Stock Trading: The World’s Finest Kept Uranium Secret
Perhaps the White House flap as to regardless of whether or not Saddam Hussein’s government tried to purchase uranium ore through the country of Niger was the best publicity Niger has had about its uranium production for more than two decades. How several geologists know that the Republic of Niger ranks fourth, behind Canada, Australia and Kazakhstan, in terms from the quantity of uranium annually produced worldwide?
Named after the river which runs by means of it, Niger produces nearly four times the uranium presently mined in the United States. A lot more uranium is mined in Niger than in Russia, South Africa, India, China, Brazil, Ukraine Namibia or Uzbekistan. In truth, should you additional up the total amount of uranium mined in South Africa, China, India, Brazil, Czech Republic and also the Ukraine for 2004, Niger would trump the combined manufacturing of those six countries. Until Dr. Jon Northern came along, uranium mining was pretty a lot monopolized by Cogema and a consortium that includes Spanish and Japanese interests.
“This is the fourth largest uranium producer within the globe,” raved an excited Dr. North into his cell phone in the course of our taped interview. “Niger has by no means had an entrepreneurial and nimble junior mining company ever explore for uranium. And this may be the first one.” North was talking about Northwestern Mineral Ventures (TSX: NWT; OTC BB: NWTMF). “Imagine if Australia, Canada and Kazakhstan having by no means had a junior company trying to find uranium. It’s actually absolutely absurd to even take into account the concept.”
The Republic of Niger supplies about 9 percent of the world’s annual creation to meet the growing require for uranium to fuel the world’s nuclear reactors. According for the IAEA-NEA Red Book of 2003, the sub-Saharan Niger ranked #4 behind Australia, Kazakhstan and Canada for total uranium reserves. In the 2005 update, it fell to seventh place. It might be that this nation is under-explored. In 1981, Niger produced a peak of 4366 tonnes of uranium. As with others, mining manufacturing plummeted while using spot cost of uranium during the 1980s and 1990s. The slump hit the nation hard because Niger depends upon uranium for greater than 30 percent of its exports, more than $100 million. Five % with the country’s tax revenues arrive from uranium mining.
Dr. North discussed how he came to obtain concessions for equally his company, Northern Atlantic Resources (TSX: NAC) and Northwestern Mineral Ventures, in which he serves as a director and helps guide geological colleague and president Marek Kreczmer. “I traveled close to the Sahara Desert twice on field trips having a neighborhood Niger geologist prior to I decided to apply for permits. When I did this in 2004 using the minister of mines, he said to me, ‘You know, you’re the very first person to ever do this, as well as the only folks who have carried out this are energy businesses or governments.’ So, I informed him I would like to utilize for two permits.” Northern obtained two for Northwestern Mineral Ventures and one more for North Atlantic Resources.
Salt Tectonics the Key to Uranium in Niger
Northern explained, “We selected the projects depending on the geologic ingredients that we felt had been essential in the control and distribution within the uranium, for example, but not limited to, northwest trending fault corridors, northeast trending fault corridors, and inliers of stratigraphy that are popping up by means of younger parts with the stratigraphy.” According to Northern, the salt structures are the key to discovering uranium inside the Republic of Niger. “The northeast and northwest faults, as well as the inlier there, are all salt-related structures,” Northern remarked. An inlier is an area or formation of older rocks totally surrounded by younger layers. “For decades, the oilfield people have understood, emphasized and completed investigation on salt, the deposition and then the movement of salt by means of stratigraphic sequences,” Northern pointed out.
Salt is very typical but it doesn’t final extremely lengthy in stratigraphy and it escapes, North explained. “When it escapes, it forms walls and diapirs (an anticlinal fold where the salt has pierced through the more brittle overlying rock).” Oil exploration geologists pay attention to these because they tend to form permeability barriers to oil and gas deposits. North is interested in them for any different reason, “We noticed that the salt diapirs, in which they escaped via the sequence in Niger, coincided with the distribution of uranium deposits.”
Uranium inside the Republic of Niger is mined by open pit due to the fact of the sandstones. “These are redox deposits,” North noted. “They tend to become associated with reduced layers and structures, for instance the former salt diapirs and faults inside the stratigraphy. In the time, we didn’t really realize why we have been performing that. We just knew there was an association with uranium deposits and these structures in Niger.”
That appears to have made Dr. North’s job a walk inside the park, or in this case, a walk inside the desert. How do you inexpensively explore concessions of 2,000 square kilometers each and every? That is about 24 miles and 30 miles each, equally within the desert. “If you do the target selection carefully, and you stick for the salt diapirs, individuals truly narrow down the search,” Northern revealed. “When we do our first multi sensor mag and radiometric survey, which will happen within the next couple of months, we will map out individuals structures and functions, and look for radiometric anomalies connected with them. When we have that info, we’ll have at least 50 drill targets on those projects.” There appear being no scarcity of drill targets about the concessions.
Without that information, North believed he could have picked out ten high top quality drill targets, just in the geology map. “They display up as circular bull’s eyes on geology maps,” Northern noted excitedly. “In the desert they demonstrate up as lower hills. They’re topographic anomalies exactly where you have about maybe 50 meters of relief. It’s just a low rise simply because the desert is flat as piss on a plate.” Northern explained which you can drive anywhere by pointing your vehicle and stepping about the gas. “The only issues inside your way are these very lower hills, and those hills are connected to either faults or inliers (exposed older rocks surrounded by younger rocks).” Initial targeting comes straight from a topography map.
A Vote of Confidence on Current Progress
But what concerning the availability of drill rigs for this project? North conceded there can be a global shortage. But he shot back, “There’s a drilling company in West Africa called West African Drilling services – and surprise! surprise! – I’ve been functioning with them for your past four many years.” Northern has already discussed moving a rig in with them. “Quite honestly, it’s actually not a big issue,” he stated. Neither is labor or the price of drilling. “We pay an all-inclusive cost of approximately US$150/meter,” North told us. “Labor costs are extremely low, about one-third the cost of Northern America. We use all neighborhood individuals due to the fact that’s what we do in Mali. There are lots of highly trained, skilled geologists in Niger.”
Clearly, Northwest Mineral Ventures is excited. “We are really pleased to be one from the first North American companies to acquire exploration permits in Niger – a region that has not been explored making use of modern techniques and has, till now, been a single with the world’s best-kept uranium secrets,” Northwestern’s Chairman and CEO Kabir Ahmed told Reuters in wire service story published in March.
Northwestern Mineral President Marek Krezcmer, who has been a geologist for greater than thirty years, seventeen of which were spent exploring in Africa, was also enthused in regards to the company’s prospects in Niger, “We know there is uranium mineralization around the surface, determined by the work which was carried out by Jon Northern. I consider we can succeed. We’re likely to find uranium.” Kreczmer is familiar with geology in Africa and accomplishing company on this continent. “I’ve worked in Tanzania, Zambia, Swaziland, Ethiopia and Eritrea,” stated Kreczmer. He was optimistic about creating Northwestern Mineral Venture’s uranium concessions, “Our enterprise plan there’s to discover mineralization, and (have) probably someone like Cogema grow to be a partner of selection.”
At Cogema’s seven open pit uranium mines which feed the Arlitt mill, the grades have operate 0.3 percent with 2003 manufacturing at 1126 tonnes. In the two open pit uranium mines which feed the Akouta mill, grades have run at in between 0.4 and 0.5 % with 2003 manufacturing at 2017 tonnes. Krezcmer explained that Northwestern’s exploration licenses are valid to get a period of nine many years, three-year licenses which are renewable three times. The country’s mining act, according to Krezcmer allows Northwestern to utilize for any mining license, which could be granted for among 25 and 70 years.
We have been concerned with any political situations, but equally North and Kreczmer assured us the country is stable. “When I initial went to Niger in November 2004, and that was throughout the final election, it honestly looked like plenty of fun. Everybody had a little piece of rag tied close to their wrist or tied to the antenna of their car to represent their political affiliation.” Kreczmer added, “My experience working in Africa is the fact that because this country relies so heavily on foreign aid, the Globe Bank has fantastic influence.”
The Republic of Niger has North’s vote on confidence. He has worked for the past few many years as Chief Executive of North Atlantic Assets, which hopes to develop its Kantela gold property in Mali. Niger and Mali and demographically and geographical identical, he informed us. Northern feels Niger is going to become more aggressive in creating its uranium properties. He talked about how the President of Niger told his minister of mines, “Get out there and advertise Niger as being open for business. We want folks to appear in here and invest. We want to give them mineral rights, and we want them to do what Mali is accomplishing.” From the looks of it, the very first to jump on the Niger bandwagon had been Northwestern Minerals and Northern Atlantic Resources, but they won’t be the last.
“My encounter with Niger is that it’s a peaceful, democratic country with no civil unrest. Let’s put it this way. They have less civil unrest than France.” Ironically, French is one from the country’s official languages. “You gotta be fair, proper?” asked North. “The French recently stormed the Bastille in France, and they didn’t do anything like that in Niger.”
Just how exhilarated is Dr. Jon North? “The excitement in the market is we do the airborne survey,” he enthused. “We discover some radiometric anomalies that correlated within inliers. We display the model. If that doesn’t excite people, then I don’t think their hearts are beating.”
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