Equinox finds new uranium targets at Lumwana (August 06, 2007)

As significant uranium drill results pour in for Equinox Minerals’ (EQN-T, EQN-A) revised Lumwana feasibility study, the company is finding new anomalies outside the study area of the project, in northwest Zambia.

Assays from the 16,000-metre program are helping to define distinct uranium zones on the property, where Equinox is building Africa’s largest copper mine.

An 11-metre intersection from the latest set of assays at the Malundwe deposit graded 0.75% U3O8 and 0.75% copper, which included 3 metres grading 2.66% U3O8 and 0.93% copper.

In another hole, drilling returned 10 metres of 0.71% U3O8 and 0.54% copper.

The company is revising a feasibility study from 2003, which focused on the copper deposit, but included metallurgical data, designs and costs for a uranium processing plant.

Equinox has discovered other uranium channel anomalies outside of the uranium feasibility study area that it plans to investigate on the 1,300-sq.-km property.

“This suggests further uranium potential in the region,” says Equinox president and CEO Craig Williams.

In the 2003 study, the uranium resource for Lumwana was 9.5 million tonnes grading 0.093% U3O8 in the indicated category, plus 2.6 million inferred tonnes averaging 0.042% U3O8, for a combined 21.4 million lbs. contained U3O8.

Drill-hole spacing in the current program will average 50 by 50 metres with some areas drilled at 25 by 25 metres to increase statistical definition of the resource.

Equinox plans to start copper production in the second quarter of 2008. The mine is expected to produce 169,000 tonnes of copper in concentrates for the first six years of its 37-year mine life.