New drill results surpass even Hathor’s expectations

Hathor Exploration (HAT-V), which is in the midst of fighting off a hostile takeover offer from Cameco Corp. (CCO-T, CCJ-N), updated the markets today with excellent drill results from the Far East zone at its coveted Roughrider deposit in the Athabasca Basin of Saskatchewan. 

Highlights included a composited interval of 27 metres of 7.91% U₃0₈, including 3.5 metres of 41.77% U₃0₈ in hole 715. Hole 711 returned 10 metres of 5.4% U₃0₈; hole 712A returned 42.50 metres of 4.23% U₃0₈, and hole 713 reported 4.5 metres of 5.33% U₃0₈.

Assays are pending for two drill holes from the Far East Zone, including hole 718, which intersected a total of 17.30 metres of off-scale radioactivity, the company says, the greatest amount of off-scale radioactivity within a single drill hole at the Far East zone. The radioactivity was intersected in two zones, the company noted: one at a depth correlative with other drill hole intersections in the Far East zone, and; one at a much shallower depth, just 45 metres below the unconformity.

“The shallower zone presents significant potential for the discovery of an additional zone in the Roughrider system,” the company asserted. The Far East zone is also “open both to the east along strike and southeast up-dip from the most pervasive alteration and replacement mineralization intersected to date, and the largest grade-thickness quotients from assays,” Hathor highlighted in its statement. The junior’s 9,600-metre summer drill program involved two drill rigs active for about nine weeks. Twenty holes were completed, nineteen of which were in the Far East zone.  

Mineralization at the Far East zone was not included in the company’s preliminary economic assessment released on Sept. 13. The PA estimated a pre-tax net present value of $1 billion and payback of 1.2 years based on a US$70 uranium price and a 7% discount rate.

In mid-afternoon trading, Hathor’s shares had risen 2.5% or 10¢ apiece to $4.12 per share on a trading volume of 1.4 million. The company has traded between $1.50 and $4.21 per share over the last 52 weeks and has about 125.4 million shares outstanding.