Fission outlines drilling plan, shares rally
Fission Uranium Corp. [FCU-TSX; FCUUF-OTCQX; 2FU-FSE] said Monday it will launch a 43-hole (12,640) drill program this year at its Patterson Lake South property in Saskatchewan, which hosts the high-grade Triple R uranium deposit.
The shares rallied on the news, jumping 16% or $0.055 to 40 cents on volume of 2.64 million. The shares currently trade in a 52-week range of 45 cents and $0.095.
The company said the fully-funded program aims to increase the indicated classified resource at Triple R’s R780E zone, and also upgrade to the indicated category the large R840W zone, which is located on land about 500 metres west of Patterson Lake.
The R840W zone is substantially drilled to inferred classification, and therefore is not currently included in the resource used in a pre-feasibility study. The winter program will focus on R780E. It will be drilled from lake ice, while drilling this summer will focus on R840W.
Fission is planning to advance the PLS project with a feasibility study beginning in 2021 and the success of the planned drill program has the potential to increase the resource used in the study.
The announcement comes after Fission recently closed a bought deal offering that raised $7 million from the sale of 17.07 million flow-through units, priced at 41 cents each. That was on top of $17 million raised from an offering of 62 million units priced at 27.5 cents each. The company said it would use the funds to pay down debt and fund further developing at the company’s Triple R uranium, which is located on the south-western edge of Saskatchewan’s Athabasca Basin.
Uranium mineralization of the Triple R deposit occurs within the Patterson Lake Conductive Corridor and has been traced by core drilling over 3.18 kilometres of east-west strike length in five separated mineralized “zones.” These zones collectively make up the Triple R deposit.
From east to west, they are R1515W, R840W, R00E, R780E, and R1620E. R1515W, R840W, and R00E are located on land, while the other two are located beneath Patterson Lake.
R840W is estimated to contain an indicated resource of 3.3 million pounds of U308 at 1.68% U308 in 88,000 tonnes and an inferred resource of 11.5 million pounds of U308 at 1.86% U308 in 280,000 tonnes. It is second largest of the mineralized zones behind R780E, which contains an inferred resource of 10.1 million pounds of U308 in 549,000 tonnes.
“As we plan to advance the PLS high-grade uranium project to a feasibility study, one of our key goals is the maximize the size and quality of the Triple R deposit,” said Fission CEO Ross McElroy. “This drill program is therefore designed to potentially expand the resource that can be used in the feasibility study, while also further de-risking the project as a whole,” he said.
McElroy said the program has the potential to allow for the inclusion of the R840W zone in the feasibility resource and mine plan.
In September, 2019, the company released the results of a pre-feasibility study (PFS) for an underground-only mining scenario at Patterson Lake South.
The underground PFS followed the results of an earlier PFS report, which outlined a hybrid mine approach using both open pit and underground techniques.