DevEx Resources hits high grade uranium in the NT

DevEx Resources (ASX:DEV) unveiled its latest uranium assay data on Tuesday, reporting the third batch of assay results that prove uranium mineralisation is present on-site its Nabarlek Project in the Northern Territory (NT). 

The Nabarlek Project sees DevEx drill testing the areas around the historical Nabarlek Uranium MIne in the NT’s Alligator River Uranium Province. 

Some 500m pounds of uranium is thought to be in the area in both mined and unmined resource counts.

Nabarlek, while operating, produced 24m pounds of uranium at a grade of 1.84%, over triple the commonly accepted threshold for high-grade classification. 

Tuesday’s results from 2022 drill run 

Assay data was reported on Tuesday for the last leg of the company’s 2022 exploratory drilling campaign. Results were taken from a target area north of a known prospect on-site called ‘U42’. 

U42 North, the company notes, remains completely open for several kilometres.

“Some of these intercepts remain completely open along strike in totally un-explored areas,” DevEx MD Brendan Bradley said. 

“For example, the high-grade intercept we have reported today is from a new area at U42 and remains completely open for several kilometres along strike.”

Making sense of grades 

Investor information provider Undervalued Equity (UE) classifies high-grade uranium as that in concentrations over 0.40%. 

Compare that with the following series of results from DevEx: 

U42 North

• 02m @ 0.60% uranium from 188m depth, including 

  • 01m @ 1.00% uranium 

Nabarlek South 

• 10m @ 1.1% uranium from 124m depth, including 

  • 3.3m @ 2.7% uranium, including 

    • 0.3m @ 9.0% uranium 

    • 0.6m @ 5.6% uranium

The company highlights these results outperform earlier reported results from the project, with DevEx posting the following results earlier in 2022: 

• 54m @ 0.09% uranium from 66m depth, including: 

  • 0.5m @ 0.6% uranium 

  • 0.3m @ 0.6% uranium 

  • 0.3m @ 0.5% uranium

Making sense of results 

The first and foremost thing to note from an investment point of view is that today’s higher-grade results (when compared to the 54m section reported last year) are present at depths exceeding 120m. 

Should the company want to get to uranium mineralisation that deep, whether through an underground mine or open pit operation, it will require significant opex to get there. 

The company notes mineralisation remains open in a northward direction at U24 North, meaning there’s potential for higher-grade uranium to be present at shallower depths. Until results proving that are published, however, this ultimately remains speculation. 

More assay results are due back to the company next month.

2023 drilling campaign 

U42 North will be the subject of the exploration team’s focus as DevEx gears up to launch its 2023 drilling activities. 

“The results of our 2022 drilling highlight the significant upside for our shareholders as we prepare to restart exploration this year and the outlook for the uranium sector continues to strengthen,” Bradley said. 

“We have now demonstrated the presence of exceptionally high-grade uranium mineralisation across multiple areas, putting DevEx into rarefied space as a uranium explorer on the ASX.” 

Want to know more? 

Using Market Index’s free company data, potential investors can make a number of first-pass observations about DevEx including but not limited to: 

• Share price of 31c*

• Market cap of $114.9m*

• Oe year returns down -31.1% 

• Year to date performance up 10.7% 

• Ranked 214 of 943 companies in the materials sector 

• Average 4 week volume of 237,876 shares 

• Company held $19.1m in cash at end of September quarter

• It spent $3.1m over the same period 

• Company raised $2.2m in November 2022 through issue of 6.54m shares

*As at 1045AM AEST Tuesday 24 January 2023

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