ASX-listed uranium explorer Okapi Resources has upped the ante at its North American exploration play after closing an agreement with Canada’s ALX Resources to secure a portfolio of six advanced exploration projects in the Athabasca Basin. Collectively, the projects house 75 granted mineral claims across 55,000 hectares in what the company says is the world’s premier uranium district.
Okapi plans to initially probe its Middle Lake and Newnham Lake projects given what it says is their superior exploration potential. The company has already lodged a permit to commence drilling of Middle Lake and it is now gearing up to submit a drill permit for the Newnham Lake project.
Whilst awaiting the regulatory ticks of approval, Okapi will undertake a comprehensive collation, evaluation and reinterpretation of historic exploration data to feed into a series of updated geological models ahead of generating drill targets across the six projects.
Management says it will also look to apply cutting-edge image interpretation and modelling technologies to remotely sniff out the region’s hidden treasures, namely its economic uranium mineralisation in both the Athabasca group sediments and Precambrian basement rocks below an unconformity. Okapi will also use a variety of conventional surface-based exploration processes to pinpoint near surface uranium, thorium and other pathfinder elements.
Okapi Resources Managing Director, Andrew Ferrier said:“Closing this transaction is directly on strategy for Okapi as we continue to look to acquire assets under the right circumstances and to provide shareholders with diversified exposure to the Uranium space in North America. We continue to believe that Uranium is currently in an upward trend and Okapi is currently assembling and developing the right portfolio of assets to create value for shareholders.”
The Athabasca Basin lays claim to some of the world’s largest and highest-grade uranium mines, including Cameco's McArthur River and Cigar Lake mines that boast reserves of 391.9 million pounds at 6.89 per cent triuranium octoxide and 165.6 million pounds going 15.9 per cent triuranium octoxide respectively. In recent years, a string of other world-class discoveries has been made in the area, including the Triple R, Arrow and Hurricane discoveries.
Okapi Resources has been steadily amassing an arsenal of high-grade uranium plays in North America, with its latest acquisitions adding weight to a portfolio that already includes its Tallahassee project in Colorado and its Rattler uranium project in Utah.
Not too long ago the company defined an exploration strategy for the Tallahassee project that will see it plunge close to 10,000 metres of drilling into the project to beef up its existing resource base.
Governments around the world are pondering how to decarbonise their economies, for many that includes a debate about what role nuclear energy might play in the solution. The Biden administration has been more bullish than most about the role nuclear power has to play, enshrining it in the government’s $1 trillion infrastructure package. With this in mind the Athabasca basin may be on track to form an integral part of North America’s nuclear energy rebirth and Okapi’s newly secured ground could potentially see it make its way front and centre in the wave of new energy players that are now starting to gather pace.
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