Marmota Energy (ASX: MEU) has expanded its Australian uranium footprint into Western Australia with its second agreement with Teck Resources (NYSE: TCK) subsidiary Teck Australia.
The new joint venture agreement gives Marmota access to the Rudall East Project, which covers 2,736 square kilometres of uranium prospective tenements in the highly prospective Rudall River/Paterson area of Western Australia.
Rudall East covers the eastern extension of the Patterson Orogen, which hosts the Cameco-Mitsubishi joint venture-owned Kintyre uranium deposit, which has an Inferred Resource of 56.4 million pounds uranium.
Previous exploration over Rudall East includes an Airborne Electromagnetic survey completed by the Federal Government, which delineated buried palaeochannels and unconformity contacts, both of which are important for uranium targeting.
Under the agreement, Teck will take its first direct equity interest in Marmota, with the issue of 500,000 Marmota shares.
In addition, Marmota will undertake $1 million of exploration expenditure over three years to earn a 51% equity interest in the uranium rights across seven adjoining tenements.
The deal is subject to the satisfaction of Traditional Owner requirements by December 2012.
Marmota’s previous joint venture agreement with Teck covers the advanced Junction Dam Uranium Project in South Australia, where phase three drilling targeting high grade uranium kicked off earlier this year.
Junction Dam lies on the border of South Australia and New South Wales, and is located 50 kilometres from Broken Hill.
Marmota held a 74.5% stake in the project, which is held in joint venture with Teck, Platsearch (ASX: PTL) and Eaglehawk Geological consulting.
However, Marmota was set to increase its stake in the project as Teck and its partners did not intend to contribute to the phase three program.