Crosshair Energy, the uranium/vanadium-focused developer with multiple projects throughout North America (currently emphasizing their two flagship sites, the Bootheel and Juniper Ridge uranium projects), reported today that the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) and the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality approved the addition of 149 boreholes (delineating, explorative, and infill) to the 2011 Notice of Intent to Drill for the company’s wholly-owned Juniper Ridge project (197 federal lode claims and one state mineral lease on some 4,710 acres).
Great news considering the drilling started this last weekend on the 14th of July. Projections for the 2012 drilling program are good, with CXZ looking to add considerably to the resource base at Juniper Ridge, while compiling a strong database to help hammer through the upcoming Source Materials License application with the NRC.
Phase I of the 2012 drilling program at Juniper Ridge (current NI 43-101 indicated resource estimate of 5.2M lbs of uranium oxide as per last year’s activity and extant historical work) will consist of some 24.3k feet of drilling, targeting primarily those areas with potential resources not covered by the 2011 program. This year’s drilling will also seek to further define the known mineralized trends, improving overall accuracy of recovery efforts. The plan calls for CXZ to turn over each site as it goes along and then do a sweeping reclamation pass at the end, subsequently submitting the requisite documentation for the remaining holes to be drilled in Phase II (should kick off in Aug/Sept). Crosshair has also locked down two conventional drills for the program via local company Single Water Services out of Glenrock, who has subsequently finished 24 bore holes.
The BLM was quite satisfied with CXZ’s five-year plan for Juniper Ridge and is working on an Environmental Assessment to support its evolution, helping to map out the impact of development at the site for the eventual NRC Source Materials License application. The company has also made a shrewd move to secure the future of this key site, contracting renowned environmental consultancy firm AATA International to spearhead a one-year baseline study of the environmental, cultural, and social resultants, something which will also help the Source Materials License application tremendously.
Overall receptivity to the project by the mining-friendly Wyoming has surely helped Crosshair advance the project this far and the company sees a real future for Juniper Ridge. The company switched it up this year and went for a broader spectrum Prompt Fission Neutron (PFN) logging approach (as opposed to the Uranium Spectrographic Analysis used in 2011) on mineralized targets to supplement conventional total gamma wireline logging, retaining GAA Wireline out of Jackson, MS, for their expertise in this area. While the methods are comparable and generally viewed by the industry as equivalent means of validating uranium concentration in situ, PFN was chosen for its resource migration compensating features, as the pulsed neutron source yields high fidelity data which is also unencumbered by often impinging borehole factors.
With President and CEO of CXZ, Mark Ludwig acting as the NI 43-101 Qualified Person, VP and Chief Geologist, Tom Bell, Ph.D., P.G., overseeing the entire project, and each of the company’s four chief geologists overseeing a rig (while coordinating the rock chip/wireline logging as well as reclamation), CXZ is really on top of the project and should continue to produce meaningful reportage moving forward. Shareholders will be eager to get a look at the results of Phase I of this year’s drilling program and all indications are good that the company will indeed be able to expand the resource defined by last year’s exploration efforts via the some 60k feet of drilling slated for 2012.
For more information on Crosshair Energy, please visit the company’s website located at:
www.CrosshairEnergy.com
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