Brighton Energy, a subsidiary of Orezone Gold Corp, has made another uranium discovery in Niger.
The company has completed a 39-hole, 9,446m reconnaissance drilling program on its 491 square kilometer (sq km) Assaouas 1 exploration permit located 60 kms to the southwest of the city of Agadez.
The drilling program targeted a 40 sq km area north of the Arli Fault on a 1.6-km by 1.6-km pattern drilled to an average depth of 278m.
According to the company, 20 out of 24 vertical holes intersected anomalous uranium mineralization above a lower cut-off of eU3O8 = 100 ppm (0.01%), including 14 holes that intersected more than 200 ppm of eU3O8.
The best results are spatially associated with the north-northeast oriented In Assaouas lineament located to the west of the Assaouas dome, and with the east-northeast oriented Arli Fault to the south.
The best hole was AM10056, in the immediate vicinity of the In Assaouas lineament, where a cumulative thickness of 9.4m at a eU3O8 grade of 362 ppm was intersected between 196 and 255m, including a cumulative 5.1m at a eU3O8 grade of 534 ppm.
The hole is centered on the Assaouas dome, an antiformal structure located between the In Assaouas and the Arlit-in-Azaoua lineaments and traversed by the Arli Fault on the Assaouas 1 permit.
The other 15 holes targeted the area south of the Arli Fault and confirmed that this structural domain is not prospective.
Brighton is targeting roll front style uranium deposits in this area of Niger, which hosts Areva’s Somair (14,000 t U3O8 @ 0.3%), Cominak (29,000t U3O8 @0.4%) and Imouraren (120,000t U3O8 @ 0.15%) deposits.
Gold exploration and development firm Orezone holds a 67% stake in Brighton, with the remaining interest owned by private and institutional investors.