Location
Energia has one Exploration Licence application (E45/2886) of approximately 194km2 in the Paterson Province of central northern Western Australia, and located approximately 15km northwest of the Kintyre deposit, a large undeveloped deposit (77 Mlbs U3O8 at average grade 0.15%). Kintyre was discovered by CRA in 1985 and was sold in August 2008 to Cameco-Mitsubishi for US$495 million.

Kintyre is a basement-hosted deposit of the unconformity associated type. It comprises mainly pitchblende veining and fractures with hematite alteration in chloritised schists within the Rudall metamorphics, and is considered to be geologically similar to many deposits in the Alligator Rivers region of the Pine Creek Geosyncline (Northern Territory, Australia). These in turn have close parallels with the world-class deposits in the Athabasca Basin (Canada) although many of the latter (including the biggest and highest grade) tend to occur above the unconformity within the overlying sediments.

Project Geology and Exploration History

Energia’s application area is predominantly underlain by the Coolbro Sandstone, the basal unit of the Yeneena Basin. The Yeneena Basin is now known to be part of the Neoproterozoic Centralian Superbasin and is host to the large Telfer copper-gold deposit (located some 55km to the northeast) and the Nifty copper deposit (some 60km to the northwest) at higher straitigraphic levels.

Given its proximity to Kintyre, there have been numerous previous exploration campaigns over the application area and its surrounds. However, very little of this has resulted in drilling. To assist in targeting, the Company’s consultant geophysicists have carried out an interpretation of the Geoscience Australia regional Australia regional airborne electromagnetic (AEM) survey released in June 2009. A number of discrete conductors were identified and interpreted to be deep bedrock features. These could represent graphite-bearing fault zones in the sandstone or basement and as such may be prospective sites for uranium mineralisation (Figure 7).

Figure 7. Location of airborne EM targets - Tabletop Project geology and magnetic