Summary

• Eclipse Metals’ Devil’s Elbow U-Au-Pd Project is within ARUP, home to world-class uranium mining operations of majors including Rio Tinto and Cameco.
• With granting of EL27584 at Devil’s Elbow Prospect, EPM has commenced detailed planning for field exploration.
• Multiple radiometric, gravity and magnetic anomalies have been identified from geological and geophysical data held by EPM.
• 17 priority drilling targets identified for the upcoming diamond drilling program.

Eclipse Metals Limited (ASX:EPM) is an Australia-based exploration company, focusing on multi-commodity mineralisation across the tier 1 mining jurisdictions of Queensland and the Northern Territory. Besides its flagship Devil’s Elbow U-Au-Pd Project, the Company has key projects focused on manganese, vanadium, gold, platinum, and palladium in its portfolio.

Eclipse Strengthening Foothold Across Two Aces- Devil’s Elbow U-Au-Pd and Queensland Manganese Projects: Read Here

Eclipse Metals Rubbing Shoulders with Giants

Alligator Rivers Uranium Province (ARUP) is a prolific uranium province accounting for almost 96% of the historic uranium production and 95% of the known uranium resources of the entire Northern Territory. The province is home to world-class uranium mining operations of majors including Rio Tinto and Cameco.

Eclipse Metals’ Devil’s Elbow Project is located in the world-class Alligator Rivers Uranium Field, almost 65km from the largest uranium mining operations in the southern hemisphere, Rio Tinto’s (ASX:RIO) Ranger Uranium Mine. Moreover, the project is approximately 41km from high-grade Nabarlek Uranium-Copper Mine.

Early last month, the Company secured grant of EL27584 at Devil’s Elbow Prospect. Securing exploration tenements in ARUP is unusual and is expected to reflect value generation for Eclipse Metals in the future.

EPM Chairman Carl Popal explains ARUP as “a geologist’s heaven”.

To know more about the Company’s highly competent team focusing on unlocking significant potential of Devil’s Elbow Project, please read here.

Devil’s Elbow Advancing Towards Exploration Program

The greenlight to explore the project area comes at a time when a major uptick is anticipated in uranium prices, as a result of the global shift towards clean energy sources. The Devil’s Elbow deposits have strong similarities with the iconic 1971-discovered Jabiluka U-Au mine.

Initially, the project area was explored by Uranerz Australia and then by Cameco Australia prominently to the north of the Ranger Fault. Data from the historic airborne geophysical survey (conducted by Cameco Australia between 2002 and 2009) was acquired by Eclipse in April 2020 after being archived by Cameco Canada. The geophysical and geological surveys included the Devil’s Elbow Prospect and surrounding areas to the north and north-west.

Eclipse now holds extensive historical data pertaining to radiometry, airborne magnetic, electromagnetic and gravity results. Utilising the geophysical data highlighted several unexplored drill targets with extensive geophysical anomalies similar to the globally significant uranium mining operations including Nabarlek, Jabiluka, Ranger and Koongarra.

A total of 17 priority drilling targets have been identified and prioritised for the upcoming drilling program at the wholly owned Devil’s Elbow project.

The Devil’s Elbow deposit is understood to be geologically similar to the Jabiluka deposit, which held 67,700 tonnes of U₃O₈ ores as mineral reserves complemented by 16,440 tonnes at 0.36% U₃O₈ as Measured and Indicated mineral resources and 57,500 tonnes of 0.48% U₃O₈ of Inferred mineral resources, with additional gold resource of 380,000 ounces.

The weak radiometric anomalies coincide with uranium mineralisation at Devil’s Elbow, which yielded uranium assays with U₃O₈ grades varying between 3.2% and 5.8% with 38.1 g/t Au and 28.02 g/t Pd.

Field Exploration Program to Commence Soon

Eclipse Metals has planned an on-site exploration program, anticipated to commence soon, with the program focusing on the ground around the Devil’s Elbow, Terrace and Ferricrete uranium prospects.

The exploration program would include a helicopter supported diamond drilling program to uncover the presence of large uranium-gold mineralisation, as expected from the geological and geophysical data.

Stock Performance - EPM was trading at AU$0.007 a share on 8 July 2020 (AEST 03:14 PM), with a market capitalisation of AU$9.9 million. The last three-month return of the stock was noted at 87.50 per cent.