Valor gets drill rods spinning in Canadian uranium hunt

Valor Resources has kicked off a 2,500 metre diamond drilling program at its Hook Lake uranium project in the world class uranium endowed Athabasca basin in Canada. Drilling is aimed at testing the extent of mineralisation after the company identified a surface anomalism that includes rock chips grading up to 59.2 per cent uranium.

Drilling will primarily target the “S Zone” where the previous surface sampling returned anomalous assays and several drillholes are also planned to target a geochemical and structural target known as the “V-Grid”.

The Hook Lake Uranium project is located 60 kilometres east of the
Key Lake Uranium Mine in northern Saskatchewan and sits about 700km north-east of Edmonton in Canada.

Valor holds a substantial 300 square kilometres of uranium-rich terrain on the south-eastern margin of the famed Athabasca Basin. Valor’s Canadian tenure hosts a polymetallic picnic with uranium mineralisation present in addition to silver, lead and high-grade rare-earth elements neodymium, praseodymium and dysprosium.

Recent surface rock chip sampling by Valor confirmed the historically identified uranium mineralisation at Hook Lake with four out of seven samples returning high-grade uranium assays.  Several samples also gave up the added kicker of rare earth mineralisation above 0.5 per cent total rare earth oxide, silver greater than a reasonable 50 grams per tonne and 1.8 per cent lead.

In addition to the recent anomalous rock chip sampling conducted by Valor in 2021, one historic grab sample taken by previous owner JNR resources yielded up to a cracking 68 per cent uranium.

The Athabasca basin houses a series of high-grade uranium mines including the Cluff Lake, Uranium City and Rabbit Lake operations in addition to Cameco’s Cigar Lake underground mine that boasts a serious average grade of 15 per cent uranium and produces approximately 4,600 tonnes of uranium per annum.

Valor Resources Executive Chairman, George Bauk said:

“Major economies are looking to nuclear energy as a low carbon solution as part of the overall global target to reduce global emissions. China has announced a US$440 billion program to build 150 new reactors, France and Britain intend to build more reactors and Japan is in the process of reopening its nuclear power plants. These activities will drive demand up and will have a positive impact on the future price of uranium”.

“We are focused on uranium exploration in the Athabasca Basin of Canada as it has the highest grade of produced uranium in the world, averaging over 2%. We have raised over A$5m recently through the Canadian flow through share scheme and funds are to be used for exploration activities in Canada.”

Uranium is on the up and up with more high gross domestic product countries like the US and China beginning to express a growing acceptance of nuclear as a sustainable power source. Other countries that have already adopted large scale nuclear power production as a sustainable source of electricity include France, Russia, South Korea and Canada.

Valor has the right address when it comes to uranium mineralisation and it is now up to the rotary truth diviner to come up with the goods and in an area like the Athabasca basin that is so well endowed with uranium, any positive drill hits in the upcoming campaign will have the market Meerkats sitting bolt upright.

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