Deeper drilling at Lo Herma has confirmed that uranium trends are present in the upper Fort Union Formation. Pic: Getty Images
Drilling in deeper formation confirms resource grade uranium mineralisation and thickness at GTI’s Lo Herma
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- GTI Energy drilling confirms presence of deeper mineralisation with elevated grades across good thickness in the upper Fort Union Formation
- Best total hole gt of 1.092 over 7 metres in 5 stacked sand units in LH-24-069
- Results including 1m at 1850ppm eU3O8 and 2m at 740ppm eU3O8 could deliver significant upside potential
- Further drilling will consist of hydrogeologic and water monitoring wells to be completed in October
- GTI is working towards a mineral resource and exploration target update later in 2024
Special Report: An additional seven drill holes completed at GTI Energy’s Lo Herma ISR uranium project in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin has confirmed the presence of deeper mineralisation with elevated grades.
The drill holes, which brings the 73-hole development drilling campaign for 2024 to a close, returned top intercepts in this last batch of holes of 1m grading 1850 parts per million (ppm) eU3O8 in LH-24-071 and 2m at 740ppm eU3O8 in LH-24-069.
LH-24-069 also returned a best total hole grade thickness (GT) – average U3O8 grade multiplied by thickness of leachable sand – of 1.092 over 7.16m in five-stacked sand units.
Six of the seven holes were purposely drilled to test deeper mineralisation in the upper Fort Union Formation and five of these holes intersected on trend mineralisation while four holes exceeded the minimum GT resource cut-off of 0.2GT.
Importantly for GTI Energy (ASX:GTR), the confirmation of uranium mineralisation within the upper Fort Union Formation could deliver significant upside potential for Lo Herma.
“We are delighted that these results confirm excellent grades across good thicknesses in multiple stacked sands of the Fort Union formation,” executive director and CEO Bruce Lane said.
“We remain very optimistic that additional pounds from this eastern part of Lo Herma can be bought into resource and that our exploration will also benefit.
“This year’s drilling has successfully confirmed that stacked sand units of both the lower Wasatch & upper Fort Union contain reliable continuity of mineralisation across extended areas of the project.
“The 2024 resource drilling is now completed with hydrogeologic and water monitoring wells to be completed in October. Following completion of that work, we plan to update the mineral resource estimate and exploration target for Lo Herma by year end.”
Lo Herma project
The Lo Herma project already hosts a resource of 5.71Mlbs U3O8 at an average grade of 630ppm and is about ~10 miles from Cameco’s Smith Ranch-Highland plant, the largest ISR uranium production facility in the US.
The Powder River Basin also has an extensive history of ISR uranium production history and hosts several permitted central processing plants and satellite deposits.
ISR mining has become the world’s dominant form of uranium mining due its low cost and low surface impacts, with the process involving pumping a leach solution into a subterranean uranium orebody.
GTR’s recently completed resource development drill program was aimed at both expanding and upgrading the certainty of the Lo Herma resource.
Future activities
The company plans to resume drilling in October with a focus on completing several hydrogeologic investigation drill holes including the installation of monitoring wells.
Once this work is completed, the company will them move to update its resource estimate and exploration target before the end of 2024.
This article was developed in collaboration with GTI Energy, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.
This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.
