www.toroenergy.com.au
Toro Energy (ASX: TOE) is well placed to operate one of the first new Western Australian uranium mines. The company is also an explorer in Western Australia, the Northern Territory, South Australia and in the African country of Namibia.
The Wiluna Project is at an advanced stage in government assessment and approval, with Toro planning to commit to construction late next year for first production in 2013. The project hosts two shallow (generally less than 10m deep) calcrete deposits with a Measured, Indicated and Inferred resource of 24.4Mlbs of contained Uranium (U3O8) in the current project approved.
Energy discovers more uranium from drilling at Theseus project
Toro Energy (ASX: TOE) is continuing to intersect anomalous uranium over a wide area from drilling at its 100%-owned Theseus uranium prospect in Western Australia.
The addition of a mud rotary drill rig continues to increase Toro's confidence in the project. By combining the results from the detailed mud rotary program and aircore drilling in the southern half of the project area, the company plans to develop an exploration target range by around mid October.
Toro would be encouraged by the additional intersections as three mineralised trends are emerging. The first trend is between holes LP00191 and LP00200, the second trend around holes LP00177 and LP00184 and the third trend around holes LP00187 and LM 0015.
The new gamma result from drillhole LM00015 significantly opens up the eastern edge of this prospect with 1.06 metres at 603 parts per million (ppm) eU3O8 [639GT] from 99.92 metres, including 0.6 metres at 885 ppm eU3O8 from 100.18 metres.
Other highlights from mud rotary holes include:
- 1.62 metres at 370 ppm eU3O8 [600GT] from 100.26 metres in LM00018 including 0.36 metres at 1071 ppm eU3O8 from 101. 4 metres and; and
- 2.02 metres at 456 ppm eU3O8 [921GT] from 108.24 metres, including 0.52 metres at 1141 ppm eU3O8 from 108.48 metres (using a 100ppm eU3O8 cut off)
Two aircore holes and 11 mud rotary holes have been completed since the last update on August 29.
Greg Hall, Toro managing director, said “it is hoped that drilling proposed for the southern half of the project will confirm the potential size of this prospect."
The company said a mud rotary drill rig has been sourced and is now operational on site. Borehole Geophysical Services has also been contracted to provide down-hole geophysical probing to supplement geological logging and assist with correlations between mineralised zones.
The Wallis aircore rig is predicted to return to site around 24 September to complete the drilling program for the southern half of the prospect, after requiring mechanical repair earlier this month.
In addition, chemical assays for the first six aircore holes, LP00173 to LP00178, have been received with results including:
- 6 metres at 625ppm cU3O8 (3751GT) compared to 4.84m @ 829ppm eU3O8 (4012GT)
- 2 metres at 1406ppm cU3O8 (2812GT) compared to 1.56m @ 2010ppm eU3O8 (3135GT)
The company said the similarity between the chemical (c) and equivalent (e) results in LP00177 suggests that uranium disequilibrium will not be a major factor.
Toro expects aircore drillhole samples to be despatched shortly for XRD mineral identification along with bulk samples to determine basic leach mechanics later this year.
This preliminary test-work will attempt to identify the uranium mineral species and the basic leach tests will give some indication of the potential extractability of uranium.
Over the next three weeks, aircore drilling will continue to test the southern section of the prospect at 500 metres to 1 kilometres spacing designed to cover the original grid drill plan area of 5 kilometres x 8 kilometres by mid October.
The mud rotary rig will shortly commence a detailed 200 metre spaced grid covering the 1 square kilometre area between high grade drillholes LP00191 and LP00194.
Importantly. the geological environment and the consistency of the mineralised zones at Theseus, albeit at an early stage, supports the possibility of ISR extraction methods as a potential development scenario - although the development scenarios and economics remain undefined at this time.
