Valor Resources is set to kick off its hunt for uranium in Canada’s world-renowned Athabasca Basin using an airborne electromagnetic survey – a proven technique in identifying nearby deposits of the silvery-grey metal.
The company is expecting results from the survey at the Cluff Lake project to be returned in the second half of this year and they will guide a drilling program planned to begin in the September quarter.
Management today revealed it had signed a contract with Expert Geophysics to undertake the survey, which will use Mobile MagnetoTelluric (MobileMT) technology to firm-up the drilling targets buried beneath cover and blind from surface.
The company says the MobileMT technology has the ability to successfully map the full depth of the Athabasca Basin rocks and can identify blind mineralisation and alteration zones from surface to a depth of about 2km.
Valor Resources executive chairman George Bauk said: “Given the proven success of MobileMT surveys in identifying uranium deposits in this part of the Athabasca Basin, we are very excited to soon have a major survey underway across our tenements. Valor has already identified a number of high-quality exploration targets within our tenement holding at Cluff Lake, with this new survey data to help rank and prioritise prospects for near-term drilling.”
Importantly, MoblieMT has been proven to successfully detect deep conductive horizons and resistivity anomalies associated with blind unconformity-related uranium deposits nearby – namely at United States-listed Orano and Uranium Energy Corporation’s Shea Creek deposits 5km to the south-west.
Shea Creek is one of the Athabasca Basin’s biggest undeveloped uranium resources and boasts 2 million tonnes grading 1.5 per cent for 67.57 million pounds of uranium oxide in the indicated category.
In 2018, a line of MobileMT electromagnetic test data was acquired over Shea Creek and detected the graphitic fault conductor within the basement rocks below 1000m of sandstone cover. Significantly, the system also detected the resistivity variations in the highly-resistive sandstone cover directly over the deposit.
Shae Creek is an advanced uranium project with a total of four unconformity-associated uranium deposits occurring between 710m and 740m below the current surface and beneath the thick sequence of Athabasca Group sandstones. Valor says Shea Creek may exhibit similar geology to its ground at Cluff Lake.
The Cluff Lake operation is comprised of 19 contiguous claims covering an area of about 622 square kilometres. The historic Cluff Lake mine sits 7km to the west of the project area and pumped out 62 million pounds of uranium oxide at an average grade of 0.92 per cent.
Valor says it already has several targets in its sights at Cluff Lake, with historic airborne gravity data and soil sampling already hinting at areas begging to see the drill bit.
Canada’s Athabasca Basin is well known as the world's leading source of high-grade uranium and currently supplies about 20 per cent of global demand. After uranium was discovered in the Basin in the 1940s, mines began exploiting the deposits from the mid-70s and the historic Lake Cluff mine is only one of a cluster of mines in the region.
The Athabasca Basin is home to two of the world’s biggest and highest-grade uranium mines, including Cameco’s McArthur River and Cigar Lake uranium mines that contain respective total mineral reserves of 165.6 million pounds grading a whopping 15.9 per cent uranium oxide and 391.9 million pounds at 6.9 per cent.
Valor says Cluff Lake’s drilling permit approval has been extended until August next year, leaving plenty of time to get the drill bits spinning. So, watch this space for results of the survey and the news flow coming out of the drilling campaign.
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By Andrew Duffy
