Perhaps the White House flap as to whether or not or not Saddam Hussein’s federal government tried to get uranium ore from the country of Niger was the best publicity Niger has had about its uranium manufacturing for a lot more than two decades. How many geologists realize that the Republic of Niger ranks fourth, at the rear of Canada, Australia and Kazakhstan, in terms of the quantity of uranium annually made worldwide?
Named following the river which runs through it, Niger creates practically four times the uranium at present mined in america. More uranium is mined in Niger than in Russia, South Africa, India, China, Brazil, Ukraine Namibia or Uzbekistan. In fact, should you extra up the total quantity of uranium mined in South Africa, China, India, Brazil, Czech Republic as well as the Ukraine for 2004, Niger would trump the combined creation of those people six nations around the world. Right up until Dr. Jon North came along, uranium mining was fairly very much monopolized by Cogema and a consortium that includes Spanish and Japanese interests.
“This may be the fourth greatest uranium producer within the world,” raved an excited Dr. Northern into his cell mobile phone in the course of our taped interview. “Niger has by no means had an entrepreneurial and nimble junior mining company ever explore for uranium. And this may be the initial one.” Northern was referring to Northwestern Mineral Ventures (TSX: NWT; OTC BB: NWTMF) “Imagine if Australia, Canada and Kazakhstan possessing never had a junior organization seeking for uranium. It is completely absurd to even take into account the concept.”
The Republic of Niger products about 9 percent of the world’s yearly creation to meet the developing need for uranium to energy the world’s nuclear reactors. Based on the IAEA-NEA Red Book of 2003, the sub-Saharan Niger ranked #4 behind Australia, Kazakhstan and Canada for total uranium reserves. Within the 2005 update, it fell to seventh location. It may be that this region is under-explored. In 1981, Niger made a peak of 4366 tonnes of uranium. As with others, mining creation plummeted while using spot price of uranium throughout the 1980s and 1990s. The slump hit the region hard because Niger depends upon uranium for a lot more than 30 percent of its exports, greater than $100 million. Five percent with the country’s tax revenues come from uranium mining.
Dr. North discussed how he came to acquire concessions for each his company, North Atlantic Means (TSX: NAC) and Northwestern Mineral Ventures, in which he serves as a director and helps guide geological colleague and president Marek Kreczmer. “I traveled all around the Sahara Desert twice on field trips with a local Niger geologist prior to I made a decision to apply for permits. When I did this in 2004 while using minister of mines, he said to me, ‘You know, you are the initial person to actually do this, and also the only folks who’ve done this are energy companies or governments.’ So, I informed him I would like to utilize for two permits.” Northern obtained two for Northwestern Mineral Ventures and an additional for Northern Atlantic Resources.
Salt Tectonics the Crucial to Uranium in Niger
North explained, “We selected the projects determined by the geologic ingredients that we felt have been important inside the manage and distribution in the uranium, such as, but not limited to, northwest trending fault corridors, northeast trending fault corridors, and inliers of stratigraphy which have been popping up by means of younger parts from the stratigraphy.” In accordance with North, the salt structures are the key to discovering uranium within the Republic of Niger. “The northeast and northwest faults, and the inlier there, are all salt-related structures,” North remarked. An inlier is an region or formation of older rocks completely surrounded by more youthful 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 very common but it doesn’t final extremely long in stratigraphy also it escapes, Northern explained. “When it escapes, it forms walls and diapirs (an anticlinal fold exactly where the salt has pierced with the more brittle overlying rock).” Oil exploration geologists pay attention to these since they have a tendency to form permeability barriers to oil and gas deposits. North is interested in them to get a various reason, “We noticed how the salt diapirs, in which they escaped with the sequence in Niger, coincided using the distribution of uranium deposits.”
Uranium within the Republic of Niger is mined by available pit as a result of the sandstones. “These are redox deposits,” North noted. “They have a tendency to become linked with reduced layers and structures, such as the former salt diapirs and faults inside the stratigraphy. On the time, we didn’t really understand why we had been doing that. We just knew there was an association with uranium deposits and these structures in Niger.”
That appears to possess produced Dr. North’s job a walk in the park, or on this situation, a walk within the desert. How do you inexpensively explore concessions of 2,000 square kilometers each? Which is about 24 miles and 30 miles each, each within the desert. “If you do the target selection carefully, and also you stick to the salt diapirs, those people truly narrow down the search,” North revealed. “When we do our initial multi sensor mag and radiometric survey, which will take place inside the subsequent couple of months, we will map out individuals structures and features, and try to find radiometric anomalies linked with them. When we have that data, we’ll have a minimum of 50 drill targets on individuals projects.” There appear being no scarcity of drill targets about the concessions.
With out that information, North believed he could have picked out ten high high quality drill targets, just in the geology map. “They display up as circular bull’s eyes on geology maps,” North noted excitedly. “In the desert they demonstrate up as reduced hills. They’re topographic anomalies in which you’ve about maybe 50 meters of relief. It’s actually just a lower rise since the desert is flat as piss over a plate.” Northern explained you could drive anywhere by pointing your vehicle and stepping around the gas. “The only points inside your way are these very low 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 about the availability of drill rigs for this project? Northern conceded there is a global shortage. But he shot back, “There’s a drilling business in West Africa known as West African Drilling services – and surprise! surprise! – I’ve been operating with them for that past four a long time.” Northern has already discussed moving a rig in with them. “Quite honestly, it’s actually not a big issue,” he mentioned. Neither is labor or even the price of drilling. “We pay an all-inclusive price of approximately US$150/meter,” Northern informed us. “Labor costs are very low, about one-third the expense of Northern America. We use all neighborhood individuals simply because which is what we do in Mali. You will find plenty of very trained, skilled geologists in Niger.”
Clearly, Northwest Mineral Ventures is excited. “We are very pleased to be one of several initial North American firms to acquire exploration permits in Niger – a country that has not been explored utilizing modern strategies and has, until now, been one of the world’s best-kept uranium secrets,” Northwestern’s Chairman and CEO Kabir Ahmed informed Reuters in wire support story published in March.
Northwestern Mineral President Marek Krezcmer, who has been a geologist for greater than thirty a long time, seventeen of which had been spent exploring in Africa, was also enthused in regards to the company’s prospects in Niger, “We know there is uranium mineralization about the surface, based on the work which was carried out by Jon Northern. I consider we can succeed. We’re planning 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,” stated Kreczmer. He was optimistic about developing Northwestern Mineral Venture’s uranium concessions, “Our enterprise plan there’s to discover mineralization, and (have) most likely an individual like Cogema turn out to be a partner of selection.”
At Cogema’s seven open up pit uranium mines which feed the Arlitt mill, the grades have operate 0.three % with 2003 manufacturing at 1126 tonnes. At the two available pit uranium mines which feed the Akouta mill, grades have run at between 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 three times. The country’s mining act, according to Krezcmer enables Northwestern to apply for a mining license, which could be granted for in between 25 and 70 years.
We were concerned with any political situations, but each North and Kreczmer assured us the nation is stable. “When I very first went to Niger in November 2004, and that was throughout the very last election, it honestly looked like a whole lot of fun. Everybody had slightly piece of rag tied all around their wrist or tied to the antenna of the vehicle to represent their political affiliation.” Kreczmer added, “My knowledge functioning in Africa is that since this country relies so heavily on foreign aid, the Planet Bank has excellent influence.”
The Republic of Niger has North’s vote on confidence. He has worked for the past couple of many years as Chief Executive of Northern Atlantic Resources, which hopes to develop its Kantela gold property in Mali. Niger and Mali and demographically and geographical identical, he told us. North feels Niger is heading to turn out to be a lot more aggressive in creating its uranium properties. He talked about how the President of Niger informed his minister of mines, “Get out there and advertise Niger as being available for enterprise. We want people to appear in here and invest. We want to give them mineral rights, and we want them to complete what Mali is doing.” From the looks of it, the first to jump on the Niger bandwagon have been Northwestern Minerals and North Atlantic Resources, but they won’t be the last.
“My knowledge with Niger is that it’s a peaceful, democratic nation with no civil unrest. Let’s put it this way. They have much less civil unrest than France.” Ironically, French is one of the country’s official languages. “You gotta be fair, proper?” asked Northern. “The French not long ago 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 industry is we do the airborne survey,” he enthused. “We discover some radiometric anomalies that correlated inside inliers. We show the model. If that does not excite people, then I do not think their hearts are beating.”
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