Mauritania Projects

On the 8 November 2006 the Company announced a strategic investment in uranium exploration by the way of a 50% interest in a private mineral exploration company, Mauritania Ventures Limited. The aim of this company is to investigate the uranium potential of Mauritania, northwest Africa.

[NB.  On 3 November 2010 the Company was notified that the Mining Authorities in Mauritania had withdrawn the licence, citing a lack of additional exploration activity, even though the Company believed it had until 30 April 2011 to complete such activity.  MVL are considering challenging and/or appealing this decision. In the meantime the Company are in discussions with a third party concerning our position and involvement regarding Permit 422 and also in Mauritania generally going forward.]

Mauritania Ventures currently hold one uranium exploration licence, totaling 1,500 km2, in northern Mauritania. This licence was acquired to target three types of uranium mineralization, i.e.,  unconformity-hosted, granite-hosted and calcrete/silicrete-hosted.

Airborne uranium survey results on permit 422, northern Mauritania

The Company's technical staff considered that all of the northern permits to be highly prospective for unconformity-type uranium mineralization analogous to that seen in the Athabasca region of Canada. Examples of this type of mineralization are McArthur River and Rabbit Lake (Saskatchewan, Canada) and the Ranger III and Jabilunka II deposits (Northern Territory, Australia). The permits cover significant areas of an unconformable contact between early Proterozoic reworked granitic terrane and overlying sediments of late Proterozoic to Carboniferous age. Airborne geophysics, flown on behalf of the Mauritanian Government, reveal radiometric anomalies within a mapped, organic-rich unit near the base of this sedimentary sequence and coincident with its intersection of large, deep-penetrating crustal shear structures. Uranium mineralization is known to the north and northwest of the permit area, hosted in granites and rhyolites cut by these shear structures.

Uranium prospecting in northern Mauritania