ASX-listed Valor Resources has completed its second anniversary payment as part of a farm-in agreement in western Canada, where it is aiming to take an 80 per cent stake in the Hook Lake uranium project.
Valor’s expenditure has reached C$3.5 million (AU$3.9 million) over a three-year period as required by its deal with Skyharbour Resources and will now issue its partner 30 million shares and make a C$50,000 (AU$55,000) cash payment to complete its second earn-in milestone.
The exploration expenditure was met via a drill campaign and an airborne gravity survey, both conducted last year. A final payment of C$175,000 (AU$175,000), to be paid by February next year, is the last thing standing in the way of Valor and an 80 per cent share in the Hook Lake project.
Valor executive chairman George Bauk said: “This part of the Athabasca Basin continues to be a focus of significant uranium exploration activity, particularly since the recent discoveries by 92 Energy and Baselode Energy at Gemini and ACKIO, located just 30km to the north of Hook Lake. Work has been completed in 2022 to review all of the newly-acquired exploration data resulting in confirmation of a number of priority targets that will continue to be worked up to drill target status.”
The Hook Lake project is 60km east of Cameco’s Key Lake uranium mine in the northern part of the Canadian province, Saskatchewan. The project covers 258 square kilometres and its 16 contiguous mineral claims host several prospective areas of uranium mineralisation.
Valor also has a 100 per cent equity interest in the Cluff Lake uranium project, which contains 19 contiguous mineral claims covering 575 sq km.
Finally, the company’s Canadian uranium interests are wrapped up with six additional projects within the Athabasca Basin, with 100 per cent equity interest in 17 mineral claims covering 163 sq km at the Hidden Bay, Surprise Creek, Pendleton Lake, MacPherson Lake, Smitty and Lorado projects.
The Athabasca basin hosts Cameco’s Cigar Lake underground mine that boasts a serious average grade of 15 per cent uranium and produces about 4600 tonnes per annum.
The United States’ Department of Energy projects its market alone will need more than 40 metric tonnes of high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) for the new generation of reactors by the end of the decade and with Russia under international embargoes, much of that will need to come from an alternative source.
Nine out of the10 advanced reactor designs recently selected for funding under the US Government’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program will require advanced fuel, such as HALEU and TRIstructural-ISOtropic particles. But there are no commercial suppliers of such fuels currently operating in the US.
So having a neighbour with such an appetite bodes well for the development of Valor’s uranium assets, which sit in a prime postcode.
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