Canyon, High Plains to explore in Wyoming

A new joint venture will explore a 373-sq.-km land package in southeastern Wyoming in the hope of bringing one or more new uranium projects into production.

Canyon Resources (CAU-X), better known for its gold assets, High Plains Uranium (HPU-TL, HIPUF-O) and privately held New Horizon Uranium, have agreed to combine landholdings in Converse Cty. in a joint venture where High Plains will hold a 30% interest and the other two companies, 70%.

The ground, called the Sand Creek land package, covers surface exposure of the White River formation, a Tertiary-aged sequence of siltstones and shales with interbedded sandstone and conglomerate. Sandstone in the sequence is host to the Crow Butte uranium deposit about 130 km east, near Crawford, Neb., currently operated by Cameco (CCO-T, CCJ-N).

New Horizon will manage the project, as it is currently doing on other ground it holds in the area in joint venture with Canyon. Under an agreement the two signed in January, New Horizon is earning a 70% interest in mineral properties in Converse and Niobrara Ctys. by spending $2 million on exploration over five years.

In effect, New Horizon can hold a 49% interest in the Sand Creek property, with Canyon holding 21% and High Plains, 30%.

The partners plan geophysics and drilling, and expect to issue a technical report on the area in due course.

The Converse agreement is not High Plains’s only recent deal on uranium properties in the western United States. Earlier this month, Volcanic Metals Exploration (vme-v, vmevf-o) agreed to a joint venture with High Plains on a land package in northern Arizona that has a number of uranium occurrences in volcanic breccia pipes. Volcanic’s U.S. subsidiary, Energy Fuels Resources, will earn an 80% interest in the ground by funding and operating an exploration program over a 6-year period, and contribute records of exploration work it already has on the properties.

The joint venture with Volcanic Metals will enable High Plains to concentrate on the Wyoming properties, including additional ground the company acquired in May in Converse Cty. to bring its Wyoming mineral-rights holdings to 219 sq. km.