CanAlaska reports exceptional uranium grades at Cameco JV

CanAlaska Uranium (TSXV: CVV; US-OTC: CVVUF) shares jumped on “rare” new drill results that help expand the Pike zone at its West McArthur joint venture uranium project with Cameco (TSX: CCO; NYSE: CCJ) in northern Saskatchewan. 

Hole WMA082-4 in the eastern Athabasca Basin site intersected 13.8% uranium equivalent (eU₃O₈) over 16.8 metres, including 40.3% over 4.7 metres and 13.5% eU₃O₈ over 2.4 metres at the Pike zone, the company said in a release on Wednesday.

Shares in CanAlaska Uranium rose more than 40% to 64¢ apiece in Toronto on Wednesday morning, valuing the company at $95.2 million.

“It is extremely rare to intersect uranium mineralization of this grade and width anywhere in the world, including the Athabasca basin,” CanAlaska CEO Cory Belyk said in the release. “Since initial discovery in 2022, the CanAlaska team has believed the Pike zone had the potential for Cigar- and McArthur River-like uranium grades and thickness based on prior drilling results.”

Cameco’s Cigar Lake and McArthur River-Key Lake uranium mines in Canada’s globally-important region for the heavy metal to make nuclear fuel are among the highest grade and largest in the country. Interest in uranium projects is accelerating as uranium has more than doubled in price to US$102 per lb over the last 12 months.

Project generator

CanAlaska, which calls itself a project generator, owns 83.4% of the West McArthur project while Cameco has the rest. CanAlaska holds interests in 5,000 sq. km of the Athabasca Basin, also including the Moon Lake South project owned with Denison Mines (TSX: DML; NYSE: DNN).

Winter drilling at West McArthur will continue seeking to expand the Pike zone discovery and along strike unconformity testing to the northeast and southwest, the company said. CanAlaska alone is paying for this year’s exploration program at the project as it increases its majority ownership, it said.

The lower sandstone column of drill hole WMA082-4 contains several fault zones of quartz dissolution and clay-filled breccias extending over 80 metres above the uranium mineralization, the company said. The drill hole is about 30 metres along strike to the northeast of drill hole WMA082-2, which intersected 1.03% U₃O₈ over 6.3 metres, including a sub-interval of 2.82% U₃O₈ over 1.9 metres as reported in January. The unconformity target at Pike zone remains open in all directions around WMA082-4, it said.

The site is characterized by massive to semi-massive, blebby, disseminated, clay-hosted and fracture-controlled uranium mineralization associated with yellow and orange uranium secondaries where the Athabasca sandstone and the underlying basement rocks meet, CanAlaska said.

“The geologists have been laser focused on determining the geological controls in a clear and methodical approach,” Belyk said. “Tier one uranium deposits always occur as ‘pearls on a string’ and we have now found a pearl.”