Roughrider gets bigger and more interesting for Hathor

Vancouver – The Roughrider uranium discovery in northern Saskatchewan keeps throwing out high grade uranium intercepts for majority owner Hathor Exploration (HAT-V).

Hathor released assay results from another nine drill holes. Four holes returned good mineralization, three returned weak mineralization, and two did not hit uranium. Of the four good hits, three confirm the continuity of good mineralization in the southeast portion of the deposit and the fourth transected the zone, adding confidence in its continuity.

The Roughrider zone is partially covered by a lake. Winter ice makes drilling easier, except that drills have to be spaced 60 metres apart so as to ensure the vibrations from two rigs remain isolated and don’t break the ice. One drill rig started near the centre of the zone and punched a southeast-trending line of vertical holes. Results from the first three holes show reliable high-grade intercepts. Hole 94 cut 5.5 metres grading 12.62% U₃O₈ from 205 metres downhole, hole 97 hit 7 metre averaging 2.83% U₃O₈ from 210 metres depth, and hole 101 intercepted 3.5 metres grading 3.82% U₃O₈ from 211 metres followed by 3.5 metres of 16.98% U₃O₈ from 218 metres.

One exciting aspect of these intercepts is that they represent the first hits of mineralization at the unconformity. Previously, mineralization had only had identified in basement rocks. These hits indicate mineralization may transition from basement-hosted to the potentially larger, sandstone-hosted mineralization known to exist to the south.

“We were really happy to hit very good mineralization at the unconformity,” said Hathor’s president and CEO Stephen Stanley. “We’ve always said that as we move to the east we should start reaching mineralization at the unconformity. And although we ahven’t hit the big unconformity mushroom cap that we still believe exists, we’ve now got some incredibly high-grade sniffs.”

Searching for that big, high-grade unconformity deposit will certainly be one focus in Hathor’s summer drill program.

But hole 94 also provided another unexpected hit. As Stanley explained, the company keeps a drill rig turning for 50 metres beyond the expected mineralized intercept to ensure it does not miss another zone. This time the persistence was rewarded.

“We let the rig carry on and ended up hitting 2.5 metres of 26.4% U₃O₈,” Stanley said. “That shouldn’t be there – it doesn’t fall into the zone that we’ve been drilling. So the belief is that this is a brand new zone that we’ve hit. And this new zone, in that intercept, returned half a metre of 68% U₃O₈ so we know it has some very serious high grade uranium.

“It has the technical team pretty excited because it seems like a brand new discovery.”

Raymond James analyst Bart Jaworski agrees that second hit is interesting, writing in his research note that the second zone “further supports the idea of multiple, sub-parallel, high-grade zones at Roughrider.”

The fourth “good” hole in the latest set of results came from hole 91, which passed right through the zone and returned 2.19% U₃O₈ over 18 metres.

Two other holes in towards the southeast portion of the Roughrider zone, located north of the line including holes 94, 97, and 101 just discussed, intersected only weak mineralization. Hole 83 returned 2.5 metres averaging less than 0.05% U₃O₈ and hole 90’s best hit was 0.5 metres of 0.218% U₃O₈.

And the final two holes of in the latest results did not hit mineralization. Hole 93 cut across the zone’s northeast end and hole 100 cut halfway across the zone closer to the centre. Stanley remarked that those misses just reminded him how easy it is to miss the Roughrider’s narrow zones.

One recent hole did not miss its target zone. Until recently Roughrider zone had been traced along a 115-metre northeast-trending strike. Hathor just completed hole 116, a 40-metres step-out to the southwest, and a downhole gamma ray probe of that hole returned the highest levels of radioactivity on the property to date. While the assays for hole 116 are not yet back, the radioactivity result alone extends the strike to 165 metres.

Hathor’s share price lost 16c on the news to close at $2.10. The company has a 52-week share price range of $1.03 to $4.40 and has 86 million shares outstanding.

In other Hathor-related news, Denison Mines (DML-T) recently announced plans for a friendly takeover of Northern Continental Resources (NRN-V) in an all-share deal. Northern Continental’s key asset is a 60% interest in the Russell Lake project, which sits adjacent to Denison’s new Wheeler River uranium discovery in Saskatchewan. Hathor owns the other 40% of Russell Lake.