CanAlaska Uranium (TSXV: CVV) Targets High Grade Uranium in their Extensive Uranium Rich Holdings in Mining-Friendly Athabasca Basin
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By Dr. Allen Alper, PhD Economic Geology and Petrology, Columbia University, NYC
on 3/7/2016
CanAlaska Uranium (TSXV: CVV) is currently working on additional exploration of their holdings in the Athabasca Basin, which is known for its vast uranium assets. CanAlaska has identified large unconformity targets while also finding surface showings of high grade uranium in the eastern side of their holdings. CanAlaska has partnerships with major international companies and a strong successful management team. Their extensive uranium holdings present a good opportunity for the value of the Company to increase as uranium prices rise, and as drilling progresses on their targets.
Peter Dasler, President and CEO of CanAlaska Uranium (TSXV: CVV), sees a lot of promise in their uranium holdings located in the Athabasca basin - 700,000 hectares (1.7 million acres), one of the largest land positions in Canada's Athabasca Basin region - the "Saudi Arabia of Uranium." Mr. Dasler said, “We just completed a large and strategic deal with Cameco, and we also did a new property deal with Denison. They are proposing to start drilling this month on the project that we optioned to them. I think the main thing is that we started off in 2004 getting ground that we thought was prospective. With diligent exploration, using new technology, we were able to find a number of new and big uranium mineralized targets in the Athabasca.”
“Cameco earn-in should provide meaningful exploration results. A rather large earn-in commitment put most of the cash into the ground where it belongs, while keeping the lights on for CanAlaska. It should also keep the news flow coming, minimize CanAlaska dilution, and grant its exploration team access to Cameco’s expertise.” Dundee Capital Markets
Dasler and his team are not surprised to have found a number of new targets in the Company’s ground. He said, “Our geological premise was that we should be operating and trying to find land in the Wollaston mineral belt because that is where you find Cameco’s McArthur River and Cigar Lake and McClean – that is where all the large unconformity deposits are. We realized at that stage that we had a lot of new technical data from the Federal government, which had just completed a $90 million dollar compilation of uranium targets and deposits. We recognized that the geology and conductors were really important and the physical environment and offsets were really important. When you looked at the ground in 2004 and 2005, virtually all of the shallow ground was owned by Cameco or French giant Areva, certainly all of the ground that was shallower than 500 meters.”
The Company looked for ways to delineate their holdings better. Said Dasler, “Now, we had been working a lot with deep penetrating airborne EM that was used by Anglo American, who developed the SPECTREM system in the early 1990’s, while looking for Kimberlites. Also, they were using it in Canada to look for base metals in the Flin Flon camp. When we talked with them about whether their airborne system could see deeper than 500 meters, the calculations came out that we could probably see eight hundred to a thousand meters in the ground quite easily because the Athabasca sandstone is a very uniform sandstone and the signals could go through that very easily. That was an astounding revelation… we could see almost half a mile into the ground from an airborne survey.”
When the results came in, Dasler and his team had the information they needed to advance their first project at West McArthur. He said, “So, all of a sudden we had the right geological terrain. We had knowledge of where to look for these big targets. We had a tool that would allow us to show areas where something geologically strange was happening in the basement or in the sandstone using an airborne survey platform. We were able to cover large areas of land quickly and inexpensively, and that is what we did. By 2005, we had 2.5 million acres of land and twenty five projects focusing on the eastern Athabasca. Expanding out into other areas of the basin, we could use deep penetrating airborne surveys to pinpoint targets on which we could then do ground work.”
The company has moved forward on development since that time. Dasler said, “What has happened since then is that we have brought in partners and we have been working on our properties. The two largest properties that we have are on the eastern side of the basin. West McArthur was joint ventured with MC Resources (Mitsubishi) and they ended up putting in $16.5 million dollars and we put in a further $5 million dollars. In January, we were able to buy them out for $600,000 and a royalty. Now with our new agreement with Cameco, they will earn 60% of the project by spending $12.5 million dollars on exploration of the targets that were identified prior to the slow down following Fukushima. The land holding is 20 miles by 30 miles in extent, but it is immediately to the west of the world’s largest, richest, uranium mine - McArthur River. In February this year Cameco announced a new high grade uranium discovery immediately adjacent to this property and our grid 5 discovery area. In 2012 we drilled into a big mineralized system at grid 5. We had also watched what Cameco was doing just to the north east, but on the same geological trend and they were drilling every year. Now they just announced having 68 million pounds of 7.99% uranium.”
Dasler is impressed with the high grade uranium. He said, “They have high grade uranium in the Cameco basement rocks and 200 meters above this in the younger sandstone. We have the opportunity for similar mineralization on grid 5 where the basement geology does a very strange offset with an abrupt drift to the west and then to the south. We have intersected wide zones of hydrothermal alteration in the 2 holes we drilled, and these were about 2 kilometres apart. A further historic drill hole, another kilometre to the north, looks like it was drilled very close to a large target. This is a very big mineralized system, but not explored before because of historical technical limitations to exploration. We now see the high grade nature of the mineralization defined by just to the north east, and we think that we have the opportunity to host a Tier 1 uranium deposit. Cameco have indicated that they will start drilling as soon as they get the permit, probably March or April, and that is when things will get really exciting. In addition, next year they will have to drill at grid 1 on the property as well in order to keep their option. Our West McArthur project is just ten miles from the richest uranium deposit out there, and now we have the ability to follow a new high grade discovery onto the targets on our property and be carried by Cameco.
We are now looking at re-activating another one of our large properties. We have joint ventured our Cree East property with a strategic Korean Consortium (KORES, KEPCO, Hanwha and SK). The government backed consortium has 50% and we have 50%. We have $20 million dollars into the property but we stopped at the time of Fukushima. We are very focused on this and the West McArthur project.”
The Company runs on a lean structure that allows them to move quickly and inexpensively and put more money into the ground. Dasler said, “We maintained a team of about 35 people from about 2005 until 2012, and stockpiled a lot of information. We have a part time group of five people, but we are getting ready to move right now. I’m an exploration geologist. I have been for the last forty years.”
In terms of structure, the Company is closely held. Said Dasler, “Our current structure is very tight. We only have 22 million shares outstanding. Our share price is $0.14 cents US and has been trading between $0.14 to $0.25 cents for the last several years. That is about ten percent of what we were trading at before Fukushima. Like all the others in the junior space, we have suffered but still have money in our treasury that will keep us going for the next few years. We are still very active developing new targets from our information data base and working in deals. We have not only announced an agreement with Cameco, but we just announced that we were able to stake 75 bullseye magnetic targets in the western area of the Athabasca, and these targets look like kimberlites which we would like to explore for diamonds. Perhaps soon, we will be able to find a partner to explore these with us.”
http://www.canalaska.com
CanAlaska Uranium Ltd
Suite 1020 625 Howe Street
Vancouver, BC. V6C 2T6
T:+1.604.688.3211 +1.604.688.3211
F:+1.604.688.3217
E:info@canalaska.com
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