After announcing the stock was halted yesterday morning, all eyes have been on the newswires for NexGen (NXE:TSXV) in anticipation of a new Athabasca Basin uranium discovery. Well, the anticipation is over and the company has made a discovery. Alright, an early-stage discovery. This find comes in an unexpected area which means more drilling is warranted and necessary. The company is currently drilling a 6,000m program at their Rook 1 project near Fission's Patterson Lake South discovery. This is the first result from their 2014 drill campaign but represents a positive sign this early in the program. This first hole was drilled into a prospect on the west flank of their project, known as the Arrow prospect.
The first hole at the Arrow prospect, RK-14-21, is still being drilled. From 204.8-231.0m downhole, it intersected 26.2m of sheared graphitic and garnetiferous breccia, with localized haematite-carbonate-graphite-chlorite alteration, set within a chloritised garnetiferous gneiss. A number of significant radioactive zones were measured using a hand-held Exploranium GR-110 total count scintillometer.
Andrew Browne, NexGen’s Vice-President, Exploration and Development, commented “The Arrow prospect represents a totally new zone of uranium mineralisation in the SW Athabasca Basin, completely unrelated to any other known occurrence in the region. Its discovery demonstrates the commitment and geoscientific expertise of NexGen’s technical team of employees and consultants.”
The 2014 drill campaign is being focused on a number of anomalous areas that the NexGen team have identified. According to Leigh Curyer, President and CEO, the company is now revising their plans in order to "substantially expand the program at Arrow and the other 11 western located Rook I target areas. The result indicates the potential of this south-western section of the Athabasca Basin in becoming a new prolific uranium district.”
The shares just resumed and are trading up over $0.27 per share at the time of writing to $0.50.