Annual Technical Review 3 July 2012 to 2 July 2013 EL 24291, EL 26796 GR043/09

Abstract

The Beatrice project comprises two exploration licences (EL 24291 and EL 26796), located in western Arnhem Land, approximately 250 km east of Darwin. The project exploration licences were granted to Cameco Australia Pty. Ltd. (Cameco) on 04 July 2008. The Beatrice project tenements (EL 24291 and EL 26796) were granted amalgamated technical and expenditure reporting status by Northern Territory Department of Resources (now the Department of Mines and Energy) on 09 November 2011. The approved and allocated group reporting ID is GR 043/09. The focus of Cameco's exploration strategy in Arnhem Land is the discovery of unconformity-related uranium deposits. The archetype unconformity-style uranium deposits are found in the Athabasca Basin of northern Saskatchewan, Canada. The prospective nature of the Alligator Rivers region is demonstrated by the presence of nearby deposits at Ranger, Jabiluka, Koongarra, and the now depleted Nabarlek Mine. The presence of gold, palladium and platinum in these deposits and the economic gold-platinum resource at Coronation Hill in the South Alligator Valley, indicates an additional potential for this deposit style. These major deposits appear to have a common position relative to the base of the Kombolgie Subgroup i.e. the Paleoproterozoic unconformity, or to its erosional margin, and serve here as exploration models. The Beatrice project is considered to be prospective for uranium mineralisation because of the proximity to the unconformity between metasedimentary packages and the overlying Kombolgie Subgroup, and association of chlorite and hematite altered breccia with fault structures. In addition, alternative mineralisation styles are also present in the area, such as the shear-zone hosted mineralisation at the Beatrice prospect. The exploration program for the reporting period consisted of one helicopter-supported drillhole, BTDD0001. The drillhole intersected intervals of granitoid gneiss and granitoid with porphyritic texture from the top of the drillhole until 77.4 m, granitic gneiss from 77.4 - 95.7 m and equigranular biotite-rich granodiorite from 95.7 m to the end of the drillhole at 206.8 m. Structural disruption is limited to several sheared intervals within biotite-rich granodiorite. There is no evidence of strong hydrothermal alteration or elevated radioactivity.