing director, Dr Mike Jones, said preliminary interpretation of available airborne radiometric data over Impact's Botswana licences had indicated there were a large number of radiometric anomalies requiring immediate follow up.
"As a result, ground prospecting activities and field work is expected to commence in May under a modest statutory expenditure required in the first year," Dr Jones said.
He said Impact's expansion overseas for the first time into Botswana is a major strategic addition to Impact's existing projects in Queensland and Western Australia (WA).
In WA, Impact currently owns about 40% of the Inferred Resource of uranium oxide within the Nowthanna uranium deposit.