Uranium whiffs for Infini from maiden Canadian drilling campaign

Infini Resources has released encouraging early uranium shows from a maiden diamond drilling program at the company’s Portland Creek project in Newfoundland, Canada.

Portland Creek turned heads last year with lab-busting soil assays that sent the share price skywards, rocketing Infini to the top group of share price gainers last year.

The anomalous uranium was reported from the company’s Falls Lake (formerly Talus) prospect, a high-grade uranium anomaly that Infini has finally tested for uranium after a tantalising nine months of sampling.

After facing weather delays, Infini has completed four diamond drill holes up to 617 metres in depth. Initial analysis using a portable XRF laser gun returned elevated uranium readings across all the holes.

Notable results include a peak grade of some 9391 parts per million (pmm) uranium oxide at 94.25m, a 4694ppm hit at 94.00m and 4328ppm at 95m from one hole. Two separate holes had hits of 1878ppm and 1220ppm from about 350m down hole.

The company says drilling has intersected 20m-75m wide shear zones featuring widespread hydrothermal alteration, including albite, chlorite, hematite, sericite, pyrite and fluorite veinlets. These characteristics are consistent with a shear-hosted - albitite-type - uranium deposit model, such as at known deposits like the Lagoa Real deposit in Brazil.

The mineralised zones align with a large alteration area identified by Infini’s UAV magnetic survey, suggesting a structural control tied to the 6-kilometre Trident Lake fault corridor.

Infini cautioned its XRF data is semi-quantitative and not a suitable alternative to assays. It is preparing core samples for laboratory testing to verify the findings.

The team is highly encouraged by the elevated uranium returned from point XRF across all drill holes to date, while also encountering a high degree of hydrothermal alteration, supporting the thesis of a proximal shear-hosted uranium system.

The company says its next two holes in the program are increasing in prominence. The upcoming holes will step out about 100m and 200m north from the current drill holes and will target structures coincident with the identified radiometric highs along the highly prospective Trident Lake Fault corridor. The zone was first explored by Conwest in the 1970s and has a history of high-grade uranium indications, which were never fully tested due to market conditions at the time.

Spanning 149 square kilometres, the Portland Creek project has been a focal point for Infini since July last year. Ultra high-grade soil results drove Infini’s share price from 15.5 cents to a peak of $1.035, a 567 per cent increase on the back of an unusually high uranium price.

The uranium price retreated to about US$65 (A$103) per pound, but has experienced renewed support in the past few weeks as the market refocusses on the long-term nuclear drivers f the yellow metal.

Taking note of its long-term promise, Infini has notably added to its Canadian uranium tenure by acquiring a considerable 254 square kilometres of ground in the world-class Athabasca Basin. Its latest Boulding Lake project lies immediately west of Denison Mines’ Johnston Lake uranium project and is close to the world-beating Athabasca neighbour, the Cigar Lake mine.

Cigar Lake’s underground mine has total mineral reserves of 551,400 tonnes at an astonishing grade of 15.87 per cent uranium oxide, or about 160,000 parts per million, for 192.9 million pounds of the material, which is used in nuclear reactors to produce energy.

While these initial drilling results are an early step, they underscore the prospectivity of Falls Lake and the broader Trident Lake Zone to feature a substantial uranium system in a country noted for its high-grade deposits. The truth test of lab results and the next batch of drilling will shape the narrative for this promising uranium project.

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@wanews.com.au