Drilling on the southern three kilometres of the Berlin project’s 10.5 km mineralized trend in Colombia demonstrates the continuity of uranium, vanadium, phosphate, rare earths and other metals, says U3O8 Corp (UWE-V), which has just released its maiden resource estimate on the project.
The sediment-hosted uranium project in Caldas province has an indicated resource at a cut-off grade of 0.04% uranium oxide (U3O8) measuring 0.6 million tonnes grading 0.11% U3O8 for 1.5 million pounds of U3O8. Inferred resources add 8.1 million tonnes at a grade of 0.11% U3O8 for 19.9 million pounds of uranium oxide.
In the same mineralized layer that hosts the uranium resource, Berlin also has an inferred resource of phosphate and vanadium. The deposit holds 8.7 million tonnes at a grade of 9.3% phosphate (P2O5) for 0.8 million tonnes of P2O5 and 8.7 million tonnes grading 0.50% vanadium (V2O5) for 97 million pounds of V2O5.
The resource was based on 82 diamond drill holes and 18,685 metres of drilling plus 30 surface trenches totaling 100 metres. Both the diamond drill holes and the trenches were used to model the geometry of the mineralization, but only the assay results from the diamond drill holes were used in the grade estimate.
The Berlin project had a historic resource estimate of 12.9 million tonnes at 0.13% U3O8 for 38 million pounds of uranium oxide, which was based on the southern 4.4 km of the 10.5 km mineralized trend. The historic resource did not include estimates for other commodities.
The company reports that metallurgical test work has proven that Berlin’s suite of commodities can be “efficiently” extracted from the mineralized rock. Drilling will continue this year with two rigs. One rig will undertake exploration drilling to test the additional 7.5 km of strike to the north of the resource area that has not been drilled yet but where trenching has shown similar mineralization. The other rig will concentrate on expanding the resource. U3O8 Corp. plans to start a scoping study this year.
Vanadium, phosphate and yttrium mineralization generally occur in a uranium-bearing layer that has an average thickness of three metres, as well as in the overlying rock, a feature that means “there is a strong possibility of increasing the resource of the other commodities at Berlin once mining and processing cost parameters have been more definitively established,” the company says.
“These costs will initially be estimated in a scoping study, and thereafter, the cut-off value used for resource estimation is likely to be based on a dollar rock-value instead of a specific uranium grade as was used in the current resource estimate.”
In addition to its Berlin deposit in Colombia, the Toronto-based exploration company has uranium projects in Guyana and Argentina.
Shares of U3O8 Corp. remained unchanged at 58¢ apiece in mid-morning trading in Toronto. Over the last year the junior has traded within a range of 24.5¢ and $1.32 per share. It has about 102.74 million shares, fully diluted.
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