Okapi to drill Canadian uranium ground after lodging permits

Okapi Resources could soon fire up the diamond drill rig and launch a 40-hole, 5000m program at its Newnham Lake and Perch uranium projects in Canada after lodging applications with the Government of Saskatchewan. The looming probe follows a recent exploration drive that unveiled a bevy of compelling targets prospective for basement-hosted mineralisation.

The field program included mapping, sampling, lithological testing and analysis and followed a comprehensive review of satellite imagery that highlighted several appealing areas begging for a closer look.

Okapi has its foot on an extensive land package in its larger Athabasca Basin tenements including about half a dozen project zones covering over 55,000 hectares.

Notably, management says five of the projects are near an unconformity that may extend to a depth of about 100m, making them excellent targets for shallow high-grade unconformity-related uranium mineralisation.

The Newnham Lake and Perch projects sit along the north-eastern border of the Athabasca Basin and Okapi says the assets boast several traits, including strong historical results which support its belief tier-1 uranium mineralisation could be on offer.

Legacy drilling at Newnham Lake returned a suite of solid intercepts grading between 1000 to 2000 parts per million triuranium octoxide in very shallow probes across a 25km conductive trend.

In 2018 another hole plunged at Newham Lake delivered a 7.2m intercept going 310 ppm triuranium octoxide including a richer 0.5m inclusion at 1274ppm.

Okapi points out the 2018 hole was aimed at following up on historic results and requires additional drilling to vector in on the source of the uranium mineralisation.

Historical work at Perch has also proved illuminating with a legacy program unveiling a potentially 4km long conductive trend at the project

Two holes were subsequently punched into the trend with one returning a package of uranium mineralisation running up to 498ppm. Interestingly, the bore also yielded anomalous concentrations of copper, nickel and zinc - pathfinder elements for uranium.

Okapi Resources Managing Director, Andrew Ferrier said:“Okapi continues to make great progress advancing its Newnham Lake and Perch Projects in the Athabasca Basin since we acquired the Projects earlier in the year. We are very excited about planning our inaugural drill program in the Athabasca where we plan2 to apply modern exploration approach to historical data and in upcoming drill programs.”

Outside of its Canadian Uranium assets Okapi also has a number of promising energy plays by the scruff of the neck in North America including its Tallahassee and Maybell projects in Colorado and the Rattler operation in Utah.

Rattler, one of the company's most esteemed assets, includes the historical namesake mine that historically produced 1.6 million pounds of triuranium octoxide with a grade of 2800 ppm.

 A bullish outlook is growing around uranium with investment banking group Goldman Sachs’ global head of commodity research Jeff Currie recently stating: “The realisation around the world is that if you really want to solve climate change and decarbonise, you need to do this with nuclear power and you need to do it with microgenerators”.

With a number of nations looking to secure their own supply it will be interesting to watch if the price of uranium starts to reflect the increase in interest.

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au