Cameco enters diamond hunt with Uranerz Exploration

Dr G. Kierschner, senior vice- president projects for Uranerz, said the exploration program will cover a number of magnetic anomalies from “approximately south of La Ronge to Prince Albert.” Several targets east and west of Prince Albert will be tested which he said could be diamond pipes.

Uranerz staked a number of properties in Saskatchewan after word leaked out about a significant diamond discovery near Prince Albert made by Monopros, a subsidiary of South Africa’s De Beers Consolidated. A Saskatchewan government announcement later said that particular discovery, centred on kimberlite pipes, was uneconomic. Kimberlite is a diamond- bearing rock elsewhere in the world, although kimberlite occurrences are often barren. Kimberlite pipes, however, tend to occur in clusters and sometimes only a few of them are diamond-bearing.

Kierschner told The Northern Miner that people were surprised that kimberlite would occur in an area with such young rocks.

“The kimberlites must be still younger than cretaceous,” he said. “We know the kimberlites carry diamonds but whether they occur in commercial quantities or not is another story.”

Uranerz is not only involved with Cameco but has other diamond- related joint ventures which he was reluctant to talk about.

Most of the key diamond players in the province are being tight- lipped about their programs and probably with good reason.

Native land claims are a big issue in Saskatchewan and the Sturgeon Lake Indian Band claims the property currently being explored by Monopros was fraudulently transferred to the federal government in the early 1900s.

Corona Corp. (TSE), which has a large property under option from Claude Resources (TSE) northwest of Prince Albert, flew the area late last year and did some field followup. According to A. H. Ransom, director of western exploration for Corona, “we will be drilling one or two of those targets in the near future. They might even be mobilizing at this moment.”

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