Perhaps the White House flap as to regardless of whether or not Saddam Hussein’s federal government tried to get uranium ore from the region of Niger was the finest publicity Niger has had about its uranium production for a lot more than two decades. How several geologists realize that the Republic of Niger ranks fourth, at the rear of Canada, Australia and Kazakhstan, in terms from the quantity of uranium annually created worldwide?
Named after the river which runs via it, Niger generates almost four times the uranium at present mined in the united states. Much more uranium is mined in Niger than in Russia, South Africa, India, China, Brazil, Ukraine Namibia or Uzbekistan. In truth, should you added up the total level of uranium mined in South Africa, China, India, Brazil, Czech Republic and the Ukraine for 2004, Niger would trump the combined manufacturing of those six countries. Until Dr. Jon North came along, uranium mining was quite a lot monopolized by Cogema along with a consortium that includes Spanish and Japanese interests.
“This could be the fourth largest uranium producer within the globe,” raved an excited Dr. Northern into his cell mobile phone during our taped interview. “Niger has by no means had an entrepreneurial and nimble junior mining company ever discover for uranium. And this may be the first one.” North was talking about Northwestern Mineral Ventures (TSX: NWT; OTC BB: NWTMF). “Imagine if Australia, Canada and Kazakhstan possessing never had a junior organization seeking for uranium. It’s absolutely absurd to even think about the concept.”
The Republic of Niger materials about 9 % from the world’s annual creation to meet the growing need for uranium to energy the world’s nuclear reactors. According to the IAEA-NEA Red Book of 2003, the sub-Saharan Niger ranked #4 at the rear of Australia, Kazakhstan and Canada for total uranium reserves. In the 2005 update, it fell to seventh location. It may possibly be that this country is under-explored. In 1981, Niger produced a peak of 4366 tonnes of uranium. As with others, mining production plummeted with the spot price of uranium during the 1980s and 1990s. The slump hit the region difficult since Niger depends upon uranium for a lot more than 30 percent of its exports, greater than $100 million. 5 % of the country’s tax revenues come from uranium mining.
Dr. Northern discussed how he came to acquire concessions for each his organization, North Atlantic Assets (TSX: NAC) and Northwestern Mineral Ventures, in which he serves as a director and assists guide geological colleague and president Marek Kreczmer. “I traveled all around the Sahara Desert twice on field trips having a neighborhood Niger geologist before I made the decision to apply for permits. When I did this in 2004 while using minister of mines, he stated to me, ‘You know, you’re the very first individual to actually do this, and the only folks who’ve carried out this are energy companies or governments.’ So, I told him I would like to apply for two permits.” Northern obtained two for Northwestern Mineral Ventures and one more for North Atlantic Means.
Salt Tectonics the Crucial to Uranium in Niger
North explained, “We selected the projects determined by the geologic ingredients that we felt had been crucial within the control and distribution in the uranium, for instance, but not limited to, northwest trending fault corridors, northeast trending fault corridors, and inliers of stratigraphy that are popping up via younger parts of the stratigraphy.” In accordance with Northern, the salt structures are the important to discovering uranium inside the Republic of Niger. “The northeast and northwest faults, and the inlier there, are all salt-related structures,” Northern remarked. An inlier is an region or formation of older rocks completely surrounded by younger layers. “For decades, the oilfield folks have understood, emphasized and completed research on salt, the deposition and then the movement of salt by means of stratigraphic sequences,” North pointed out.
Salt is extremely common nonetheless it does not last extremely extended in stratigraphy also it escapes, North explained. “When it escapes, it forms walls and diapirs (an anticlinal fold exactly where the salt has pierced through the a lot more brittle overlying rock).” Oil exploration geologists pay attention to these simply because they have a tendency to form permeability barriers to oil and gas deposits. North is interested in them for a various reason, “We noticed that the salt diapirs, in which they escaped through the sequence in Niger, coincided using the distribution of uranium deposits.”
Uranium inside the Republic of Niger is mined by open up pit because of the sandstones. “These are redox deposits,” Northern noted. “They tend being connected with reduced layers and structures, for instance the former salt diapirs and faults within the stratigraphy. On the time, we didn’t really understand why we were doing that. We just knew there was an association with uranium deposits and these structures in Niger.”
That seems to have produced Dr. North’s job a walk inside the park, or on this case, a walk inside the desert. How do you inexpensively discover concessions of a couple of,000 square kilometers each? That is about 24 miles and 30 miles every, each within the desert. “If you do the target selection carefully, and also you stick to the salt diapirs, individuals really narrow down the search,” North revealed. “When we do our first multi sensor mag and radiometric survey, which will happen within the following couple of months, we will map out those structures and features, and try to find radiometric anomalies associated with them. When we have that info, we’ll have at least 50 drill targets on individuals projects.” There appear to become no scarcity of drill targets about the concessions.
Without having that information, North believed he could have picked out ten higher top quality drill targets, just in the geology map. “They show up as circular bull’s eyes on geology maps,” North noted excitedly. “In the desert they show up as lower hills. They are topographic anomalies where you’ve about maybe 50 meters of relief. It’s just a reduced rise because the desert is flat as piss on a plate.” North explained that you can drive anywhere by pointing your vehicle and stepping on the gas. “The only issues inside your way are these extremely lower hills, and individuals hills are connected to either faults or inliers (exposed older rocks surrounded by younger rocks).” Initial targeting comes straight from a topography map.
A Vote of Confidence on Existing Progress
But what concerning the availability of drill rigs for this project? Northern conceded there can be a global shortage. But he shot back again, “There’s a drilling business in West Africa called West African Drilling services – and surprise! surprise! – I’ve been operating with them for the past four many years.” North has already discussed moving a rig in with them. “Quite honestly, it’s actually not a large issue,” he said. Neither is labor or the cost of drilling. “We pay an all-inclusive price of approximately US$150/meter,” Northern told us. “Labor expenses are extremely low, about one-third the expense of North America. We use all neighborhood folks because that is what we do in Mali. You can find lots of very trained, skilled geologists in Niger.”
Clearly, Northwest Mineral Ventures is excited. “We are really pleased being among the very first Northern American companies to acquire exploration permits in Niger – a country that has not been explored utilizing modern techniques and has, right up until now, been among the world’s best-kept uranium secrets,” Northwestern’s Chairman and CEO Kabir Ahmed told Reuters in wire service story published in March.
Northwestern Mineral President Marek Krezcmer, who may be a geologist for more than thirty many years, seventeen of which have been invested exploring in Africa, was also enthused concerning the company’s prospects in Niger, “We know there’s uranium mineralization on the surface, depending on the function which was carried out by Jon Northern. I consider we can succeed. We’re heading to locate uranium.” Kreczmer is familiar with geology in Africa and performing business on this continent. “I’ve worked in Tanzania, Zambia, Swaziland, Ethiopia and Eritrea,” said Kreczmer. He was optimistic about developing Northwestern Mineral Venture’s uranium concessions, “Our business plan there is certainly to discover mineralization, and (have) most likely an individual like Cogema become a partner of choice.”
At Cogema’s seven open pit uranium mines which feed the Arlitt mill, the grades have run 0.three % with 2003 production at 1126 tonnes. In the two available pit uranium mines which feed the Akouta mill, grades have operate at among 0.four and 0.five % with 2003 manufacturing at 2017 tonnes. Krezcmer explained that Northwestern’s exploration licenses are valid for a period of nine a long time, three-year licenses which are renewable 3 times. The country’s mining act, in accordance with Krezcmer allows Northwestern to apply for any mining license, which can be granted for among 25 and 70 years.
We had been concerned with any political circumstances, but equally North and Kreczmer assured us the region is stable. “When I very first went to Niger in November 2004, and that was in the course of the final election, it honestly looked like a great deal of fun. Everybody had a little piece of rag tied close to their wrist or tied for the antenna of the car to represent their political affiliation.” Kreczmer added, “My knowledge working in Africa is that simply because this nation relies so heavily on foreign aid, the Globe Bank has excellent influence.”
The Republic of Niger has North’s vote on confidence. He has worked for the past handful of years as Chief Executive of North Atlantic Means, which hopes to develop its Kantela gold property in Mali. Niger and Mali and demographically and geographical identical, he told us. Northern feels Niger is going to grow to be much more aggressive in developing its uranium properties. He talked about how the President of Niger told his minister of mines, “Get available and advertise Niger as getting open for business. We want individuals to appear in right here and invest. We want to give them mineral rights, and we want them to accomplish what Mali is performing.” In the looks of it, the very first to jump about the Niger bandwagon were Northwestern Minerals and North Atlantic Means, but they will not be the last.
“My knowledge with Niger is that it’s a peaceful, democratic nation with no civil unrest. Let’s place it this way. They’ve much less civil unrest than France.” Ironically, French is one of the country’s official languages. “You gotta be reasonable, right?” asked Northern. “The French recently stormed the Bastille in France, and they didn’t do anything like that in Niger.”
Just how exhilarated is Dr. Jon North? “The excitement inside the market is we do the airborne survey,” he enthused. “We discover some radiometric anomalies that correlated inside of inliers. We demonstrate the model. If that does not excite individuals, then I really don’t believe their hearts are beating.”
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