Resource Star has applied for a new license in Malawi for uranium exploration under the adjacent Livingstonia uranium project exploration joint venture with Globe Metals and Mining (Globe).
According to the company, the area shows encouraging indications of the potential for sandstone-hosted uranium mineralization. Once the license is granted, it will be explored in conjunction with the Livingstonia project where a resource estimate and drilling are planned for 2010. The South Rukuru area is expected to provide a cost-effective complement to Resource Star’s existing project portfolio.
Globe and Resource Star have signed an exploration joint venture over the Livingstonia uranium project; adjacent to that is the South Rukuru area, which earlier exploration indicates has similar geology and encouraging initial exploration results. The area was brought to the JV operating committee by Globe under the agreement that provides for all nearby lease applications to be offered into the JV.
If granted, this tenement will be incorporated into the JV with no change to the expenditure terms, so Resource Star will sole fund exploration, up to the completion of a feasibility study, and in doing so earn staged equity through the achievement of defined exploration and assessment hurdles. Work will be directed by the operating committee, of which Globe will be a member, and assistance will be provided to Resource Star by Globe’s in-country team where possible.
South Rukuru River shows strong indications of sandstone-hosted uranium mineralization as seen at the adjacent Livingstonia project. The geological setting of these areas is similar to Paladin’s recently-opened Kayelekera uranium mine, less than 100km to the north.
The host to the South Rukuru River area is directly adjacent to the southeast of the Livingstonia tenement, and consists of a gently-plunging, fault-bound synformal sub-basin of terrestrial sedimentary rocks, similar to that hosting Kayelekera. The South Rukuru river area was historically targeted on the basis of prospective geology and a gap in the airborne radiometrics carried out in the 1980s.
While not finding anything of significance in the gap, a recent, more detailed airborne radiometric survey highlighted a discrete uranium-channel anomaly on the flank of a small synformal basin of terrestrial Permian-Triassic sedimentary rocks, the company said.
Uranium results from soil sampling over the discrete uranium channel anomaly have confirmed the prospectivity of the feature. The soil results show good correlation to the airborne radiometrics, with a peak more than four times the background. A sandstone outcrop was located in the area of the radiometrics anomaly, and one sample returned a grade of 193ppm U3O8.
A permeable sandstone unit, here with indications of mineralisation, sealed by an impermeable cap of the mudstone, as reported for the area in government mapping, is consistent with sandstone-hosted uranium deposits seen elsewhere in Africa, such as the nearby Kayelekera mine and around the globe.