Ross McElroy, Fission’s COO, President and Chief Geo is, in my opinion, the most experienced and successful exploration experts in the Athabasca. He’s been instrumental in four of the last major uranium discoveries there and has led the team responsible for two major discoveries in three years. As we kick off the summer drill program I asked him to share his thoughts on PLS so far.
I think it’s safe to say it’s as good as anything I’ve ever encountered. The boulder field that led us to the first discovery hole is the biggest ever found in the Basin and some of the intersections we’ve hit are incredible – the grades and widths are up there with the best that anyone has ever come across in the Basin. My belief is we’re looking at a very robust system.
Right now we have three discovery zones – the first was found at the end of Fission Energy’s final exploration season before the asset sale to Denison and the second and third were found at the start of Fission Uranium’s first exploration season. We had more than an 80% strike rate on our last drill program which was phenomenal and I believe comes down to the expertise of our technical team in planning, running and analyzing the survey data that preceded the actual drilling.
The final thing to mention, and in some ways this is one of the most important comments, is the depth of the deposit. I say depth but I guess the more accurate description is the shallowness. Most of the mineralization we’ve discovered so far lies within 100m of the surface and that makes it open-pittable. In fact, it’s possible that this is the only open-pittable high-grade uranium project that is still unmined. At a time when most explorers in the Athabasca Basin have been looking deeper and deeper, we’ve proved that there are still major high-grades to be found close to the surface. That makes it even more attractive to companies looking to acquire a project with a view to taking it into production.
Ross McElroy
