Cameco cuts high grade at Dawn Lake

Drilling by Canadian giant Cameco (CCO-T) has intersected high-grade uranium mineralization at a group of claims near La Rocque Lake in the Athabasca Basin of northern Saskatchewan.

The claims, 55 km northwest of the company’s Rabbit Lake operation, are part of the Dawn Lake joint venture, which is 57%-owned by Cameco. French government-owned Cogema Resources has a 23% stake, with the remainder held by PNC Exploration.

Over the past 30 years, 18 deposits totalling 500 million tonnes of uranium were discovered in the basin. The grade has ranged from 0.12% per tonne to more than 14%.

Of the 20 holes totalling 6,915 metres recently completed, three intersected high-grade uranium. Most of the uranium intersected was in the form of heavily disseminated to massive, vitreous pitchblende grading, in the three holes, 8.2% U3O8 over 3.6 metres, 19.1% U3O8 over 2.5 metres and 29.9% U3O8 over 7 metres.

Occurring about 280 metres below surface, the intersections outline a zone 200 metres long and open along strike in one direction.

More drilling is planned.

Besides the high-grade holes, three others cut anomalous uranium values — all below 1% U3O8. The remaining holes were drilled more than 1 km northeast of the uranium mineralization and did not intersect significant uranium values.