Overview
U3O8 Limited is a dedicated uranium exploration company with projects in Western Australia, Queensland and South Australia. The Company controls 31 exploration licences, all but two of which are granted for a total area of just over 3100 square kilometres.
Many of the projects contain uranium mineralisation identified during the early phases of exploration in Australia and in particular, the uranium exploration boom of the late 1960's and early 1970's.
Most of the Company's projects are held 100% by U3O8 Limited, but the Company does have a major joint venture with Cameco in the Ashburton region, and a joint venture with Northern Star Resources in the East Kimberley region, both in Western Australia. The Company also has a joint venture with a private group on the iron ore rights on its Olary Creek project in South Australia.
The Company initially concentrated its exploration on the shallow calcrete hosted uranium projects (Dawson-Hinkler Well, Wabli Creek) as they were easy to explore and delineate resources. Subsequently though, the Company has progressively explored the projects that have the potential to host the large unconformity style uranium deposits (e.g. Ashburton JV, Mad Gap, East Kimberley JV, Clever Mary) in addition to the sandstone hosted deposits (e.g. Westmoreland), and the volcanic hosted styles (Ardmore).
Unconformity hosted uranium deposit types occur spatially close to major unconformities and are most commonly developed in intra-cratonic basins. A significant portion of the global uranium is mined from these types of deposits, including Ranger in the Northern Territory of Australia and the Cluff Lake, McArthur River, Cigar Lake, Key Lake and Rabbit Lake deposits in Saskatchewan province of Canada. The unmined deposits of Koongarra, Jabiluka and Kintyre in Australia are also of this deposit type.
The surficial calcrete hosted uranium deposits are generally easier to locate and explore as they have developed in semi-arid areas where the water table is at or near the surface. Deposits of this type represent about 5% of Australia's total resource and include Yeelirrie, Dawson-Hinkler, Lakeway, Centipede and Lake Maitland in Australia and Langer Heinrich in Namibia.
U3O8 Limited is also focusing on its Olary Creek project in South Australia. The original target at Olary Creek was palaeochannel hosted uranium mineralisation, similar to that being exploited by in-situ leaching at the Beverley Mine in South Australia. Following that work at Olary Creek, the Company also identified a significant zone of copper mineralisation adjacent to the palaeochannel. Most recently, and following the execution of a Joint Venture Agreement, exploration at Olary Creek has focussed on the Fe ore potential, with significant results returned from the first drilling programme.
Exploration on the Ashburton JV in Western Australia has also returned very significant rare earth element assays, in addition to uranium and gold.
The Company sold its 10 million pound U3O8 Dawson Hinkler uranium deposit in Western Australia to Toro Energy in December 2010 for $6.2 million. U3O8 Limited also retain a royalty.
U3O8 Limited has been actively pursuing projects in a number of offshore provinces.