Okapi is off to Athabasca as Canada approves 10km of Middle Lake Uranium drills

Okapi has secured approvals from the Ministry of Environment, Government of Saskatchewan (GoS), to drill its Middle Lake uranium project in the Athabasca Basin, Canada.

The company now has a Crown Resource Land Work Authorization, an Aquatic Habitat Protection Permit, a Temporary Work Camp Permit, and Forest Product Permit – which together allow drilling of up to 10,000m in 24 drill holes and ground based geophysical surveys of up to 100-line kilometres.

It’s an important milestone for Okapi (ASX:OKR) as the team continues to advance its North American uranium projects, MD Andrew Ferrier says.

“Obtaining a permit to drill at our 80% owned Middle Lake Project in the Athabasca Basin, the world’s premier uranium district, provides the opportunity for the company to start exploration work on our highly prospective exploration properties located only 4km from the past producing Cluff Lake Mine which produced approximately 64 million pounds of uranium,” he said.

The permit is valid through to October 2023.

Focusing on historic data first

The Middle Lake Project has had a long history of exploration work completed with the last drill program occurring in the winter of 2015.

Okapi is confident there’s strong potential for economic mineralisation and its immediate aim is to take the historic data and reinterpret and remodel it to generate targets for drill testing.

“The proposed exploration program will focus on prioritising drill targets by reinterpreting the historic geochemistry, geophysics and drill data, combined with satellite imaging (currently underway) which will provide a structural framework,” Ferrier said.

“The highest priority drill targets will then be followed by a potential diamond core drilling program that is likely to be conducted in the North America winter of Q1 2023.”

The timing of work to be carried out on the Middle Lake Project will be contingent on the outcome of first nations engagement with the Clearwater River Dene Nation.

Okapi Resources

Right neighbourhood for uranium

Notably, the project is just 4kms from the historic Cluff Lake mine – which produced approximately 64.2 million pounds of U₃O₈ at 0.92% U₃O₈between 1988 and 2002.

Prior exploration work has identified sandstone boulder trains that have returned samples containing up to 16.9% U₃O₈, and in the southern portion of the project sandstone boulders have returned values up to 3.7% U₃O₈.²

Considering the work being carried out 15kms away at the Shea Creek Deposit which is in a Joint Venture with Orano and UEX (TSX:UEX) a focus of investigation will also be the northwesterly trend of the uranium mineralised fault zones that trend through the southwest corner of the Middle Lake Project.

This article was developed in collaboration with Okapi Resources Limited, 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.