Hathor soars on wide, high-grade uranium at Midwest NE

Vancouver – With its stock surging in late-February after news of highly-anomalous uranium mineralized drill intercepts, shares of Hathor Exploration (HAT-V, HTHXF-O) posted further gains on assays confirming wide, high-grade U₃O₈ values from the company’s 90%-owned Midwest Northeast project located in the northeastern section of the Athabasca Basin.

The stock closed up almost 50% — gaining 64 to $1.94 per share — in March 3rd trading with hole MWNE-08-12 returning 11.9 metres (from 261.5 metres downhole depth) of 5.29% U₃O₈ including narrow intervals of up to 40.2% U₃O₈ across 20 cm. The intercept is within a wider 46-metre zone of mineralization.

Hathor says the high-grade uranium mineralization occurs in basement rocks comprised of a mix of variably clay-altered to clay-replaced pelitic gneiss, graphitic pelitic gneiss, granitic pegmatite and micro-granite.

“The mineralization represents a non-traditional, non-conductive target where no airborne EM anomalies are present, a new style of target for the Athabasca Basin,” states Dr. Alistair McCready, Hathor Exploration’s senior project geologist in the news release. “It signifies the need for exploration methodologies to evolve and utilize modern, cutting-edge techniques, such as reflection seismic to find structure — the key to these deposits.”

Last week the company tabled news that scintillometer analysis of core from hole MWNE-08-12 indicated approximately 30 metres of elevated radioactivity — 1,000 to 1,500 counts-per-second (cps) including zones of highly radioactive (5,000 cps to greater than 9,999 cps — off-scale).

Hathor’s Midwest Northeast property is adjacent to the advanced-stage Midwest uranium project being developed into an open pit mine by joint venture partners Areva (ARVCF-O) with 69.16%, Denison Mines (DML-T, DNN-X) with 25.17% and the Japanese group OURD Canada (5.67%) — with construction slated to start in mid-2009. The Midwest orebody hosts reserves of 360,000 tonnes grading 4% U₃O₈ and is expected to produce roughly 36 million lbs. U₃O₈.

With just over half of the planned 8,000-metre drill program complete, Hathor has finished 14 of a planned 24 holes at Midwest Northeast. Terra Ventures (TAS-V, TASFF-O) holds an 8% production carried interest in the project.

Additionally, Hathor’s hostile takeover offer for Northern Continental Resources (NCR-V, NCLRF-O) launched in mid-November last year and whereby it was offering 0.4 of a share for each Northern Continental share expired unsuccessfully in late February. The two companies are joint ventured on the Russell Lake uranium project in the eastern Athabasca Basin.