Vane Minerals has received a confirmation about the levels of Uranium estimate present at the Wate breccia pipe project in Arizona. The project is within the Vane-Uranium One Exploration USA JV in which the company’s wholly-owned subsidiary, Vane Minerals US, holds a 50% interest.

Vane Minerals said that SRK Consulting US (SRK), as part of the work to update its NI 43-101 technical report on the Breccia Pipe Exploration Project, has determined an inferred resource of 695,000lbs of eU3O8 contained in 43,000 tons with an average grade of 0.80% eU3O8 at a cut off grade of 0.20% eU3O8.

The resource model was developed from data from six drill holes logged by Vane and from limited data from six historic holes completed by the previous lessee, Rocky Mountain Energy (RME).

The resource is contained in four zones of mineralization delineated in the portion of the pipe from 1200ft in vertical depth to 1520ft in depth, largely within and along the margins of a breccia pipe that has a diameter which varies from 110ft to 160ft.

Steve Van Nort, CEO of Vane said the full NI 43-101 Report, which is now near completion and according to NI43-101 rules will be released within the next 45 days. The next step in the process is to update the pre-feasibility study completed by Rocky Mountain Energy (1991) and the State of Arizona (1998) and to finalize the mineral lease agreement with the State of Arizona. This process is scheduled to take up to12 months.

Once the lease agreement is signed, development can begin which will include detailed drilling of the orebody from underground via a development shaft and the laying out of the mining operation.

Mr Nort added, “In conjunction with this development plan for the Wate orebody, work will continue to create a ‘pipeline of projects’ from other joint venture targets, specifically Tank 4-1/2, Miller and also projects added to the JV in the recent Neutron Energy property package acquisition.

“The breccia pipe district is estimated by the USGS to contain in excess of 2 billion pounds of U3O8 with a gross value of $90bn at $45/lb U3O8.”