FORUM URANIUM CORP V.FDC

Forum Uranium Corp. CEO talks about Athabasca drill results

[hockeyguy123]

https://www.northernminer.com/news/update-forum-uranium-ceo-talks-athabasca-drill-results/1003047025/

Clearwater was the result of strategic staking initiative ahead of a regional rush around Patterson Lake following Fission's inaugural drill holes, with Forum scoring a 99-sq.km property position adjoining PLS to the southwest. Since the area had been so unexplored Clearwater is at the greenfield stage, and the company's 2,300-metre drill initiative in early 2014 was essentially a scout program.

"It was sort of a broad-brush testing program. Five targets ended up hitting some pretty nice zones with good structures and strong graphitic conductors," commented president and CEO Richard Mazur during a phone interview. "The alteration was minor through there are signs of fluids passing through the structural trends with that elevated radioactivity. The trick for us will be focusing and prioritizing on the targets that look to have the right sign posts. We'll wait on the results to analyse those geochemical pathfinder elements."

“Mongo is one of the interpreted structures. We only have on hole in it so far, but that was a definite positive for us,” Mazur continued. “It's a very wide corridor on the Fission property that extends onto ours. We need to follow the Mongo trend, which is kind of bending around and going into a north-northeast direction. We like drilling in those areas where you get a flexure in the fault structure and a bit of dilation. It's definitely an interesting start, and we have kilometres of structure to follow.”

Forum's other exploration initiative to start the year involved a 2,900-metre drill program at the Maurice Bay deposit on the Northwest Athabasca project. Forum shares a 64% stake in the property with NexGen, and the companies were looking to confirm historic high-grade mineralization identified by previous operators. Cameco holds a 23.5% stake, while AREVA accounts for the remaining 12.5% interest.

On May 1 Forum reported that three of the five exploration targets — including Otis West, Zone A and Maurice Bay East — returned positive results. Maurice Bay currently has a non-compliant historic resource of 600,000 tonnes grading 0.6% U308.

Three holes punched at Otis West extended the mineralized strength length at the target by around 40% to 70 metres. The company reports that mineralization, which is hosted in the basement rocks, remains open to the east. Otis West extends for 400 metres as a strong gravity low along the Otis fault, which runs parallel to the Maurice Bay fault.

“Cameco hasn't participated since we formed the joint venture because they are taking a step back to focus more on brownfield opportunities. We ran this year's program alongside AREVA, so there will be some slight dilution on the Cameco and NexGen interests,” Mazur added. “These targets are near-surface and in the basement. Otis is huge alteration zone that could be compared to Rio Tinto's (NYSE: RIO, LON: RIO) Roughrider deposit. We only popped a couple holes up there, but we did extend Otis to the east. It definitely warrants a follow up.”

Forum closed a $3 million private placement in late March, wherein in issued 4.5 million flow-through units at a price of 55¢ per unit and 1.14 common units at 50¢ each. The company has traded within a 52-week window of 25¢ and 68¢, and closed up 10% following its confirmation results at Maurice Bay en route to a 28¢ close at the time of writing. Forum maintains 30.2 million shares outstanding for an $8.45 million press-time market capitalization.

“Our activity going forward will really be a function of the market and potential financings,” Mazur concluded, noting the impact of a recent dip in uranium prices. He added that Forum was sitting with about $1 million in flow-through and $2.5 million in hard dollars, which he said, “could keep the company afloat for a couple of years.”