AUSTRALIAN diversified explorer Cauldron Energy is celebrating a 300 per cent upgrade to the Bennet Well resource within the company’s WA-based Yanrey uranium project.
On completion of a 7146m drilling program, Ravensgate Resources – an independent consultant group – calculated an increased JORC-compliant resource of 15.7 million pounds at 270 parts per million uranium.
Studies have indicated grades above 250ppm eU3O8 would be economic for a likely in-situ leach-style mining operation at Yanrey. Cauldron head of operations Simons Youds said the resource upgrade had confirmed a substantial new high-grade uranium district at Yanrey.
“The majority of this large region, perspective for uranium deposits, is controlled by Cauldron,” he said.
“This, and the fact that the strike extensions of what we have defined have yet to be tested, points to a unique opportunity to add significant value… through additional exploration activities.” Cauldron identified two new inferred uranium resources – Bennet Well East and Bennet Well South – through drilling completed in 2012; both remain open. “Bennet Well South in particular is currently a small uranium resource, but the very northern drill line saw both an increase in grade and width, suggesting that a large resource extension could exist to the north of where drilling ended,” Mr Youds said.
Mr Youds added that the high grades in the Bennet Well region show similarities with producing ISR-type uranium mines, such as Heathgate Resources’ Beverley mine and Uranium One’s Honeymoon mine, both in South Australia.
Cauldron has 15 granted tenements covering 3200 square kilometres, as well as three tenement applications within the Yanrey project area; there are more than ten proven uranium prospects that have already been identified from historical drilling and recent drilling by the company. Furthermore, Cauldron has identified ten new exploration targets based on geophysical interpretation, geological interpretations and field reconnaissance, such as surface sampling. The company has planned drilling of these targets in 2013.
The company also expects an increase to the Yanrey uranium exploration target of 25-30mlb; a revised exploration target which would be released to the market in the second quarter of 2013.
