Bargain Barrel: Here are 15 uranium explorers under the $50m market cap mark

Nuclear industry forecasters are more bullish than they’ve been in years with spot uranium prices hitting a decade high of US$67/lb this week.

On the demand side, there’s a forecasted supply shortfall of approximately 1.5 billion pounds by 2040.

When you take that into consideration, the bullish reports from the World Nuclear Association (WNA) and price reporter Ux Consulting make sense when they say new operations will be needed to fill uranium demand from nuclear power plants will almost double by 2040.

Not to mention that countries which had been less than enthusiastic on nuclear are looking to sanction new developments amid the energy transition because they provide baseload electricity with lower emissions than fossil fuel plants.

There’s a lot of crap down the cheap end of the bourse. There are also some absolute gems that, with a little polishing, could shine.

“It’s much easier to get a 10,000 bagger if you start with a sub $2m market cap, than if you start with a $200m market cap,” legendary investor Rick Rule says. Too right.

Today we’re focussing on sub $50m resources explorers with exposure to uranium — a thematic which has re-emerged with a vengeance in 2023.

Could one of these 15 bargain barrel stocks be the next Cameco, Boss Energy (ASX:BOE) or Paladin Energy (ASX:PDN) ?

Who’s got a market cap under $50m?

Adavale Resources (ASX:ADD)

Market Cap: $10m

The company is planning the next phase of exploration at its Lake Surprise’ project — ~90km from the Four Mile uranium mine in South Australia — which has been in the portfolio since 2006.

Aurora Energy Metals (ASX:1AE)

Market Cap:$17m

The company is focused on the exploration and development of its namesake project in Oregon, USA, which hosts a defined uranium resource of 107.3Mt at 214ppm U3O8 for 50.6 Mlbs U3O8 – and is also prospective for lithium.

A scoping level metallurgical testwork program is currently underway using samples from the latest drill campaign.

Basin Energy (ASX:BSN)

Market Cap: $9m

BSN has interests in three projects in the world renowned uranium district of the Athabasca Basin in Canada. This includes the North Millennium project, strategically located just 7km from Cameco’s high-grade 104.8Mlb Millennium deposit.

The company recently identified priority uranium targets at North Millennium along a 5km target corridor.

GTI Energy (ASX:GTR)

Market Cap: $18m

The company has three uranium plays in Wyoming, USA, including Lo Herma, Green Mountain and the Great Divide Basin (GDB) project.

Earlier this year they declared a resource at the Thor and Teebo Uranium Prospects in the GDB project of 1.32mt at 570 ppm U3O8 for 1.66mlbs of U3O8.

The company also released an exploration target for the GDB of between 6.6 to 8.1mt at a grade range of between 420 ppm to 530 ppm U3O8 containing an estimated 6.1 to 9.5mlbs U3O8, along with an exploration target for Lo Herma of between 7.3 to 9.0mt at a grade range of between 500 ppm to 700 ppm U3O8 containing an estimated 8.1 to 13.9mlbs U3O8.

GTR also has ~1,800 ha of holdings in the Henry Mountains region of Utah.

Haranga Resources (ASX:HAR)

Market Cap: $10m

The company is eyeing a resource for its Saraya project in Senegal, Africa, sometime this quarter.

The project was previously owned by uranium giant Orano (previously Areva) and which has in excess of 65,000m of historical drilling.

The company reckons there’s a fair bit of exploration potential for additional uranium mineralisation across Saraya’s 1,650km2 footprint too.

ADD, 1AE, BSN, GTR and HAR share prices today:

Manhattan Corp (ASX:MHC)

Market Cap: $23m

The company holds the 460km2 Ponton uranium project in WA which has a resource of 26Mt for 17.2Mlb grading 300ppm U3O8 at a 200ppm cutoff.

Marmota (ASX:MEU)

Market Cap: $35m

MEU is evaluating its Junction Dam uranium tenement immediately adjacent to Boss’s Honeymoon uranium mine in SA, which it picked up in October 2021.

The project has a resource of 5.4 million pounds U3O8 with an average grade of 557 ppm U3O8, plus an exploration target of 22–33 million pounds U3O8 at approx. 400 to 700 ppm U3O8.

Moab Minerals (ASX:MOM)

Market Cap: $8m

Moab is currently drilling an initial three holes of a targeted 21-hole program at its Colorado REX uranium-vanadium project to test eastward extensions of known mineralisation.

The company owns 60% of the REX project, which is located within the famed Uravan Mineral Belt of Colorado and is just down the road from the White Mesa Mill which is the only fully licensed and operating conventional uranium-vanadium mill in the US.

Location of Moab’s REX project in Uravan Uranium Belt of Colorado. Source: MOM

Norfolk Metals (ASX:NFL)

Market Cap: $4m

NFL is poised to start maiden drilling targeting known uranium occurrences delineated by geophysics at its Orroroo project in South Australia.

The company reckons the project is a prime area for sandstone-hosted uranium discoveries due to the presence of the Walloway coal measure – considered to be a prime-reducing environment for the precipitation of uranium mineralisation – as well as the gamma anomalies identified within previous Linc Energy drillholes.

Resolution Minerals (ASX:RML)

Market Cap: $6m

RML is mainly focused on finding monster copper-gold deposits, but it does have a couple of projects prospective for uranium in the NT – and considers its Benmara project highly prospective with the 51.9Mlb Westmoreland uranium deposit nearby.

Notably, the company’s new MD Chris McFadden is also chairman and co-founder of ~$4bn market cap company NexGen Energy (TSX:NXE) which has the largest development-stage uranium project in Canada.

MHC, MEU, MOM, NFL and RML share prices today:

Terra Uranium (ASX:T92)

Market Cap: $7m

Terra holds the Hawk Rock, Parker Lake, and Pasfield Lake projects in Canada’s Athabasca Basin.

Park Lake in particular is just 50km from Cameco’s Cigar Lake and McArthur River mines.

The company recently reported results from the first hole at the Park Lake project which returned a peak grade of 32.5ppm over 0.2 metres in diamond drilling.

Thor Energy (ASX:THR)

Market Cap: $11m

The company has three projects within a historic high-grade uranium-vanadium mining district in Colorado, known as the Uravan mineral belt, which has produced +85 million pounds of uranium oxide and 660 million pounds of vanadium over the past 100 years.

THR just raised $1m via a placement at $0.042 per share to kick off a 4,000m RC drilling program at the Radium Mountain/Wedding Bell project in Colorado, followed by a maiden drilling campaign at Vanadium King project in Utah.

The drilling is expected to commence later this month.

Uvre (ASX:UVA)

Market Cap: $5m

The company recently identified a 2.4km+ long uranium anomaly during airbourne surveys at the Loya Ray prospect, part of at its East Canyon project in Utah.

The target is further supported by previous rock chip uranium and vanadium laboratory analysis which returned 0.37% U3O8 and 1.69% V2O5 and 0.34% U3O8 and 1.10% V2O5.

Follow up on ground exploration is set to commence shortly.

Valor Resources (ASX:VAL)

Market Cap: $15m

The company recently streamlined its portfolio through the sale of its Peruvian copper projects, allowing it to focus on its highly prospective uranium and rare earth assets in Canada’s Athabasca Basin.

Plus, VAL also recently added to its Canadian portfolio, staking the Beatty River heavy rare earth and uranium project.

Drilling planning is underway and expected to kick off in Q1 2024 at the Hidden Bay uranium project – which is just 20km from Cameco’s historic Rabbit Lake mine.

West Wits Mining (ASX:WWI)

Market Cap: $32m

The company’s Witwatersrand Basin project in South Africa has the potential to be both a gold and uranium project, with drilling last year flagging results including 1.59m at 835ppm U and 1.46g/t Au from 85.11m, including 0.96m at 1,321ppm U and 2.30g/t Au from 85.74m.

The company is now considering phase 2 drilling to delineate a uranium resource at the project.

T92, THR, UVA, VAL and WWI share prices today:

At Stockhead we tell it like it is. While Marmota, Resolution Minerals, Adavale Resources, Norfolk Metals, Basin Energy, Aura Energy, Manhattan Corporation, Moab Minerals, West Wits Mining, Valor Resources and Uvre are Stockhead advertisers, they did not sponsor this article.