Aug 14 2019
UEX Corporation takes pleasure in announcing that the 2019 Phase II exploration program involving diamond drilling is in progress on the Christie Lake Project. The summer drilling program will involve up to 8,000 m of diamond drilling in about 12–15 holes using two drill rigs at an expenditure of $2.0 million.
Resistivity in the sandstone over the known deposits. (Image credit: UEX Corporation)
UEX finished the Phase I program this spring, which involved a property-wide DC resistivity reconnaissance at an expenditure of $750,000. The reconnaissance revealed different potential anomalies that have markedly increased the company’s list of targets that require drill testing.
The summer program will be centered on drill-testing targets in the top priority areas outside the footprint of the current deposits. In the area of highest priority along the B Trend, the previous operator intersected cobalt, uranium, and nickel mineralization in hole CB94-048 averaging 2.05% Co, 0.25% U3O8, and 2.32% Ni over 1.5 m inside a fault structure situated roughly 50 m below the unconformity.
The unconformity target up-dip of this hole is yet to be analyzed. In 2017, similar mineralization follow-up at the same depth below the unconformity helped UEX discover Ōrora Deposit, about 4 km to the east.
In Ōrora North, the second priority area, a huge and strong resistivity anomaly has been found in the lower sandstone column directed parallel to the C Conductor Trend nearly 175 m north of the Ōrora Deposit.
Drill analysis has never been carried out in this anomaly. Sandstone resistivity anomalies are often connected with the alteration that includes unconformity uranium deposits, including UEX’s Paul Bay, Ōrora, and Ken Pen Deposits.
In the Southwest C Extension, the third priority area, stretching an area of 100–600 m southwest along strike of the Paul Bay Deposit on the C Conductor Trend, partial drilling has been finished. Inside this area, hole CB96-083 intersected two narrow zones of uranium mineralization in a fault structure also situated about 50 m below the unconformity that has not yet been tested up-dip at the unconformity and down-dip into the basement.
JCU has informed UEX that it will not provide its share of expenditures for the 2019 Phase I and II programs and will receive a lower interest in the project. UEX confirmed that it would provide JCU’s share of all 2019 expenditures. Therefore, it is anticipated that UEX’s interest in the Christie Lake Project will increase to about 64.3% and JCU’s interest will reduce to about 35.7%.