Standard Uranium (STND.V) announced last week (March 3rd 2023) that it had begun diamond drilling at its 100% owned Sun Dog Project located at the northwestern edge of the Athabasca Basin.
High priority uranium drill targets across the 15,770 hectare property were refined after diamond drilling and geophysics from the Winter 2022 program. Several gravity-low and resistivity anomalies have been identified and coincide with breaks or flexures in electromagnetic (EM) conductors under Athabasca sandstone cover, providing compelling unconformity-related uranium targets. The perched uranium mineralization present in the Athabasca sandstone outcrop on the Project remains to be properly drill-tested at depth, and during the 2023 winter drill program, the Company aims to discover the high-grade “roots” of these mineralizing systems in the basement rocks underlying the sandstone.
The Standard Uranium team arrived at the Project on February 27th, and drilling commenced at the first Java target drill hole on March 3rd, 2023. This season’s drill targets will focus on the Java, Johnston-Bay (“J-Bay”), Haven, and Skye target areas following up on known high-grade uranium mineralization and prospective alteration including dravite and clay alteration.
Jon Bey, President and CEO, commented “Our team of geologists have done a great job of extracting value from the historical exploration reports on the Project and coupling that information with our modern understanding of how these high-grade uranium systems work. Armed with the invaluable data collected from our inaugural drill program in 2022, we are poised for a very exciting drill program this winter.”
The Java Target at the north-west end of Johnston Island encompasses the historical JNW-1 prospect and a compelling unconformity-related uranium target area to the north. The JNW-1 prospect was channel sampled in 1977 by SMDC with results of 0.43% U3O8 over 4.2 m at surface. Individual grab samples from surface returned results as high as 12.4% U3O8.
The Johnston-Bay target area links the Java and Haven target areas and contains several kilometres of untested conductors coincident with NE-SW striking cross-faults and gravity low anomalies. Historical drill holes in the area have intersected sporadic mineralization with results up to 205 ppm U over 1.0 m within graphitic metapelite in drill hole LA1-005.
The Haven prospect was discovered by Standard Uranium during 2020 ground truth sampling. At the previously undocumented Haven prospect, 4 samples were collected, with 3 returning greater than 0.10% U3O8, and a maximum of 0.70% U3O8.
The stock currently is in its range/basing phase after bouncing from support at all time record lows. Drill results from this campaign could be the catalyst to get the stock back over $0.08, and carry the momentum forward to test the $0.135 resistance zone.
February 2023 was a bad month for commodities as a whole, but uranium managed to squeak out a 0.5% monthly gain. Be sure to check out my recent uranium weekly roundup to find out where uranium heads next!
