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.
Toro Energy: exploration target set at plus 20Mt at 400ppm uranium at Theseus
Toro Energy (ASX: TOE) has now outlined an exploration target for the wholly owned Theseus Uranium Project in Western Australia, where the company has recently returned grades of up to 9,000 parts per million (ppm) Uranium.
The target is 20 to 40 million tonnes at 400 to 500ppm Uranium, for 10,000 to 20,000 tonnes of Uranium, (or 22 to 44 million pounds).
Toro is already putting in place a plan to test the target, which will be evaluated by mud rotary drilling during 2012, following the results of studies of disequilibrium and bottle roll leach testing.
Studies will focus on recovery characteristics and the potential to improve Uranium grades from gamma data collected so far.
Greg Hall, managing director, commented on the good news, “Theseus has to date been a major success story for Toro and one that is yet to be fully recognised by equities markets as a major grass roots Uranium discovery.
"It is becoming clear that Theseus may only be one prospect within this new Uranium province and the region has the potential for further major discoveries. Toro believes that the exploration target range announced today is only a small indication of the significant potential of this region.”
Drilling success at Theseus from 2011 program
Toro delivered some exploration success at Theseus in the 2011 drilling program, with results such as 3.44 metres at 1,137ppm Uranium, which includes the peak result of nearly 9,000ppm.
Drilling during the year confirmed the presence of significant Uranium mineralisation, with a total of 130 vertical mud rotary and aircore having now been drilled and downhole gamma logged at the project.
Significantly, half of the holes report a gamma, assay or PFN result greater than 0.5 metres at 100ppm Uranium.
Uranium mineralisation is hosted within the variably oxidised sand-clay sequence and its distribution is concentrated at boundaries between reduced and oxidised sediments.
The thickest and highest grade mineralised intercepts are hosted within sands ranging from 1 to 6 metres thick, while thinner intercepts are localised at the upper and lower boundaries of sand units.
