Toro Energy (ASX: TOE) is a uranium explorer operating in Western Australia, the Northern Territory, South Australia and in the African country of Namibia.
The company’s Western Australian Wiluna Project is at an advanced stage in government assessment and approval. The project hosts two shallow, generally less than 10m deep, calcrete deposits with a Measured, Indicated and Inferred resource of 24.4Mlbs of contained uranium
Toro Energy kicks off new drilling at Lake Mackay uranium discovery
Toro Energy (ASX: TOE) has commenced a new phase of drilling of at least 9000 metres at its 100% owned Lake Mackay uranium project, following the discovery of the Theseus uranium prospect during Toro’s highly successful first phase of aircore drilling at the project late in 2009.
The Lake Mackay exploration licences cover 3000km² of unexplored ground in the Lake Mackay area in north-eastern Western Australia.
The aircore drilling program is currently underway and is designed to delineate new areas of mineralisation around the Theseus Prospect.
Toro said the drilling will cheaply and efficiently test for the existence of palaeochannel trends and downhole radiometric anomalism in other parts of the project area as well as follow up other anomalous intersections from the 2009 program.
Greg Hall, managing director, said “prior to last year’s discovery of uranium mineralisation at the Theseus prospect, the Lake Mackay area had not experienced any form of modern exploration.”
“The area is an exciting, genuine greenfields project that is considered highly prospective for a number of uranium mineralisation styles, including: palaeochannel sand hosted; sandstone hydrocarbon-associated; calcrete hosted; and iron-oxide copper gold uranium (IOCGU),” Hall said.
This drilling program will also test near-surface conductive anomalies identified by the late 2009 Tempest airborne electromagnetic survey and the newly acquired detailed magnetics-radiometrics survey covering the eastern half of the project area.
The uranium mineralisation already identified at the Theseus Prospect will be explored and in-filled by a subsequent program of mud rotary drilling totalling 10,000m, which is specifically designed for the prevailing unconsolidated wet sand conditions.
Mud rotary drilling will also be used to follow-up any anomalies generated by the 2010 aircore program.
The company said there will be more or less continual drilling at the Lake Mackay Project from now until early September, with assay results released on a regular basis.
“We have embarked on an extensive drilling program in a frontier uranium province in which Toro is first mover. Funding is in accord with the high degree of prospectivity of the project and will see the company well positioned to increase its stable of advanced uranium projects in Australia,” Hall said.
“The drilling announced today is in addition to Toro’s recently completed detailed airborne
magnetics and radiometrics survey at Lake Mackay and we are well advanced in scheduling drilling programs at our other key exploration projects."
"This includes Birrindudu (also in Western Australia), where Toro is in Joint Venture with Canadian major Cameco (TSX: CCO, NYSE: CCJ), and the Reynolds Range and Sandover projects in the Northern Territory,” he said.
