Forte Energy (AIM: FTE) has significantly expanded its planned RC (reverse circulation) drilling programme at its wholly owned Bir Moghrein uranium project in Mauritania amid continued encouraging results from the ongoing exploration programme, also expecting a maiden JORC compliant uranium resource for its other uranium project Bir En Nar in Q1 2010.
Forte updated the market on the results of its exploration activities today, saying that sampling pits encountered hard calcrete with secondary uranium minerals down to more than three metres depth at the Leg Beija radiometric anomaly, which is now defined over an area 10 km (kilometres) long and 500 metres wide, while pit sampling at Anomaly 252 showed high radiation levels with secondary uranium minerals in calcrete with another calcrete mineralisation observed at anomaly 238 together with granite dyke or mylonite zone showing high uranium readings on spectrometer.
Observations that Forte said were encouraging have also been made in the course of field exploration elsewhere on Mauritanian licence areas, in particular, calcrete hosted uranium anomalies near Bir Moghrein.
Detailed radiometric airborne surveys over 9 areas within Forte's Mauritanian licences scheduled for completion in January 2010 and will be followed by the planned RC drilling programme, which has been tripled to 6,000 metres, covering 300 holes across 14 prospects to identify priority targets for follow-up resource drilling.
Results from the 4,000m resource drill testing completed during 2007 at Bir En Nar included intercepts in excess of 5,000 ppm (parts per million) U3O8 (triuranium octoxide) with a maximum intersection of 1.55 m (metres) at 18,280 ppm U3O8.
While resource drilling is underway at Bir En Nar, field exploration of other uranium targets has continued within Forte's exploration licences near Bir Moghrein, including trenching, geophysical surveying, geological study and rock sampling.
A JORC compliant uranium resource for Bir En Nar and the results of the sampling and RC drilling programs at Bir Moghrein are expected in 2010.
Forte Energy currently holds a total of nine uranium exploration licences within the Pre-Cambrian Reguibat Shield in Northern Mauritania covering a total of 11,895 sq km (square kilometres). The ground selected was highlighted by available airborne radiometric survey data and extends southeast for over 340 km from the town of Bir Moghrein. The principal radiometric targets tested lie within the vicinity of two major north-northwest to south-southeast trending structural zones containing local areas of supracrustal rocks within the granite dominated Reguibat Shield.
Shares in Forte added 5.5% on the news this morning.