New appointments strengthen 92 Energy’s presence in Canada’s uranium market

Perth-based junior explorer 92 Energy (ASX: 92E) has strengthened its presence in Canada’s uranium market with key appointments to its board and technical team.

The company has announced that geoscientist Kanan Sarioglu will join as vice president (exploration) based in Canada, and geologist Steve Blower will be re-appointed as a board director, also consulting to the company in a technical capacity.

Mr Sarioglu has more than 15 years experience in the minerals industry, working on numerous uranium projects around the world, ranging from greenfields exploration to feasibility level developments.

For the past 13 years, his work has been focused on the Athabasca Basin district in Saskatchewan, where 92 Energy has its Gemini, Tower, Clover, Powerline and Cypress River projects.

During this period, Mr Sarioglu was a member of the technical team responsible for Fission Uranium Corp’s Triple R and J-Zone discoveries, overseeing exploration and delineation work on both deposits.

Geology experience

Mr Blower has 30 years experience in mine geology, resource estimation and exploration for a variety of commodities.

For the past 15 years, he has been involved in uranium exploration in the Athabasca Basin with a number of listed Canadian companies including Pitchstone Exploration, Denison Mines Corp and IsoEnergy.

At Denison, Mr Blower led a team which added 75 million pounds of resources to Wheeler River – the largest, undeveloped uranium project in the Basin’s eastern portion – through an expansion of the high-grade Phoenix and Gryphon deposits.

Prior to this role, he was a president and chief executive officer of Pitchstone until its sale in 2012 to Fission Energy.

As vice president (exploration) at IsoEnergy, Mr Blower led the team that discovered the Hurricane high-grade zone of unconformity-hosted uranium mineralisation, located on the Larocque East property in the northeast part of the Athabasca Basin.

Board re-appointment

Mr Blower was a director of 92 Energy during the company’s initial public offering process earlier this year.

He has since acted as a technical advisor and interim vice president (exploration) for the company and was part of the team which identified exploration targets for drilling at the Gemini mineralised zone, where initial holes intercepted 5.5m grading 0.12% uranium.

Follow-up drilling

92 Energy managing director Siobhan Lancaster said the new appointments would “significantly strengthen” the company’s presence in Canada ahead of follow-up drilling at Gemini.

“Together, Kanan and Steve have a wealth of experience in the Athabasca Basin, making successful discoveries and developing projects systematically,” she said.

“Kanan’s immediate task will be to expand the technical team and develop [our] winter drill programs, which will include two rigs and an initial target of up to 7,000m of drilling at Gemini.”

Performance rights

Under the terms of their appointments, Mr Sarioglu and Mr Blower will receive 125,000 and 600,000 performance incentive rights respectively, subject to shareholder approval.

Ms Lancaster will receive 1.5 million performance rights.

All rights will be issued as part of a proposed employee incentive plan, which is also subject to shareholder approval.