Peninsula releases maiden Karoo Mineral Resource

THE DRILL SERGEANT: Peninsula Energy (ASX: PEN) has announced an initial JORC Code-compliant Mineral Resource estimate of 50.1 million pounds uranium at the company’s Karoo projects located in the Cape Provinces of South Africa.

The estimate includes an indicated resource of 15.7 million pounds grading 1,020 parts per million uranium, above a cut off of 600ppm uranium.
 
Peninsula explained the estimate has been based on a historical database comprising 7,163 holes and an additional 1,245 holes the company has either probed or drilled since 2011, including 16 diamond holes and 730 reverse circulation holes.

“The Board is excited about the Karoo projects maiden resource and drilling is now underway to convert some of the other areas of historic mineralisation to JORC status,” Peninsula Energy executive chairman Gus Simpson said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

“A scoping study has commenced and the company intends to quickly progress the projects to feasibility.”

 

Karoo projects location map. Source: Company announcement

 

Previous exploration conducted by Esso Minerals Africa, JCI and Union Carbide at the Karoo projects in the 1970s included 1.6 million metres of drilling together with trial open-cut and trial decline mining programs.

Based on the results of these programs, the previous explorers estimated approximately 99 million pounds uranium and 61 million pounds molybdenum.

Peninsula has focussed on bringing approximately half of this total, for which drilling data is available, to a standard suitable for reporting under JORC Code 2012 guidelines.

The remainder, comprising up to 48 million pounds uranium in historical estimates, for which drilling data is not available, will be targeted in on-going exploration with the objective of converting as much as possible to JORC Code-compliant resources.