And in keeping with the shift in strategy to Australia’s reawakening uranium exploration and development scene, Uvre has completed a string of board changes to steer the new direction of the explorer.
The region is home to Australia’s only producing pure-play uranium region, hosting the Beverley and Honeymoon in-situ recovery uranium mines.
The timing is on point, with uranium prices strong and eyes trained on the nuclear supply chain with Australia’s Federal Opposition pushing domestic nuclear as a clean energy alternative to fossil fuel-based energy production and renewables.
Global demand for uranium is expected to reach 209 million pounds annually by 2035 according to famed resources-focused fund manager Sprott, yet supplies are expected to fall almost 50% short of that at 114Mlb.
As Uvre shifts focus from its lithium and uranium exploration in Wyoming to South Australia, a number of board changes have been rung in to retool for the future.
Notably, Brett Mitchell will move from a non-executive director role to executive chairman of the company, giving him oversight of executive management responsibilities on operational, exploration and development decisions as well as corporate responsibilities in M&A, shareholder relations and capital raising.
Founding MD Peter Woods will become a non-executive director while founding non-exec chair Steven Wood will remain as a NED.
Meanwhile, NED Charles Nesbitt has resigned, but well-known mining executive Alex Passmore will come on board as a NED, representing the vendors of the Frome Basin licences.
“Mr Passmore is a qualified geologist and experienced corporate executive having led many project acquisitions, divestments and fund raisings in the junior and mid cap resources sector over the past 20 years,” Uvre said.
“As part of this appointment, Mr Passmore has been offered 750,000 Performance Rights under the Company’s Employee Securities Incentive Plan on the same terms as listed above and are subject to shareholder approval.”
Directors have put additional skin in the game with the $1.25m raising, taking up $175,000 of the $307,500 second tranche, conducted at 10c a share, above the most recent trading price of Uvre stock.
The two exploration licenses Uvre Limited (ASX:UVA) has just snapped up boast the potential for the discovery of large sandstone-hosted uranium deposits, identified in data from aerial surveys conducted by Geoscience Australia and the Geological Survey of South Australia.
Uvre has already kicked off initial work programs at Frome Downs and Yankaninna which include negotiations on access and Native Title agreements, as well as identifying prospective areas for priority in field exploration programs commencing in Q3 2024.
With the $1.25m placement completed, the junior is well placed to fund exploration activities at the projects, with $3.3m of cash and no debt in its bank account on completion.
Surrounding the tenures are multiple world-class uranium deposits, including the operating mines of:
- Beverley (46.3mlb @ 0.27% U3O8)
- Four Mile (70.5mlb @ 0.33% U3O8)
- Beverley North and Pepegoona (8.8mlb @ 0.18% U3O8)
The exploration licenses are in the eastern Lake Frome region, which is known to be prospective for “roll-front” type uranium mineralisation emplaced within sediments of the Tertiary Lake Eyre Basin.
The Frome Basin project itself is contiguous to Havilah Resources’ (ASX: HAV) Curnamona Province tenements just 50km away, and 100km north of Boss Energy’s (ASX: BOE) 4.4Mt at 650ppm Gould’s Dam uranium discovery, as well as 130km north of Boss’ operating Honeymoon mine (52.4Mt at 620ppm U3O8).
Yankaninna is north of the Flinders Ranges, which plays host to numerous uranium enriched rocks including the Mount Neill Granite with identified U3O8 of up to 380ppm and the Hot Springs Gneiss deposit where rock samples have returned up to 470ppm U3O8.
Initial exploration work is underway.