The Group in grass roots Australian uranium search (Mindax and US)

Junior explorer Mindax Ltd (ASX: MDX) has joined the swing to uranium exploration in Western Australia. Dozens of companies are pegging or striking deal to prospect for uranium despite the avowed attention of the state’s Premier to keep it in the ground, even if the Australian Labor Party’s Federal convention overturns its existing No New Mines policy.

Mindax is managed by respected geoscientist Greg Bromley and has just pegged more ground in the remote Lake Carnegie area, well east of the Wiluna gold mining centre in the north eastern goldfields.

This is an additional portfolio of uranium leases to its 50/50 joint venture on the Avon project with Quasar Energy, one of the most astute uranium explorers operating in Australia, a country where the skill sets for exploration, mining and production of yellowcake was lost over the past three decades through restrictive political approaches in Canberra and in state governments.

Quasar is an exploration arm of Heathgate Resources which operates the Beverley in situ leach uranium mine in South Australia. One feather in Quasar’s cap was the discovery of Four Mile in the shadow of the North Flinders Range, close to Beverley. This is a roll front discovery with two major zones that are showing high grade sections that has had some observers suggesting Four Mile may prove to be as rich as Energy Resources of Australia’s long-operating Ranger mine.

Heathgate is an energy arm of the huge American company General Atomics.

The Avon project takes in a series of licences in the central and eastern wheatbelt of Western Australia, stretching generally east of Cunderdin and Merredin towards Southern Cross.

Bromley told Mineweb that licence approvals for some of the prospects – in the Mukinbudin and Quairading districts – had come through and others were expected. Many of the licences are in the Lake Campion area.

Quasar and Mindax formed a joint venture to work in collaboration with the Federal Government scientific group The Co-operative Research Centre for Landscape Environments & Mineral Exploration (CRC-LEME).

Hydro-geochemical research by CRC-LEME had shown areas of “extremely high concentrations” of dissolved cobalt, copper, zinc, uranium and rare earth elements, as well as increased concentrations of gold, aluminium, iron, lead manganese and radionuclides.

“Mindax considers this research, which is in its early stages, has already demonstrated significant indications of potentially economical uranium-copper mineralisation in the region,” the company said.

Bromley said old salt river systems had given readings of 1,000 parts per billion which is significant when considering Western Australia’s best known uranium resource Yeelirrie (a WMC Ltd discovery now in the hands of BHP Billiton) gave readings of 1,200 ppb.

Mindax owns 100% of two other large uranium prospects – Noondie Lakes near Sandstone where there is a radiometric anomaly, and the Panhandle prospect near Lake Barlee where a new palaeochannel has been unearthed.

The Perth company is continuing its gold quest that takes in Bulga Downs in the old Sandstone gold mining camp where it has established a small gold resource and, to the north, the Maynard Range prospect to the north which are along strike to the south of Troy Resources Lord Henry and Lord Nelson gold operations.

Uranium explorers are forging ahead in Australia and they make up a large proportion of the new floats that are emerging weekly – contrasting with the scenario three years ago when you could count the number of uranium explorers on one hand and Paladin Resources now valued at about $A4 billion then had a market capitalisation of about $A4 million.

The change has come from three factors – the roaring uranium price, a knowledge that Australia had some of the best grade shallow deposits in the Northern Territory, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia, and that the political climate was changing. Until recently uranium in Australia has been on the political nose, thanks to effective scare tactics by the green movement over such issues as the exaggerated Three Mile Island incident and the dreadful Chernobyl meltdown, and also because political hearts – particularly in the Australian Labor Party (ALP) – were averse or totally opposed to expanding Australian exports of uranium.

Today media and independent polls in Australia show a slight majority of Australians want to see more exports of uranium (with a large percentage undecided) but there is less support for the idea of Australia developing domestic nuclear power.

The big issue that has held back Australia’s role as a global supplier of uranium has been the negative policy adopted by the ALP which at its national convention beginning on April 27 will consider ending its No New Mines policy for uranium.

Federal Leader Kevin Rudd has been gaining strong support for a more flexible policy and state premiers in South Australia and Queensland have said they would back his approach, and the NT’s Chief Minister Clare Martin (a former journalist with a virulent anti uranium stance) must play ball with Canberra because it’s effectively a dependency of Canberra, as has been made clear by the incumbent John Howard Liberal coalition government. But, there is still a hard core in the ALP totally opposed to uranium mining.

However WA Premier Alan Carpenter has indicated he may not be supporting uranium being mined in the state, despite any changes Rudd may be able to achieve at the convention. If so, then that could be a hurdle for Quasar-Mindax and all the active uranium explorers in Western Australia because the next state election is a long way off and the Liberal-National Party is considered uninspiring despite the Carpenter government suffering some political setbacks recently.

source:www.mineweb.net