The program is designed to in-fill areas of wide spaced drilling within the Marenica resource area, reducing the average spacing to no less than 120m by 60m. It is anticipated that this will improve the resource category of a large portion of the known resource (Inferred Resource of 111Mt grading 140ppm eU3O8 for 17,000 tonnes or 34Mlb of contained U3O8).
As previously reported, the down-hole geophysical probe is continuing to provide data from about 750 historical drill holes, the results of which were not included in the current resource estimate. The company’s consultants, Terratec Geophysical Services, are now operating on a double-shift basis to ensure that all down-hole logging of the historical drill holes is completed prior to a new resource calculation.
Recent significant results from this probe work are highlighted below:
7.4m at 172ppm eU3O8 from 1.63m in M0379;
5.4m at 264ppm eU3O8 from 8.36m in M0383;
10.8m at 308ppm eU3O8 from 0.37m in M0587;
12.2m at 523ppm eU3O8 from 0.47m in M0591;
11.1m at 1207ppm eU3O8 from 0.92m in M0602;
8.8m at 655ppm eU3O8 from 0.79m in M1041;
7.1m at 146ppm eU3O8 from 4.26m in M1903;
6.1m at 176ppm eU3O8 from 0.80m in SP2451A;
1.8m at 791ppm eU3O8 from 7.51m in SP2494;
5.6m at 272ppm eU3O8 from 2.96m in SP2534;
11m at 390ppm eU3O8 from 0.79m in SP2544;
14.6m at 493ppm eU3O8 from 4.13m in SP2545;
10.1m at 187ppm eU3O8 from 1.63m in SP2547;
6.6m at 186ppm eU3O8 from 1.72m in SP2558 and
5.8m at 174ppm eU3O8 from 6.14m in SP25656.
A total of 5,000 metres of exploration RC drilling is also planned at the exciting Phillipus and Springbok hydrothermally altered granite prospects. Drilling clearances have been received, with areas of low anthropological or archaeological significance located well away from the proposed work. Drilling is scheduled to start in early September 2009.
The establishment of the company’s operational office in Swakopmund continues, with a local Namibian, I Abraham, appointed to the position of Project Geologist – Marenica Project.
Abraham recently completed an MSc at Rio Tinto’s Rossing Uranium Operations and will be valuable addition to the company’s exploration team. On completion of the re-probing and in-fill RC drilling program, the Marenica resource will be re-calculated by SRK Consulting, with the aim of converting a large part of the existing resource to the Indicated category.
