Uranium Energy Corp (AMEX: UEC) is pleased to announce positive results from the initial phase of drilling at its 100%-owned Nichols Project in Karnes County, Texas. The Nichols property consists of approximately 900 acres of contiguous leases located about six miles south of the town of Falls City, Texas.
The Nichols Project is only about 50 miles from the Company's Goliad ISR Uranium Project, for which the Company has obtained a Draft Mine Permit and submitted additional permitting applications. Management anticipates that any mineral resources identified and extracted at Nichols will be processed at the Company's planned Goliad plant.
The Nichols Project was originally developed by Texaco Uranium (now ChevronTexaco), and reportedly contains an historic resource of 1.2 million pounds of e-U3O8. This first phase of exploration drilling was designed to confirm historic resources. Limited historic exploration data from Texaco on the property was available for review, but onsite lithologic data collected during the current drill program, coupled with the geologic literature review, confirm that the target host sands are those of the Eocene-aged Jackson Group, the zone of significant past production in Karnes County.
The foregoing historical resource estimate for Nichols was completed prior to the implementation of CSA National Instrument 43-101 ("NI 43-101"); however, given the results of current drilling, the Company believes the resource estimate to be relevant. A qualified person, as defined under NI 43-101, has not completed sufficient work to classify the historic mineral resources as current mineral resources, and the historical resource estimate should not be relied upon.
Important results from the program include:
- Multi-sand targets identified containing elevated uranium mineralization;
- Confirmation of mineralization along a minimum 5,000-foot trend;
- Initial PFN logging suggests a disequilibrium factor (DEF) ratio near 1.0;
- Core was collected to evaluate leachability of the sand and to estimate the DEF.
Multi-sand targets - As drilling progressed, four sands within the Jackson Group section were identified as potential mineralized target sands. From top to bottom these sands have been designated as the N1, N2, N3, and N4 sands. The sands are each 15 to 30 feet thick, and each is saturated, that is, below the water table. Their depositional environment appears to be near-shore marine, with sands N1, N3, and N4 being offshore bars and sand N2 representing finer grained lagoonal sediments. During this program, elevated gamma values were identified only in the N1 and N2 sands, with N2 containing the majority of the highest grades. However, the N3 and N4 sands are considered potential target sands.
Confirmation of Mineralization - 34 generally wide-spaced exploration boreholes totaling 18,154 drilled feet, and one core hole, were completed during this program. 20 of the boreholes were completed on centers approximately 800 feet apart along lines approximately 1,000 feet apart. The exploration boreholes confirm widespread uranium mineralization in two sands along a 5,000 foot trend with high grade mineralization along at least 1,200 feet of that trend.
Grade Thickness, or GT, is defined as the product of the mineral grade (at the .02% cutoff) multiplied by the thickness of the mineralization at or above the cutoff value. Typically, GT values of 0.1, 0.2, and 0.3 are used in resource calculations. GT values above 0.3 are considered 'high grade' intercepts.
GT values between 0.2 and 0.3 are considered 'strong' intercepts, and values between 0.1 and 0.2 are considered 'mineralized' intercepts. During this 34 hole program, three holes intercepted high grade mineralization, two holes had strong mineralization, and five holes encountered mineralized intercepts. The highest GT encountered during this program was 1.05 in borehole No. 23. -- www.cnxmarketlink.com
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