Mining

Capital raising allows 92 Energy to progress exploration at Gemini uranium project

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By Imelda Cotton - 
92 Energy ASX 92E Gemini Exploration Project uranium capital raise

Proceeds from 92 Energy’s $7.15 million placement will fund a major drill program in Canada’s Athabasca Basin.

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Perth-based junior 92 Energy (ASX: 92E) will use the proceeds of a $7.15 million capital raising to advance exploration at its wholly-owned Gemini uranium project in Canada’s Athabasca Basin district.

The company has received firm support from investors for the issue of close to 10 million fully paid ordinary shares at $0.72 each, providing it with significant funding capacity to follow up on the discovery earlier this month of a new zone of basement-hosted uranium mineralisation.

Exploration will commence with a major drilling program at Gemini before the company moves on to other projects within the Athabasca region.

High-grade region

The Athabasca Basin is believed to host some of the highest grade and lowest cost uranium deposits in the world including Cigar Lake and McArthur River as well as recently-discovered projects at Arrow, owned by NexGen Energy (ASX: NGX), and Triple R (Fission Uranium Corporation).

The region hosts either unconformity or basement-hosted mineralisation, with the former being largely higher-grade but more costly to mine because of unfavourable ground conditions.

The latter is lower-grade and tends to sit beneath the unconformity, making it easier to mine.

Unconformity-type discovery

Gemini is an early-stage unconformity-type discovery located on Athabasca’s eastern margin, about 60km northeast of the Key Lake uranium mill.

The project comprises six granted mineral claims across a total area of 264.5sq km.

It covers a 40km section of the sub-Athabasca unconformity, which sub-crops beneath glacial sediments in the eastern and north-eastern parts of the project area but reaches depths of up to 174m in the western part.

In the eastern and north-eastern areas – where the unconformity is shallow or absent – 92 Energy said there is potential for basement-hosted uranium amenable to open pit mining, similar to that at Arrow and Triple R.

Underexplored project

Despite 50 drill holes being completed in the 1970s, Gemini is considered to be underexplored.

Most of the historic holes targeted air photo lineaments rather than electromagnetic conductors, which are the focus of contemporary exploration in the Athabasca Basin.

92 Energy said its exploration program at Gemini will involve complete coverage of the project acreage using modern high power and high resolution airborne electromagnetics to generate drill targets for testing at a later date.