Aldershot likes uranium outlook Down Under

VANCOUVER–Despite ongoing restrictions on uranium development in some regions of Australia, Aldershot Resources (ALZ-V, ALZTF-O) likes the longer-term outlook and believes the tide will change.

Recent work by the junior on its George Creek uranium project, located 96 km south of Darwin in Australia’s Northern Territory, has returned high-grade values of up to 4% U3O8 from surface channel sampling.

The project hosts a pair of small-scale, past-producing mines: the Adelaide River and George Creek mines. Adelaide River operated during the 1950s, with reported historic output of roughly 3,447 tonnes of material grading 0.5% U3O8. Its workings only extend to about 50 metres depth with a historic resource estimate (non-National Instrument 43-101 compliant) of 6,350 tonnes at 0.32% U3O8, including some blasted ore that remains in the old stopes.

George Creek produced 109 tonnes of development ore at 0.26% U3O8 during the 1960s.

Uranium mineralization on the project occurs primarily as fault-hosted, vein-type along with significant amounts ofgold, copper, nickel and cobalt.

Last year’s drilling by Aldershot at Adelaide River also cut some significant polymetallic mineralization, including 7.1 metres (from 89.9 metres down-hole) grading 0.41% U3O8, 0.44% cobalt, 0.44% copper and 0.24% nickel. The intercept was below past workings in the mine.

The company thinks the cobalt, nickel and copper grades encountered boost the uranium potential of the system and are similar to the minerals seen in the Rum Jungle uranium field about 30 km north.

Mining in the Rum Jungle area began in the early 1950s and continued until the early 1970s, producing roughly 7.8 million lbs. U3O8 from a reported 863,000 tonnes of ore grading 0.27-0.43% U3O8.

In reinterpreting past exploration data from the Adelaide River area along with Aldershot’s recent drilling and surface sampling, company geologists have identified a zone with a strike length of at least 500 metres and a depth of 100 metres that will be targeted for further exploration.

Aldershot also has two uranium projects in Western Australia: Yuinmery and Turee Creek.

Uranium mineralization at Yuinmery is hosted in a salt lakecalcrete environment and contains a historic resource of 1.58 million tonnes at 0.037% U3O8.

The company notes significant radiometric anomalies over the area and says the historic resource is open to the south and west.

Aldershot’s Turee Creek project is located in the Pilbara region with mineralization occurring in a sandstone-unconformity setting. It contains a historic resource of 1.05 million tonnes at 0.035% U3O8 — calculated by Noranda in the 1970s and ’80s — occurring as a perched body in the sandstones, with the potential for deeper unconformity- type deposits.

Australia currently has three major uranium mines: Ranger (in the Northern Territory), and Olympic Dam and Beverly (in South Australia) that cumulatively produced more than 22.3 million lbs. U3O8 in 2007. A fourth mine — Honeymoon in South Australia — has been approved.

Aldershot’s hunt for uranium also extends to Africa and Canada. The junior holds the Kariba project in Zambia, roughly 160 km south of Lusaka, on the north shore of Lake Kariba, which forms the border with Zimbabwe to the south.

Past exploration at Kariba in the 1970s and ’80s identified uranium mineralization in Karoo sediments (sandstones). The project is just south of Denison Mines’ (DML-T, DNN-x) Kariba uranium deposit, acquired through its takeover of Aussie company OmegaCorp. Kariba holds an inferred resource of 16.4 million tonnes grading 0.038% U3O8 (about 13.7 million contained lbs. U3O8) in two areas.

Aldershot shares have recently traded around a dime, giving the company a $6.6-million market capitalization based on its 66 million shares outstanding. The stock posts a 52-week trading range of 8-43.