Energy Ventures acquires US uranium project
THE BOURSE WHISPERER: ASX-listed uranium hopeful Energy Ventures has acquired the Coyote Basin uranium project located in northwest Colorado by the assignment of an existing State of Colorado Uranium Mining Lease from VANE Minerals.
The Coyote Basin project area is located close to Energy Ventures’ other projects at
Maybell and Skull Creek and has been subject to historical exploration.
The new project give Energy Venture’s portfolio a decent boost as it currently comprises a single State of Colorado Uranium Mining Lease and 522 federal lode claims located in Moffat and Rio Blanco counties in northwest Colorado.
The project is close to infrastructure and is located approximately 35 kilometres to the northwest of the town of Meeker; and some 40 km to the southwest of the Maybell uranium project.
According to an Energy Ventures announcement the Coyote Basin project area covers a thick, folded sequence of sedimentary rocks dominated by sandstone, with interbedded finer-grained rocks and conglomerates.
“Previous exploration indicates that uranium mineralisation exposed at surface is associated with both altered sandstones and carbonaceous shales of the lower Wasatch Formation, and with carbonaceous shales and lignitic units within the Fort Union Formation,” the company said.
“Widely-spaced exploration drilling completed in the late 1970’s is reported to have intersected shallow uranium and associated vanadium mineralisation hosted by lignitic units.”
The company went on to say that it has obtained summary reports of this work and is currently attempting to verify the historical drilling data. More recent exploration information, generated by VANE has also been obtained for the area.
Energy Ventures is currently compiling historical information for the Coyote Basin project in order to plan further exploration and evaluate the resource potential of the project area.
“Subject to obtaining statutory access permits, the company plans to undertake a surface exploration and drilling program to confirm the presence of high grade mineralisation and to obtain samples for bench-scale metallurgical testing,” the company contiunued.
“If the results of this work are encouraging then additional drilling to confirm the historical resources will be undertaken.”
Energy Ventures, through its wholly owned US subsidiary Oregon Energy LLC, now owns five uranium exploration and development projects located in the western USA, all of which have been subject to significant historical exploration and have historical resources.
The most advanced of these projects is the Aurora uranium deposit located in southeast Oregon which has a total resource base of 38 million pound uranium equivalent comprising an Indicated Resource of 36.7 Mlb uranium equivalent at a grade of 253 parts per million uranium equivalent, and an Inferred Resource of 1.2 Mlb uranium equivalent at a grade of 151 ppm uranium equivalent (grade cut-off 100 ppm equivalent uranium).
Energy Ventures is also currently advancing feasibility studies for the Aurora project, exploring other project areas and actively evaluating other uranium opportunities in the western USA.