A-Cap announces increased uranium resource

Brian Benza
Staff Writer | Friday July 11, 2008 00:00

The development will hasten the opening of the first ever uranium mine in the country. On Tuesday, a statement from the company said that the new resource, prepared in compliance with the JORC Code, covers approximately 9km by 3km to a maximum depth of 70m and has been calculated by SRK Consulting as part of the Letlhakane Project scoping study.

The scoping study is now anticipated to be finalised in mid-2008.
A-Cap managing director, Dr Andrew Tunks said that at a cut-off grade of 100ppm of the Inferred Mineral Resource is estimated at 280 million tonnes.

'These figures represent a 330 percent increase in tonnes and a 13  percent increase in grade leading to an 390 percent increase in contained metal at the same cut-off (100ppm) when compared to the previous resource estimate.

'Significant areas of the resource remain open along the strike and regional diamond drilling confirm the presence of similar styles of mineralisation up to 10km outside the boundary of the resource,' he said.

Last year the A-Cap board of directors announced its intention to fast track the exploration programme in Botswana on the back of positive drilling results.

Tunks said that the inferred resource is an exciting milestone in A-Cap's quest to become Botswana's first uranium producer.

'However, the board of A-Cap believes that these estimates are only the early stages of discovery of a potentially much larger mineralised field. Exploration drilling will continue on the Letlhakane project in the coming months.

The initial focus is the Serule area, some 10km south of the current resource. Drilling for extensions on the current resource is also being planned and should commence in the third quarter of 2008,' he said. A-Cap has a prospecting licence covering 4,500km2 in the Central District.

The company announced last year that it has discovered  new  uranium deposits in Serule. Uranium is currently in huge demand in the world due to its alternative use as a source of energy.

Due to the increased demand, which outstrips supply by a very wide margin, prices of the mineral have risen sharply from about $10 per lb in 2002 to over $100 per lb.

With world net electricity consumption expected to nearly double over the next two decades, some 30 new nuclear reactors are being built with the fastest expansion in Asia, especially China and India.

A-Cap has operations in Botswana, Australia and China. The company's  uranium exploration portfolio includes five other tenements with uranium anomalies discovered in the 1970s.

The company initially came to Botswana for copper-nickel exploration, but went into uranium when prices for the metal improved. Its current project was previously owned by Falconbird of Japan in the 1970s and 1980s.

Uranium has been used to produce nuclear weapons and electricity for more than 40 years and is seen to be more environmentally friendly as a source of energy.