Thundelarra Exploration

Grade is king

Uranium explorer Thundelarra Exploration (ASX:THX) has been gar­nering international recognition in the mining community ever since its high grade uranium results from its Northern Territory Thunder­ball uranium project were published earlier in 2009. Now, the mining company has continued on that momentum and is developing very quickly into a key player in the Australian uranium market.

Thundelarra’s two key landholdings are the Pine Creek and the Ngalia Basin in the Northern Terri­tory. At over 3000 square kilometres in the most significant uranium province in Australia (which currently hosts the Ranger mine, and produces 12 per cent of the world’s uranium), geologically, Thundelarra is in a very good neighbourhood. His­torically a gold mining area, the area has produced exemplary good results in uranium.

Pine Creek

“We acquired the rights in 2007,” explains Lam­bert. “During the GFC, we took the view that while times are certainly though, every downturn is fol­lowed by a recovery, and we were sure that this was going to be no different. We took the opportunity to make some deals, to acquire more ground. That enabled us to consolidate our position in the Pine Creek area where we are now a dominate hold.”

Things started out very well for Pine Creek. On the opening day, the share price rose by 43 per cent. Exploration started in early 2008 and involved scout drilling at a number of targets. One particular target named Thunderball gave particularly good results. Because of the eco­nomic climate at the time, the company honed in on this specific target which proved to pro­duce some exceptional results, results which rose more than a few eye-brows in the market. “We produced results of 11 metres at 3.4 per cent uranium and 15 metres at 1.5 per cent. These are substantially higher than anyone else’s reports that we are aware of. It was prob­ably not since the 70s that anyone has pro­duced expiration results that strong in Australia. And we are very pleased we had that degree of success,” says Lambert.

Ngalia Basin

Success, indeed. In June of 2009, quarter a deed for exploration was executed with the Central Land Council and Thundelarra’s was granted three applications for three exploration licences in the Ngalia Basin. In addition, Thundelarra entered into a formal agreement with Alara Resources Limited, which secured their right to earn a 70 per cent interest in an additional four tenements within the Ngalia Basin region of the Northern Territory. The deal expands the area of the basin under Thun­delarra’s control considerably, taking it from 1,350 to 3,300 square kilometres.

Very little exploration has been undertaken thus far in the operation; however, limited work carried out on Thundelarra’s wholly owned tene­ments in the early 1980’s generated extremely high drill intercepts which confirmed the poten­tial for ore grade uranium mineralisation within the central basin.

Thundelarra is currently doing a regional he­licopter assisted gravity survey over most of the Ngalia project area with the aim of locating major structures beneath the sand and tertiary sedi­ment cover—potential hosts for uranium deposits in the central basin.

Competitive edge

Navigating through the economic storm of recent months has showed Thundelarra to be headed by very competent leaders, so it will be exciting to see what they do now that there are clear skies on the horizon. “We are in a different financial position now,” says Lambert. “We now have substantial funds on hand and next year we will put some of those funds into progressing our exploration of the Pine Creek area. We are going to extend what we have done at Thunderball and are, most importantly, testing a lot of the other targets for the first time.”

“Next year, we will be doing five times the level of work, and we think we have the opportu­nity to produce a lot more great results. It is fairly early days for us, but so far it has been tremen­dously successful,” says Lambert.

The level of activity is going to be increased in the next few months on Thundelarra. The produc­tion at Pine Creek is going to get into full swing, and perspective partners are going to be con­sidered to invest in the Ngalia project. Northern Australia is a very attractive area for investors because of the aforementioned uranium bounty, but also because of a very supportive govern­ment that is incredibly helpful to explorers and miners, and the community is also very accepting of the industry.

In the end, however, “Grade is king,” as Lam­bert puts it. And that is what gives Thundelarra the competitive edge.

www.thundelarra.com

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