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Maybe the White Residence flap as to whether or not Saddam Hussein’s government tried to purchase uranium ore from the country of Niger was the best publicity Niger has had about its uranium creation for a lot more than two decades. How several geologists realize that the Republic of Niger ranks fourth, behind Canada, Australia and Kazakhstan, in terms from the quantity of uranium yearly made worldwide?

Named after the river which runs through it, Niger creates practically four times the uranium currently mined in america. More uranium is mined in Niger than in Russia, South Africa, India, China, Brazil, Ukraine Namibia or Uzbekistan. In truth, should you additional up the total level of uranium mined in South Africa, China, India, Brazil, Czech Republic and the Ukraine for 2004, Niger would trump the combined production of individuals six nations. Until Dr. Jon Northern came along, uranium mining was quite a lot monopolized by Cogema and a consortium that includes Spanish and Japanese interests.

“This may be the fourth largest uranium producer inside the planet,” raved an excited Dr. Northern into his cell phone during our taped interview. “Niger has by no means had an entrepreneurial and nimble junior mining organization actually discover for uranium. And this could be the very first a single.” North was referring to Northwestern Mineral Ventures (TSX: NWT; OTC BB: NWTMF) “Imagine if Australia, Canada and Kazakhstan getting never had a junior company looking for uranium. It’s actually completely absurd to even take into account the concept.”

The Republic of Niger supplies about 9 % with the world’s annual creation to meet the growing need for uranium to fuel the world’s nuclear reactors. Based on the IAEA-NEA Red Book of 2003, the sub-Saharan Niger ranked #4 at the rear of Australia, Kazakhstan and Canada for total uranium reserves. Within the 2005 update, it fell to seventh place. It might be that this nation is under-explored. In 1981, Niger created a peak of 4366 tonnes of uranium. As with others, mining manufacturing plummeted using the spot price of uranium throughout the 1980s and 1990s. The slump hit the nation difficult because Niger relies upon uranium for more than 30 percent of its exports, a lot more than $100 million. Five % of the country’s tax revenues arrive from uranium mining.

Dr. Northern discussed how he came to obtain concessions for both his company, Northern Atlantic Means (TSX: NAC) and Northwestern Mineral Ventures, in which he serves like a director and assists guide geological colleague and president Marek Kreczmer. “I traveled all around the Sahara Desert twice on field trips having a nearby Niger geologist just before I decided to apply for permits. When I did this in 2004 while using minister of mines, he stated to me, ‘You know, you’re the initial person to ever do this, as well as the only people who’ve accomplished this are vitality companies or governments.’ So, I told him I would like to utilize for two permits.” North obtained two for Northwestern Mineral Ventures and an additional for North Atlantic Means.

Salt Tectonics the Crucial to Uranium in Niger

North explained, “We selected the projects based on the geologic ingredients that we felt had been essential inside the handle and distribution within the uranium, for instance, but not limited to, northwest trending fault corridors, northeast trending fault corridors, and inliers of stratigraphy that are popping up by means of younger parts from the stratigraphy.” According to North, the salt structures would be the crucial to acquiring uranium inside the Republic of Niger. “The northeast and northwest faults, and also the inlier there, are all salt-related structures,” Northern remarked. An inlier is an region or formation of older rocks totally surrounded by more youthful layers. “For decades, the oilfield people have understood, emphasized and completed research on salt, the deposition and then the movement of salt via stratigraphic sequences,” Northern pointed out.

Salt is really typical however it doesn’t very last very lengthy in stratigraphy also it escapes, North explained. “When it escapes, it forms walls and diapirs (an anticlinal fold exactly where the salt has pierced through the a lot more brittle overlying rock).” Oil exploration geologists pay attention to these simply because they tend to form permeability barriers to oil and gas deposits. North is interested in them to get a various cause, “We noticed that the salt diapirs, where they escaped through the sequence in Niger, coincided using the distribution of uranium deposits.”

Uranium in the Republic of Niger is mined by available pit as a result of the sandstones. “These are redox deposits,” Northern noted. “They tend to become connected with reduced layers and structures, such as the former salt diapirs and faults inside the stratigraphy. On the time, we didn’t actually realize why we were accomplishing that. We just knew there was an association with uranium deposits and these structures in Niger.”

That appears to have created Dr. North’s job a walk in the park, or within this situation, a walk in the desert. How do you inexpensively explore concessions of two,000 square kilometers each and every? That’s about 24 miles and 30 miles every, equally inside the desert. “If you do the target selection carefully, and also you stick towards the salt diapirs, individuals actually narrow down the search,” Northern revealed. “When we do our first multi sensor mag and radiometric survey, which will occur in the next couple of months, we will map out those people structures and features, and look for radiometric anomalies connected with them. When we have that data, we’ll have no less than 50 drill targets on individuals projects.” There appear to become no scarcity of drill targets about the concessions.

With out that info, North believed he could have picked out ten higher top quality drill targets, just through the geology map. “They display up as circular bull’s eyes on geology maps,” North noted excitedly. “In the desert they display up as low hills. They’re topographic anomalies exactly where you’ve about maybe 50 meters of relief. It is just a low rise since the desert is flat as piss on the plate.” Northern explained that you could drive anywhere by pointing your vehicle and stepping about the gas. “The only points in your way are these really low hills, and those people hills are connected to either faults or inliers (exposed older rocks surrounded by more youthful rocks).” Initial targeting comes straight from a topography map.

A Vote of Confidence on Existing Progress

But what about the availability of drill rigs for this project? Northern conceded there is a global shortage. But he shot back again, “There’s a drilling company in West Africa referred to as West African Drilling services – and surprise! surprise! – I’ve been working with them for that past four many years.” North has already discussed moving a rig in with them. “Quite honestly, it’s not a big issue,” he said. Neither is labor or even the expense of drilling. “We pay an all-inclusive expense of approximately US$150/meter,” Northern informed us. “Labor expenses are extremely low, about one-third the cost of North America. We use all nearby individuals simply because which is what we do in Mali. You will find lots of extremely trained, skilled geologists in Niger.”

Clearly, Northwest Mineral Ventures is excited. “We are very pleased being one of the first Northern American businesses to acquire exploration permits in Niger – a nation that has not been explored using modern techniques and has, until now, been one of the world’s best-kept uranium secrets,” Northwestern’s Chairman and CEO Kabir Ahmed told  Reuters in wire assistance story published in March.

Northwestern Mineral President Marek Krezcmer, who may be a geologist for greater than thirty many years, seventeen of which were invested exploring in Africa, was also enthused in regards to the company’s prospects in Niger, “We know there is uranium mineralization on the surface, based on the function which was carried out by Jon Northern. I think we can succeed. We’re going to discover uranium.” Kreczmer is familiar with geology in Africa and accomplishing company on this continent. “I’ve worked in Tanzania, Zambia, Swaziland, Ethiopia and Eritrea,” mentioned Kreczmer. He was optimistic about creating Northwestern Mineral Venture’s uranium concessions, “Our business plan there is certainly to discover mineralization, and (have) possibly somebody like Cogema become a partner of option.”

At Cogema’s seven open up pit uranium mines which feed the Arlitt mill, the grades have operate 0.3 % with 2003 creation at 1126 tonnes. At the two open up pit uranium mines which feed the Akouta mill, grades have operate at in between 0.four and 0.5 percent with 2003 production at 2017 tonnes. Krezcmer explained that Northwestern’s exploration licenses are valid for any period of nine years, three-year licenses which are renewable three times. The country’s mining act, according to Krezcmer allows Northwestern to utilize for a mining license, which can be granted for between 25 and 70 years.

We have been concerned with any political scenarios, but equally Northern and Kreczmer assured us the region is stable. “When I very first went to Niger in November 2004, and that was during the very last election, it honestly looked like a lot of fun. Everybody had a little piece of rag tied all around their wrist or tied to the antenna of their vehicle to represent their political affiliation.”  Kreczmer added, “My experience operating in Africa is the fact that simply because this country relies so heavily on foreign aid, the World Bank has excellent influence.”

The Republic of Niger has North’s vote on confidence. He has worked for that past couple of years as Chief Executive of Northern Atlantic Resources, which hopes to develop its Kantela gold property in Mali. Niger and Mali and demographically and geographical identical, he told us. North feels Niger is heading to turn out to be much more aggressive in developing its uranium properties. He talked about how the President of Niger told his minister of mines, “Get available and advertise Niger as becoming open for company. We want people to come in the following and invest. We want to give them mineral rights, and we want them to accomplish what Mali is doing.” From the looks of it, the initial to jump around the Niger bandwagon have been Northwestern Minerals and North Atlantic Means, but they won’t be the last.

“My experience with Niger is always that it’s a peaceful, democratic region with no civil unrest. Let’s place it this way. They’ve less civil unrest than France.” Ironically, French is one of several country’s official languages. “You gotta be reasonable, correct?” asked North. “The French not long ago stormed the Bastille in France, and they didn’t do anything at all like that in Niger.”

Just how exhilarated is Dr. Jon Northern? “The excitement within the industry is we do the airborne survey,” he enthused. “We discover some radiometric anomalies that correlated inside inliers. We show the model. If that doesn’t excite people, then I do not consider their hearts are beating.”

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