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Dundee Capital Markets on Alpha Minerals News

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PLS Geochemistry Demonstrates Very Low Arsenic, Boron
and 1.58 g/t Au over 63.5m
 
Company Description
Fission Uranium is a Canadian uranium exploration company with properties in the Athabasca Basin of Saskatchewan. Fission is currently advancing its new 50% owned PLS discovery on the western side of the Athabasca. Results to date have demonstrated the potential for a shallow, thick and high grade deposit split between three zones - R00E, R390E and R780E.
 
Geochemical and gold assays were reported for the winter 2013 drill program at the PLS JV in the Athabasca Basin. While this news probably won’t move the needle we see it positive for three reasons:
•         Low arsenic - likely most important
•         Elevated boron - exploration tool
•         Anomalous gold - up to 1.58 g/t Au over 63.5m
 
Very low arsenic - positive for processing and the environment. Assays returned low As up to 172 ppm, but 87% returned <50 ppm. This is positive for two reasons – it doesn’t create too much heat during processing, and the tailings are also cleaner creating less chance of acid mine drainage. Some Athabasca deposits have very high arsenic levels and we are very pleased this isn’t one of them. Other deposits such as Roughrider were heralded for low arsenic levels (averages ~520 ppm). On the flipside, Midwest averages 7% As and appears to be somewhat penalized by the market because of this, despite being roughly the same size as Roughrider.
 
Strongly anomalous boron - exploration aid. About 70.9% of assays returned >150 ppm boron. B is associated with uranium mineralization, found within the deposit and surrounding hydrothermal alteration. It can primarily be used as an exploration guide in conjunction with alteration haloes, in an effort to steer exploration.
 
Elevated gold. High grade gold is strongly associated with high grade uranium with assays up to 1.58 g/t Au over 63.5m (1.15% U3O8) in hole PLS13-066 at R390E. At R00E, assays returned 1.90 g/t Au over 20.5m (8.36% U3O8) and 1.71 g/t Au over 7m (1.22% U3O8) at R780E. We see average grades for the three zones of between 0.5 and 3 g/t Au, but not in every hole. Assuming this, we expect to see ~22,000 oz of gold potential so far, worth ~US$28 MM at today’s US$1,300 gold price. While not huge numbers and immaterial compared to uranium content, these grades may ultimately warrant a gold circuit to help potentially improve economics. We see gold relatively often in the western Athabasca – it's found at Shea Creek, and AREVA's former Cluff Lake Mine located 74km to the north produced 16,000 oz of gold in 1987…although no one seems to know its LOM gold production.
 
Drilling to begin shortly. We expect a summer drill program to begin shortly, followed by first ever analyst site visit in about one month’s time, both of which could create some interest. However until we see drill results begin to trickle out from the next program within 6-8 weeks, we expect news to be relatively quiet. That said, the stock has held up well in this volatile equity and commodities market and FCU remains up 23% off its low hit just after its spin off in late April.