Standard Uranium Ltd (TSX-V:STND, OTCQB:STTDF) has shared its far-reaching exploration schedule for 2022 and confirmed that despite current personnel shortages in the industry it has a skilled technical team and key contractors in place to complete the planned work.
The Vancouver-based mineral resource exploration company said it will be following up on drilling results on its flagship 25,886-hectare Davidson River Project in the southwest part of the Athabasca Basin, as well as rounding out the inaugural drill program on its Sun Dog project in Saskatchewan.
In addition, the firm has planned targeted geophysical surveys over its three Eastern Basin projects to get those projects drill-ready for late-2022. The company’s five projects are all in the prolific Athabasca Basin, which has the world’s highest-grade uranium deposits.
READ: Standard Uranium intersects drill targets in summer drilling at its Davidson River project in Saskatchewan
In a statement, Standard Uranium CEO Jon Bey said: “There is currently a staking rush and a large influx of new entrants into the Athabasca Basin as the uranium sector heats up. Not only do we have strong relationships with our First Nations partners, but we have also secured contractors to work all our exploration programs for 2022.”
Bey said his team is “set for success” with all projects “permitted, funded, and key staff contracted.”
Standard Uranium said it will be executing "a minimum of two drill campaigns" in addition to geophysical surveys over four of its projects to prioritize targets and focus drilling.
Winter drilling will focus on Sun Dog and high-priority target areas along several kilometres of "untested graphitic conductors coincident with cross-cutting faults and historical intersections of high-grade uranium mineralization," said the company.
“The program will follow up on uranium mineralization, major structures, and alteration zones, as well as high-grade mineralization discovered at surface at the Haven (0.7% U3O8), Skye (3.58% U3O8), and Java (1.7% U3O8) target areas,” it added.
The perched mineralization at the surface on Sun Dog has never been properly tested at depth, and the company said it aims to discover the high-grade “roots” of these mineralizing systems in the basement rocks underlying the Athabasca sandstones.
Before the winter drill program, Standard Uranium will conduct ground gravity and UAV magnetics surveys with the help of MWH Geo-Surveys Ltd. over target areas on Sun Dog in February 2022.
Meanwhile, the Spring and Summer drilling in May 2022 will be an “aggressive follow-up campaign” on Davidson River's most prospective basement structures and alteration zones.
“Several kilometres of graphitic conductors remain to be tested at Davidson River, and the basement rocks of the Thunderbird trend remains unexplored to date,” noted the company.
In addition to the drill programs, geophysical programs have been planned at Sun Dog along with the company’s Atlantic, Canary, and Ascent projects on the east side of the Athabasca Basin. The firm highlighted the following programs:
- High-resolution ground gravity will be conducted over the western Atlantic claim blocks in January 2022 to allow for prioritization of future drill targets
- An airborne VTEM survey is planned on the Ascent Project to define and model the conductive exploration corridors on the property
- An induced polarization/resistivity survey is planned on the Canary Project to yield valuable structural and lithological information on the project
“The zones of strong hydrothermal alteration and intensely graphitic basement structures, along with intervals of elevated radioactivity intersected on the Davidson River Project this past summer has our technical team very excited to get back to drilling our flagship project in the Spring of 2022,” said Sean Hillacre, VP Exploration at Standard Uranium.
The company said that Base Diamond Drilling Ltd., led by Brady Stokes, has been secured for the Sun Dog and Davidson River drill programs.
“We are incredibly encouraged to have retained the services of Base Diamond Drilling and Brady Stokes. Stokes built the foundation of his career as an expert driller in the southwest Athabasca region and has now built a company that is well suited for the conditions at Davidson River,” said Neil McCallum, Lead Technical Director at Standard Uranium. “Our network of skilled contractors, such as Dahrouge Geological Consulting and others are also well suited to support our exploration.”
Contact the author Uttara Choudhury at uttara@proactiveinvestors.com
Follow her on Twitter: @UttaraProactive