black range buffs up war chest...

Source: www.miningnews.net

Black Range buffs up war chest

Thursday, 17 May 2007

BLACK Range Minerals has boosted its coffers by $16.8 million, with the funds to be used to fast-track its exploration programs in the United States, advance high-grade uranium and copper projects to feasibility study and to pursue uranium acquisitions.

In an announcement yesterday, the company said it had completed a placement of 70 million shares at 24c, which went to domestic and overseas sophisticated and institutional investors, with Patersons Securities acting as manager to the placement.

Black Range's uranium projects in the United States include its Taylor Ranch project in Colorado, the Eagle project and Cyclone Rim projects located in Wyoming.

At Taylor Ranch, the company has an initial exploration target of 15-20 million pounds of uranium oxide, based on 100,000m of previous drilling.

The Eagle project hosts a JORC-compliant resource of 4.7Mlb of uranium oxide, while an initial exploration target of 3Mlb of uranium oxide has been based on the results of more than 115 historical drill results at the Cyclone Rim project.

"Extensive exploration was completed at all of the company's uranium projects during the 1960s and 1970s with substantial resources delineated," Black Range managing director Mike Haynes said.

"All three uranium projects are located within 35km of two of the USA's only four licensed uranium mills, providing the company with potential low capital, short lead time processing streams."

Black Range also plans to conduct an exploration program at its Ferris Haggerty copper deposit in Wyoming.

According to Black Range, the average grade of historical production was greater than 20% copper, with historical records indicating there remained approximately 1 million tonnes of unmined ore at grades of 5-6% copper.

Additionally, Black Range believes exploration drilling has never been undertaken at Ferris Haggerty.

"The company will utilise funds raised through this placement to fast-track aggressive exploration programs to bring these projects to feasibility study," Haynes said.

"Following the completion of the placement, the company is in a very strong technical and financial position to rapidly advance its high quality uranium and base metals projects towards production.

"It will also have considerable balance sheet strength to pursue the acquisition of additional quality uranium projects in the USA."

Shares in Black Range closed unchanged at 25c yesterday and have since added 2.5c in morning trade.


Ends.

Cheers, Pie