China announces it will resume nuclear project approvals

Following a State Council meeting, China has officially stated on its Central Government website that it will “steadily” resume nuclear project approvals, with a focus on coastal locations. You can read Bloomberg’s analysis here.

The announcement was not unexpected. Far from it actually when you consider the speed at which China’s energy requirements are growing demands a correspondingly determined energy policy, a policy which includes a strong nuclear component.

How strong are we talking about here? If you’ve been following the nuclear energy industry you’ll know that with 26 reactors under construction, 51 planned, and 120 reactors proposed, China is behind a total of 36% of upcoming worldwide nuclear energy development.

It’s not alone of course. Russia, India, South Korea, the US and other countries are following suit but, as the powerhouse behind nuclear industry growth, what China does and says matters. It’s particularly important when you consider the announcement in the light of the widely forecast demise of the HEU agreement, which will remove an estimated 24M lbs of uranium supply from the market.

My opinion? More growth, less supply, good for business.

Dev Randhawa

PLS update: high grade boulder field by 50% as exploration results accelerate

If you haven’t seen our latest press release, we’ve just announced the discovery of a second boulder train at PLS which in fact is an extension of the high grade boulder field that we discovered in 2011. I encourage you to read the release for the full technical info and to check out the updated map below but for now, here’s some more detail:

A total of 40 anomalous surficial rocks ranging from in size from 1cm to 45cm have been identified by prospecting. Nearly half of them (17) are measured as off-scale (> 9,999 counts per second [cps]) by a hand held Exploranium GR-110G total count gamma-ray scintillometer.

The new discoveries are a result of ground follow-up of a recently completed high resolution radiometric / magnetic airborne survey which was carried out by Special Projects Inc, the same company that carried out the 2009 survey which in turn led to our original high grade boulder field discovery.

Why are we excited by these results? Well, investigation of radioactive boulder trains has led to the discovery of many uranium deposits in the Athabasca Basin, including the nearby former producing Cluff Lake Mine (>60 million lbs produced).

Here are some points that our head geologist, Ross McElroy, has mentioned:
• The highly mineralized boulders are soft, friable and easily broken down to cover small fragments and are associated, predominantly, with basement metasedimentary boulders and suggest a significant bed rock source in an area of pre-Athabasca basement rocks, having the potential to host high grade mineralization.
• While there is no certainty that any in situ uranium deposits will be discovered on the property, boulder mineralization appears to be analogous to the Cluff Lake and Millennium deposits.
• The boulder train is located only 1.5 km west of the all-weather Provincial Highway 955, which runs north to the former producing Cluff Lake Mine.
• Overall, the project is easily accessible, which will allow for cost-efficient exploration for identifying new shallow targets

As you know, we also have two drill programs in place at PLS, following up on promising drill results from earlier this year. You can check out this press release for the latest available information on the drill program.

As ever, don’t hesitate to get in touch with any questions via phone, contact form or Twitter.

Dev Randhawa

UK energy plans: government and public favour more nuclear

If you’ve been following the energy news coming out the UK over the last year or so you’ll know that the government is keen to ensure nuclear power plays a sizeable role in the UK’s energy mix going forward. In addition to signing a nuclear cooperation agreement with France earlier this year – estimated to be worth £500 million in contracts – it is expected that the new energy legislation will include significant pro-nuclear subsidies to encourage a new wave of power station construction.
In general, most governments tend to understand that nuclear energy is a crucial part of securing a country’s energy supplies while also reducing emissions. What I was very pleased to read, however, was the results of a recent survey showing that more UK residents now favour an increase in nuclear energy.

You can check out the details of the poll here.  Essentially around 40% of the survey respondents felt the UK should use more nuclear power stations – double the numbers of those who thought there should be less power stations (20%) and nearly double the numbers of those who favoured the status quo (21%).

In addition, the survey found that carbon-emitted power stations such as coal, oil and gas were deeply unpopular. Personally I find it very reassuring when the public shows a clear understanding of the economic and environmental benefits of nuclear energy and the crucial importance of growing its part in the energy mix going forward.

Dev Randhawa

Uranium – pressure on supply is set to intensify

You may not have noticed it – a press release sent out by Areva recently that got a bit of play in the Media but not much. It concerns the decision to delay the start of its $1-billion Trekkopje uranium mine in Namibia just when it’s nearing completion. Covered in Mining Weekly  and by NBC  the reason cited was, unsurprisingly, current market conditions.

Now, let’s take a moment to consider what this means at an industry level. If the future growth in demand is there and, based on the number of reactors under construction we know it is, then what this means is that an estimated 3 000 t of uranium oxide per year will now not be coming online in 2014 – a year after the end of the HEU agreement (forecast for 2013) will remove the industry’s largest secondary source of uranium.

My opinion is that on this occasion what’s bad news for Areva happens to be good news for long-term uranium prices.

Dev Randhawa

Fission head geo comments on latest news release and next steps for J-Zone

Dev Randhawa

Japan nuclear update: Construction resumes on new nuclear power plant

A World Nuclear News article this week has reported that “the Japan Electric Power Development Corp (J-Power) will resume construction of the Ohma nuclear power plant in Aomori prefecture.”
The J-Power announcement made reference to the revised energy policy announced by the Japanese government as well as the understanding of the local communities as factors in the decision to resume construction.

As I write this, the current situation is Japan’s government has previously announced that all existing reactors will be shut down by 2040. We’ll see how long this shut-down stance remains but for now their announcement suggests two things to me. One: the government will soon approve more restarts of idled reactors. Two: come 2040, the reactors currently under construction will be exempt from the 2040 date.

You also have to bear in mind one very important factor which is that governments and policies change. Nuclear power has played a huge part in Japan’s energy strategy for many years. I’ve written several posts prior to now on the colossal economic and environmental price that the country is paying for keeping its reactor fleet idled and I would be very surprised if, once enough time has passed, the energy policy is not revised in order to retain a greater proportion of nuclear energy.
As ever, don’t hesitate to get in touch with any questions or comments.

Dev Randhawa

Fission's Head Geo presents to analyst during tour of Fission's Athabasca properties

Dev Randhawa

New Drilling aims to find Source of High Grade Uranium Boulder Field Discovery at PLS

In case you’ve not seen our latest press release we’ve just announced two new drill programs to locate the source of the high grade uranium boulder field we discovered in 2011 at our PLS Property in Canada’s Athabasca Basin.

Drilling will start early this month and here’s what Ross McElroy, our president and chief geologist at Fission, had to say, “In addition to the presence of the high grade boulder field, the results of our Winter drill program provided further evidence that a large uranium-rich alteration system is present in this area. The Winter data has been key in defining the areas of focus for the October drilling and we’re looking forward to getting started.”

Winter Highlights: The Winter drilling along PL-3B EM Conductor intersected strong alteration below the unconformity and continuous wide intervals of anomalous low grade uranium basement mineralization, as well as associated boron, cobalt, nickel, molybdenum and lead over 823m of strike (see press release dated July 24th, 2012 for detailed information).

Program Details: The 8-hole, 1600m core drilling program will focus on the PL-3B EM Conductor, and also test a series of parallel east-northeast trending EM conductors, which lie approximately 3.0 km to the east of the high grade uranium boulder field, where multiple boulder assays as high as 39.6% U3O8 were discovered last year.

In addition, the planned 12-hole, 1440m reverse circulation (RC) drilling program will test for overburden characterization, to help further define new key targets in the area near the boulder field.

I encourage you to check out the press release and as ever, don’t hesitate to get in touch with any questions which you can do on the phone, contact form or via our twitter account.

In addition, I would recommend signing up to our email subscriber list to receive additional updates on Fission and the uranium sector.

Dev Randhawa