Brian Benza
16 April 2008
An Australian company is to become the third firm active in Botswana's relatively novel area of uranium mining following the granting of an exploration licence to Impact Minerals.
A-Cap Resources and African Energy were the first two companies to be granted such a licence for a mineral whose worldwide demand is high due to its use as an alternative source of energy and in nuclear weaponry.
Impact Minerals, which was established to explore for deposits of uranium, gold and nickel and which was listed on the ASX in November 2006, has been granted exploration licences covering about 20,000 sq. km to explore specifically for uranium.
The company has extensive tenement holdings in Western Australia and Queensland, a portfolio of six projects with the potential for world-class deposits of nickel and significant deposits of gold and uranium.
In a statement, the company's Managing Director Michael Jones said the licences cover about 350 km of strike extensions of rocks that host deposits and prospects near Serule in the Central District.
"It also includes licences near and along strike from the Mokobaesi deposit reported by A-Cap Resources Limited to contain about 30 million lbs of U3O8, and the Foley Prospect, a recent discovery reported by African Energy Limited.
"Preliminary interpretation of airborne radiometric data over Impact's licences indicates that there are a large number of radiometric anomalies for immediate follow-up with ground prospecting activities. Field work is planned to start in May," Jones said.
Although extensive, the licences have a modest statutory expenditure in the first year at the end of which a statutory 50 percent reduction of the licences is required," he added. "The expansion of Impact's uranium exploration programme into Botswana is a major strategic addition to its existing projects in Queensland and Western Australia where Impact currently owns about 40 percent of the inferred resource of uranium oxide within the Nowthanna uranium deposit."
Impact also said it was currently in discussions with other parties with a view to joint uranium exploration in Africa.
Presently it is negotiating to buy a 15 percent share of Botswana's uranium licences currently being held by its southern Africa consultant John Blaine.
A-Cap Resources, which is drilling at its Mokobaesi and Kraken prospects which contain 20 million pounds of uranium, last year announced plans to fast track the exploration programme on the back of positive drilling results.
African Energy has also begun drilling at the Foley uranium anomaly in its wholly-owned Sese project 50km south of Francistown. Due to its increased demand which outstrips supply by a very wide margin, prices of the mineral have risen sharply from about $10 (P64.5) per lb in 2002 to about $100 (P645) per lb today. With the world's net electricity consumption expected to nearly double over the next two decades, some 30 new nuclear reactors are being built with expansion fastest in developing Asia, including China and India.
The abrupt rise of interest in nuclear energy is partly due to the fact that in this highly environmentally conscious age, nuclear plants are once again seen as clean energy as they emit a tiny fraction of the carbon dioxide produced by burning fossil fuels such as oil, coal or gas.
It has been used to produce nuclear weapons for more than 50 years and electricity for more than 40 years.
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