The Cree East project is funded under a joint venture with the company’s Korean partners comprising Hanwha Corporation, Korea Electric Power, Korea Resources Corp and SK Energy.
The company recently received CAD$4.12m in funding from the Korean consortium to support 2010 exploration. The consortium presently holds a 40.6% ownership interest in the partnership, having contributed a total of CAD$12.6m in investment funding.
The 2010 uranium exploration programme at Cree East is currently budgeted at $5.8m, testing 5 targets with approximately 32 drill holes across a prolonged 2010 Winter-Summer drill campaign. The company has said that a drill contract has been signed with DJ Drilling for a planned 6,800 metre winter drill programme, and a further 6,800 metre programme in summer 2010.
The first stage of this drill programme has now commenced. Previous geophysical modelling and initial drill tests have outlined four zones (zones A-D) of uranium mineralization and hydrothermally-altered rocks associated with basement offsets along a 4km mineralizing trend.
Drill-hole spacing in the target areas from previous drilling in 2008 and early 2009 is from between 100 to 200 metres. Most of the 2010 targets are located between existing holes, or are short step-outs from existing holes. The new drilling will attempt to cross-cut the fault and alteration modelled by the existing holes, geology and geophysics.
Additional targets on the Cree East project have been defined following airborne and ground geophysical work over summer 2009. At zones G, H and I, there appear to be further areas of hydrothermal alteration. Correlation of the current surveys with anomalous uranium and alteration in six historical holes dating from 1981 (two fences of three holes at zone G), shows the potential for additional structurally-controlled uranium mineralization in the basement, and possible enrichment at the unconformity, CanAlaska said.
