mining news article URANIUM explorer Uranex has achieved the...

mining news article URANIUM explorer Uranex has achieved the first major exploration milestone in its short life, confirming extensive uranium mineralisation at its flagship Bahi project in Tanzania, with the company now setting itself for a concerted six months of follow-up work at the end of the wet season in May.

Uranium explorer Uranex has a suite of tenements stretching across two continents

Some 43 of the 134 pits dug at the Bahi project during November, or about a third, returned uranium mineralisation greater than 100 parts per million uranium oxide.

Even more encouraging for Uranex, half of the 46 RAB holes drilled at Bahi late last year returned values greater than 100ppm, with five of those holes breaking the 200ppm mark.

The initial program was of a reconnaissance nature because Uranex was unable to focus on its main target � the Bahi salt lake and the five surrounding deltas � due to the onset of Tanzania's wet season.

However, once the wet season is over Uranex will be back on the ground doing more pitting as well as auger and diamond drilling. Results from the program should start flowing back in the second half of the year.

The Bahi salt lake and its surrounding area are Uranex's prime focus for uranium as it represents the ultimate repository for uranium leached from "hot" granites covering a catchment area of 27,000 square kilometres.

The attraction of Tanzania for Uranex comes not only from the country's prospective geology and mining friendly bureaucracy, but also from the competitive advantage the company has in the country from of its links to nickel, copper, PGE and gold explorer Goldstream Mining.

Uranex was a spin-off of most of Goldstream's uranium assets and the latter has retained a controlling 50.2% stake in Uranex.

Goldstream has been working in Tanzania since the late 1990s and Uranex's technical advisor Rob Edwards told MiningNews.netthe contacts, experience and Goldstream's sound reputation in Tanzania have been invaluable to Uranex.

Access to the database of a 1km-spaced airborne magnetic, electro-magnetic and radiometric survey flown over the entire country in the late 1970s has also proved priceless to Uranex.

"We have accessed all the previous data and have generated 55 targets. Our first look at six of these targets located uranium mineralisation to 2.1kg per tonne uranium oxide," Edwards said.

"This would be difficult to achieve in Australia because Australia has been well explored by multi-nationals who have spent hundreds of millions of dollars."

In the late 1970s and early 80s, some of the anomalies in Tanzania were followed up by Uranertz. However, as the spot uranium price halved from more than $US40 per pound in 1979 to about $20/lb by 1984, companies began concentrating on high-grade, low-cost deposits.

Now, uranium has reversed the trend, recently breaking the $40/lb mark for the first time since 1980, improving the economic outlook for smaller and more modest grade deposits.

Also in Tanzania, Uranex has large land holdings at Mkuju and Ambussel. The company considers Mkuju prospective for a series of "modest tonnage high-grade" secondary roll front style deposits within fluvial sedimentary channel settings, whereas Ambussel contains a number of prominent radiometric anomalies with some related to drainage settings similar to the Bahi region. Exploration programs for Ambussel and Mkuju will commence during this year's field season.

Uranex has also applied for an additional 14 tenements totalling 11,000sq.km in Tanzania covering sandstone hosted and playa lake uranium targets. This brings the company's land holding in Tanzania to 26,000sq.km.

Edwards admits Uranex has a similar strategy to market leader Paladin in the way it has built a portfolio of uranium assets in both Africa and Australia, holding ground in both Western Australia and the Northern Territory.

In WA, the company has acquired the uranium rights for the Thatcher Soak uranium deposit 130km north-east of Laverton. The project saw three separate drilling campaigns between 1971 and 1976, which defined mineralisation over a 7.5km strike, with widths ranging from 200-1000m and thicknesses of 1-6m and grades up to 1.04kg/t uranium oxide.

In 1977, BP calculated a non-JORC compliant resource of 6000t uranium oxide for the project.

Thatcher Soak is partially on an Aboriginal reserve, meaning negotiations with the traditional owners must be completed before Uranex can start work. These negotiations are progressing well and the company expects the tenement to be granted shortly.

"As soon as it's granted, we'll be in there drilling and there's nothing to stop us taking it through to a resource and completion of a scoping study," Edwards said.

In the NT, Uranex holds the Bynoe project in the Pine Creek geosyncline, the host of the Rum Jungle, Jabiluka, Ranger and Nabarlek deposits. Drilling from the 1980s was highlighted by a hit of 1.7m at 0.31kg/t uranium oxide.

Uranex intends to fly a detailed airborne radiometric survey in May in order to define new drill targets for testing.

As in Tanzania, the company is generating new projects within Australia with two tenements in the NT and 10 tenements in WA currently under application.

Edwards, who has more than 35 years experience on an international stage � including 10 years with CRA exploring for uranium near the Mary Kathleen uranium mine in the NT, firmly believes Uranex has yet to be swept up in the current bull run of uranium.

As well as its growing suite of uranium projects, Edwards believes the experience on Uranex's board is one of its biggest assets.

The management team is lead by Terry Ward who acted as operations manager and general manager of the Mary Kathleen mine for eight years. Ward has been involved with a number of mining companies and mining investment funds over his long career.

"We look at Uranex as one of the best uranium opportunities at the moment because of its strong portfolio and two-country approach that allows an aggressive approach to exploration in Tanzania and a measured approach in Australia in tune with positive changes to political sentiment to allow unrestricted uranium mining in Australia," Edwards said.

The company has more than $A5.3 million in the bank (at December 31) and a market capitalisation of $21.06 million.