Initial drilling will focus on the northern part of the East Canyon claim holdings, where extensive mineralisation has been observed and identified in sampling.
TNT Mines Ltd (ASX:TIN) plans to begin the first phase of drilling at East Canyon Uranium-Vanadium Project in the extended Uravan Mineral Belt of south-eastern Utah, USA, upon receipt of final drill permits and environmental approvals.
Since acquiring East Canyon in May 2020, the company has been progressing the project towards first phase drilling through low-cost, early-stage exploration including geochemical sampling and mapping.
This work has confirmed the presence of extensive high-grade uranium and vanadium mineralisation in historical workings on the 18.7 square kilometres of East Canyon claim holdings and this has been incorporated into planning for the initial TNT drilling program originally slated for late 2020.
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Final stages of drill permitting
While the drill permitting process has taken longer than anticipated, TNT has now reached the final stages, with surety bond monies to be paid this week to the US Bureau of Land Management as required prior to the issue of the permits.
Drilling is planned to begin shortly after the permits and remaining environmental approvals are received with the aim to better define the prospectivity of the project, with focus on the northern part of the claim holdings and the historic Bonanza and None Such workings.
This is where the company has conducted the bulk of its underground channel sampling and mapping, which have returned high-grade assays of up to 1.27% uranium and 8.30% vanadium.
Field reconnaissance work
In August 2020 visible uranium and vanadium mineralisation was observed throughout both None Such and Bonanza during field reconnaissance.
The Bonanza workings were discovered to be more extensive than first understood through mapping, while the extent of the high-grade channel sample mineralisation identified at both locations was highly encouraging.
Some of the samples collected emitted radiation levels that exceeded the safe handling limits of the ALS laboratory in Nevada and required special packaging before being transported to ALS’s facility in Vancouver, Canada, which is suitably configured to handle samples of this nature.
Within Uravan Mineral Belt
The East Canyon Project covers 231 contiguous claims in the Dry Valley and East Canyon uranium and vanadium mining district in San Juan County, Utah, within the Uravan Mineral Belt, an important source of uranium and vanadium ore in the United States for more than 100 years.
Historic production from the Uravan Belt is more than 85 million pounds of uranium at an average grade of more than 0.13% uranium and 660 million pounds of vanadium at an average grade of 1.3% vanadium.
The district hosts several significant uranium-vanadium operations including TSX-listed Energy Fuels’ La Sal Complex mine and White Mesa Mill, which is the only operational uranium mill in the US. Energy Fuels.
Energy Fuels has historically accepted toll milling agreements as well as purchase programs for processing ore from third party mines.
There is currently no relationship or arrangement in place between Energy Fuels and TNT, but White Mesa does present a potential processing solution for ore from East Canyon should economic resources be identified.
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