Categories: Mining Stocks
Topics: Uranium Stocks

Uranium is Starting to Rise in 2023

Kraken Energy Corp. (CSE: UUSA)(OTC: UUSAF) — currently trading around C$0.30 per share — has entered into a binding LOI to acquire up to a 75% interest in the Harts Point uranium property in San Juan County, Utah.

The acquisition marks the company’s fourth uranium exploration project in the western United States and its first foray into the Colorado Plateau — a geologic formation oftentimes referred to as the “US version of Canada’s Athabasca Basin.” 

Kraken’s ultimate aim is to build out a hub-and-spoke uranium mining model in the western US, connecting the newly-acquired Harts Point project to its three Nevada-based uranium exploration projects: Apex, Garfield Hills, and Huber Hills. 

The Apex project — located 280 km east of Reno and spanning 3,900 hectares — is the current flagship. The property encompasses Nevada’s largest past-producing uranium mine, the Apex Uranium Mine, which produced 50% of the historical uranium output for the state of Nevada; ~106,000 lbs at an average grade of 0.25% U₃O₈. 

Kraken Energy CEO Matthew Schwab — whom you’re about to hear from directly in our exclusive interview — commented via press release:

“We are very excited to bring the Harts Point Property into our current portfolio of prospective US uranium projects. With drilling permits in place and targets selected at Harts Point, our team is eager to begin work on this property in the most prominent uranium mining jurisdiction in the United States.”

The Harts Point property — which sits on BLM land and is fully permitted for drilling — is situated in the heart of the Colorado Plateau, which boasts nearly 330 million pounds of historical uranium production since the 1950s. 

Of that nearly 330M lbs of historical uranium production, 80M lbs were produced from the Lisbon Valley Anticline, which lies just 30 km east of the company’s Harts Point property. Historical production grades from the Lisbon formation ranged from 0.2% to 0.4% U3O8 and targeted the Chinle sandstone formation. 

The Kraken team has identified the Harts Point and Lisbon Valley anticlines as geological analogs. And the newly acquired claim block actually includes three historical oil and gas wells, each of which has displayed off-scale radioactivity within the Chinle formation at roughly half the depth of the historical uranium production from Lisbon Valley.

The Harts Point project also sits just 60 km from the only operating conventional uranium mill in the United States — the White Mesa Mill — yet another strategic advantage in terms of the company’s longer-term hub-and-spoke strategy. 

Getting back to the flagship Apex project in Nevada, in late-April, Kraken announced results from its 669 line-km VTEM survey, which identified numerous conductive anomalies and magnetic highs associated with known uranium mineralization across the entire 14.5 km mineralized strike length of the property. 

Those anomalies and magnetic highs have significantly upgraded the regional prospectivity of the Apex property and are providing the Kraken team with an enhanced understanding of the connectivity of the mineralization. 

Additionally, and perhaps equally significant in terms of the overall potential of Apex, the VTEM survey produced a number of additional strong conductive anomalies between the Apex and Lowboy past-producing uranium mines. 

With drill permitting underway, these new anomalies have moved right up the company’s priority list of targets warranting further exploration and drilling. 

And keep in mind that these magnetic high signatures are also associated with the Apex and Lowboy historical uranium mines. 

In other words, these newly identified targets could potentially be hiding something big underground… especially considering that the Apex mine — which sits at the northwest corner of the 14.5 km trend — was responsible for about half the historical U₃O₈ output from the entire state of Nevada. 

Mr. Shwab added:

“With a newly updated geological model and additional geophysical data for targeting, we are confident with our drill targets on the Apex Property. Our team's understanding of the entire Apex Property has taken a remarkable leap forward, and we are excited to test these new targets as we continue to advance the drill permitting process with the US Forest Service.”

The price of uranium has also been ticking up of late and is now firmly above US$50 per pound… so the timing of the acquisition and the upcoming drilling looks spot on.  

For a closer look, our own Gerardo Del Real of Junior Resource Monthly caught up with Kraken Energy CEO Matthew Schwab for an in-depth discussion on all-things Kraken... well, except for hockey that is! Perhaps if they make the Stanley Cup Final!

We hope you’ll enjoy the candid conversation. 

For more information on Vancouver-based Kraken Energy, be sure to contact the company’s IR department at 604-908-1695 or via email at info@krakenenergycorp.com.

Sign up to receive updates directly from the company at the Kraken Energy corporate website.

Mike Fagan
Editor, Resource Stock Digest