The 18 million pounds was the "historic" estimate by Gold Fields of South Africa, who held and drilled the tenements between 1975 and 1982. These old estimates are not JORC-compliant, they were acceptable as "best practice" back then. There are other uranium deposits previously held by Gold Fields where the present holders have re-drilled to confirm the historic estimates. One thing that varies may be the "cut-off" point for the grades. As well, Gold Fields abandoned the project so there are areas even on their tenements they had not drilled. And WME have 3 times the original tenements Gold Fields held, yet to explore.
A lot of Gold Fields’ historic records for Marenica were lost, WME did not know the location or grades for 1,240 of the holes. They have now located 1,945 holes. The ones that are not collapsed (there are 582 collapsed holes) will have down-hole radiometric probing done to gain the “equivalent” parts per million of uranium. As data exists for many of the holes that were not collapsed, this can be compared with the historic data, and speeds up the evaluation process.
So WME are working to confirm the historic data, and undertaking a drilling programme to gain new data. Gold Fields did not drill some of the areas that did not have strong radiometric anomalism, but WME believes this is where further discoveries will be made in the future. Recent sediment cover apparently can obscure the anomalism.
Gaining the Marenica Project was a huge coup for WME, imho. Waiting for news seems like waiting for a rock to gyrate, sometimes. But they say it will take a few months to undertake the drilling and probing. WME’s day may come when they define an initial JORC-compliant resource, hopefully by the end of the year.
WME Price at posting:
0.0¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
