The Athabasca Basin in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan has long been known as home to the world’s highest-grade uranium deposits. The average grades of deposits are an incredible 100 times higher than the average grade of uranium production elsewhere in the world.
The 100,000km2 area has been picked over for more than 50 years, however innovative techniques and updated geological models have led to massive new discoveries and sensational investment opportunities.
IsoEnergy’s (ISO.V) share price was $0.27c when they first discovered the Hurricane Zone in 2018. By the time of their maiden resource of 43.89 million pounds at 52.1% U3O8 in 2022 (or 48.61 million pounds at 34.5% including the “low grade” around it), the share price had increased roughly 20-fold.
Last week, NexGen (TSX:NXG, NYSE:NXG, ASX:NXE) announced an absolute humdinger from their new exploration program. Assays are pending but in the interim you can get an idea of what to expect with a scintillometer. That recorded a ‘scintillating’ peak value of >61,000 cps, which is very likely to translate to spectacular grades.
NexGen has done all this before of course, given they announced the results of their discovery hole at the legendary Arrow deposit almost ten years ago to the day. Drilling at Arrow ultimately defined 174 million pounds of uranium at 15.9% (or 256 million pounds at 3.1% with surrounding zones).
Drilling out Arrow ultimately propelled the NexGen share price 30 times higher, and with a market cap of $6 billion today the company is among the largest uranium stocks globally.
Last month, CanAlaska (TSXV:CVV) had a monster hit, announcing 16.8 Metres of 13.75% at the Pike Zone on the West McArthur Joint Venture, which looks likely to be the start of something significant too.
It is these kinds of company-making, new exploration successes explorers are hunting for in the Athabasca today, and new technology or geological theories are creating fresh opportunities. Here are three ASX-listed uranium explorers trying new things in the Basin.
Terra uranium (ASX:T92) listed 18 months ago with three good projects on the Cable Bay Shear Zone, which is a relatively underexplored structure close to the biggest deposits in the Athabasca, Cigar Lake and McArthur River. Terra got started right after listing, running an extensive series of geophysical and geochemical surveys which quickly identified as many as 18 drill-ready targets.
Among these was the pioneering and successful use of something called Ambient Noise Tomography (ANT), something that other players in the Basin are now deploying.
The company prioritised its Parker Lake Project for the first diamond drill hole. While it didn’t jag the next Arrow on the first try, it did prove that uranium is in the system, adding further weigh to the geological model. Drilling these projects is costly, and with so many targets, the plan is to now collaborate with a bigger player so they can drill them extensively.
Much of Terra’s team are on the ground full-time in the Athabasca and seem highly adept at identifying and landing quality new projects at low cost.
In the last few months, they have quickly added another three projects to the portfolio, on top of the original 3. Terra has covered a great deal of ground in just 18 months, and the newsflow seems to just keep coming.
Recharge Metals (ASX:REC) and Mamba Exploration (ASX:M24) are two recent ASX-listed entrants to the Basin for the watchlist.
Recharge has just this week announced the completion of the acquisition of Newnham Lake Uranium Project. It’s worth noting too that the project came to Recharge via Jody Dahrouge of Patriot Battery Metals fame, and who owns 16% of Recharge’s register.
Historical drilling at Newnham was shallow, and the deeper basement-hosted mineralisation was overlooked. However, more recent deeper drilling around the basement looks more positive and is backed up by a geophysical survey that shows a very large system. The project sat with its previous owners for some years, and none of this was followed up until now. With the transaction being accompanied by a capital raise, Recharge is ready to get started, kicking off with ground geophysics once all historical data has been evaluated.
Mamba Exploration (M24) is another new ASX player in the Basin, having recently signed an agreement to acquire 75% of the Canary Uranium Project. Drilling will test EM anomalies identified in the northern most of 3 conductive trends on the project. Drilling will be fairly shallow and target the same geological structure that also hosts IsoEnergy’s Hurricane Zone which is just 11kms away.
Mamba is acquiring their share of the project from Standard Uranium, a TSX listed company, who is well established in the region, and will work as partners with Mamba. This brings a ‘boots on the ground’ exploration team, and a contract is already signed for 2,500m of drilling to start as soon as this May, so newsflow shouldn’t be too far away.
