CanAlaska Uranium plans aggressive 2024 exploration programs, Saskatchewan
CanAlaska Uranium Ltd. [TSXV-CVV; OTCQX-CVVUF; FSE-DH7] is preparing for winter drill programs at three of its projects in the southeastern Athabasca Basin, northern Saskatchewan, Canada.
An approved $7.5 million exploration program on the West McArthur Joint Venture project is scheduled to start in early January. The 2024 West McArthur drill program will focus on continued expansion of the Pike Zone discovery and along strike unconformity testing to the northeast and southwest of the Pike Zone. In addition, the Moon Lake South Joint Venture (MLSJV) approved a $2.7 million exploration program for 2024. The Moon Lake South winter drill program will focus on expansion of the high-grade uranium mineralization intersected in drillhole MS-23-10A.
The company’s partner, Basin Energy Limited [ASX-BSN], is preparing for the 2024 winter drilling program on its Geikie project. The Geikie winter program will focus on direct follow up of targets associated with gravity lows adjacent to uranium mineralization, alteration, and pathfinder anomalism identified during the 2023 drill campaign and additional regional exploration targets derived from the integration of multiple high resolution airborne geophysical data sets. The Company is fully funded to complete its exploration programs in 2024.
In November of 2023, the company announced continued expansion of the Pike Zone, where high-grade basement hosted uranium mineralization was extended in the upper basement and has now been confirmed over 160 metres into the basement along the controlling fault structures.
Uranium mineralization was intersected in all four drill holes completed in the Pike Zone during the summer drilling campaign, highlighted by WMA082-2 that intersected 6.5 metres at 0.73% eU3O8, including 1.8 metres at 1.91% eU3O8.
In addition, step out drill targets 200 and 800 metres to the northeast of the Pike Zone intersected target related alteration and fault structures in the basement and lower sandstone column, respectively.
Starting in January of 2024, the company will have two drills active on the West McArthur project. Results from the recently completed drill programs indicate that priority targets exist both at the Pike Zone and as unconformity and basement extensions along the C10 South target corridor. At the Pike Zone, the drill program will focus on continued expansion of basement mineralization along the controlling fault structure, to the southwest where mineralization remains open, and to the northeast below the unconformity mineralization intersected in 2023.
In addition, CanAlaska plans to continue testing the unconformity target areas both in the immediate Pike Zone area and along strike to the northeast and southwest of the Pike Zone. The 15-kilometre-long C10S corridor remains completely untested to the southwest and only sparsely tested to the northeast between the Pike Zone and 42 Zone mineralization. Based on the positive 2023 summer drill program results, the company believes significant potential for unconformity-related mineralization exists at Pike Zone and nearby along the C10 South corridor.
The West McArthur project, a Joint Venture with Cameco Corp. [TSX-CCO; NYSE-CCJ], is operated by CanAlaska that currently holds an 83.29% ownership in the project.
The MLSJV has approved a $2.7 million exploration program for the Moon Lake South project that is planned to start in January. The program is expected to focus on testing for extensions of the high-grade perched uranium mineralization intersected in MS-23-10A. Drill hole MS-23-10A intersected 2.46% U3O8 over 8.0 metres, including 3.71% U3O8 over 4.5 metres.
In addition, the MLSJV is planning to complete focused ground-based electromagnetic surveying to facilitate exploration testing along the CR-3 conductive corridor adjacent to the MS-23-10A area.
The Moon Lake South project is a Joint Venture with Denison Mines Corp. [TSXV-DML; NYUSE-DNN], the operator. CanAlaska currently holds a 25% ownership in the project and will fund the company’s share of the 2024 exploration program.
A winter drill program is planned in Q1 of 2024 for the Geikie uranium project located along the eastern margin of the Athabasca Basin. The planned 2,000 metre program will be split between direct follow up targets associated with gravity lows adjacent to the alteration, uranium mineralization, and pathfinder anomalism identified during the 2023 drill campaign and regional exploration targets from the integration of high-resolution airborne geophysical data.
In September of 2023, the Company announced results from the maiden drilling program on the Geikie project which were highlighted by 0.5 metres of 0.27% U3O8 in drillhole GKI002
The Geikie project is currently being sole-funded by Basin Energy Limited under an option earn-in agreement with the company.
The company is working on preparation of multiple other discovery opportunities within its 300,000-hectare eastern Athabasca-focused land portfolio. Additional 2024 project work includes: ground-based electromagnetic surveying on the Marshall and North Millennium projects in the southeastern Athabasca Basin to facilitate drillhole targeting; initial airborne geophysical surveying on the Frontier project, located in the northeastern Athabasca Basin; and initial airborne geophysical surveying on the recently acquired Enterprise, Voyager, and Constellation projects located near the Key Lake Mill Complex.
The North Millennium and Marshall projects are currently being sole-funded by Basin Energy under an option earn-in agreement with the company. CanAlaska continues to deploy a hybrid explorer and project generator model, actively seeking new partners to advance the other projects in its large exploration portfolio and seeking new opportunities through strategic land staking.
CanAlaska CEO, Cory Belyk, commented, “CanAlaska will be moving our multiple uranium discoveries forward in 2024 through a set of aggressive drilling programs principally focused on the West McArthur and Moon Lake South Joint Ventures. These recent discoveries, with major partners in Cameco and Denison, respectively, are located within the prolific and infrastructure-rich eastern Athabasca Basin. In 2023 we have continued to strategically re-position our exploration portfolio near this infrastructure that has a clear and looming need for identification of the next generation of tier 1 ore deposit to follow Cigar Lake and McArthur River reserve depletion. With the spot price of uranium currently above $90 per pound and climbing, and with rock solid and growing nuclear fundamentals in place, the market is signaling that more uranium fuel will be required to generate the clean electricity of tomorrow.”
CanAlaska holds interests in approximately 300,000 hectares (740,000 acres), in the Athabasca Basin.