Cauldron Energy. Getting ahead in uranium

It’s a pretty opportune time to be in the uranium game, particularly if you’re in Australia; the country is home to 40 per cent of the world’s reserves. The nuclear energy renaissance is well under way, and the resource is getting more attention than ever. One company who knows exactly what this is all about is Cauldron Energy Limited, a Perth, Western Australia-based progressive resource company with an increasing global presence and asset base, well positioned to take advantage of the market upturn.

Cauldron showcases what it is to get in there first. Whether it’s the way the company began, or plans for multiple drilling programmes scheduled to take place within the coming months, these guys waste no time. As the world looks to at base-load power generation capable of greenhouse gas emission reduction, it is clear that nuclear is a front runner. In turn, uranium continues to become all the more intrinsic to our future energy needs, and Cauldron shows why the company is ready to meet the demands of the global markets.

Forming a bigger, more diverse company

Cauldron began back in 2009, when one junior focused on uranium exploration in Australia, Scimitar Resources, formed with another junior effectively focused on uranium in Argentina, Jackson Minerals. Terry Topping, who founded Scimitar and in now CEO at Cauldron, explained that the merger presented clear advantages to both sides at the time.

“There were two companies going down parallel paths, but 12 months ago financing was difficult,” he says. “One of the major shareholders in Jackson Minerals was Tony Sage, and I’ve known Tony through other business interests, and he thought it would be a good idea to put these two companies looking for uranium together. He has a financial background, came on as Chairman and we’ve raised capital since then.”

Sage’s plan appears to have paid off well, as today Cauldron contains an impressively diverse portfolio of projects. Perhaps that’s why, when asked about which are the core-focus, Topping explains that Cauldron covers all of them independently and with due consideration.

“As far as principle projects go there are probably four, for different reasons. There are two in Australia and two in Argentina,” he says. “The two in Australia are the Yanrey Project where we have a resource and we’re adjacent to Paladin Resources’ Manyingee deposit.”

The Yanrey project has already identified significant mineralisation and offered up plenty of ideas, prompting further drilling in the next few months.
“We’ve got a joint venture in South Australia with a Korean consortium, KORES Australia Marree Pty Ltd (a subsidiary of Korea Resources Corporation) which is the Korean Government, Daewoo International and LG International; so obviously very big international Korean corporations,” Topping says of the Marree Uranium Project.

“Then there are the two projects in Argentina; Las Marias and Rio Colorado. We’re about to start drilling in Las Marias. Six to 12 months ago we were more focused on Rio Colorado, but recently we’ve got approvals for drilling in Las Marias and we’re the first company to get those all the way up to bulk sampling for uranium in that province.”

Cauldron will commence drilling at Las Marias imminently, and their exploration spread really shows that this is not a single-focus company, but a sizeable multi-asset force to be reckoned with.

The Cauldron’s uranium game advantages

Topping says that one aspect which characterises Cauldron today is the mutual philosophies both Scimitar and Jackson had in different countries. Back in late 2004/early 2005, Topping says Scimitar took a look at the uranium industry in Australia and there were very few participants, about as few as five.
“It was very early days, the uranium price was around $20. We looked for known uranium provinces and vacant ground adjacent to resources. We were able to do that in four areas. (Yanrey, two in the Northern Territory and one in South Australia),” he says.

“From that side of things we were able to get large 100-per cent owned land holdings in known uranium provinces. The Jackson Minerals side of it was a very similar scenario but they did the same thing in Argentina. They went to old records from the 50’s and 60’s and went out in the field to identify where uranium mineralisation was.”

Although Jackson’s work differed in that they had large land holdings around outcropping sandstone hosts of uranium mineralisation, which allowed for surface sampling and the like, the approach to getting hold of uranium projects first was the same.

Another important factor which has changed the scope of uranium exploration today is, of course, technology. Topping explains that advancements since uranium mining halted decades ago in Australia have made it a very different scenario today.

“In targeting uranium, mineralisation using modern geophysics techniques is ultra-important, and it’s what separates the exploration today from the exploration that stopped 30 years ago—in Australia uranium exploration stopped 30 years ago—and they didn’t have Airborne EM(Airborne Electro-Magnetic), it just wasn’t available,” he says.

“What we can do today is go back to known provinces and fly EM, which is where we use Kath McKenna and the GPX group (GPX Airborne, the airborne and ground geophysical data company of which McKenna is MD), and we’ve identified palaeochannels which host the mineralisation.”

Having this technology available is giving Cauldron a much better understanding of what’s going on with the geology, which effectively in Australia is very flat-lying and sand covered.

“It gives us a 3D look at the geology without drilling, so then we can target our drilling in much more detail which they really could not do 30 years ago,” Topping explains. “Without a doubt it’s one of the ground-breaking technologies that will make a big difference in uranium exploration in Australia.”
And alongside this sort of cutting-edge technology, it’s easy to see Cauldron’s first mover advantage in today’s uranium game; a move which Topping defines to be one of the company’s competitive edges.

“We were able to pick up very large landholdings in prospective ground. We’ve already got resources, we’ve already got identified mineralisation, and we’ve spent three or four years acquiring this EM data, the geophysical data and putting a lot into target generation,” he states.
“Having said that, we’ve also done a lot of drilling and our company does put the dollars from our investors into the ground because that’s how you add value.”
There is plenty more drilling to come, too.

The upcoming drilling

Most recently, Cauldron put out an announcement that it plans to do 13,000 metres of drilling.

“That drilling will be spread over Yanrey in Western Australia where we will do further resource definition and resource extension,” Topping says. “We will also do exploration drilling in new Palaeo-channels that we’ve identified, so it’s a bit of both really. We will continue to work on the joint venture in Southern Australia where we’re looking for sandstone-hosted mineralisation. That drilling just started last week so we’ve got a 2,000 metre programme underway.”

This programme will kick off in around six week time, as Cauldron gathers its very final approvals in the duration. More immediately, the work in Argentina is about to start, where the company has been the first to achieve approval in the location. “Within the next week or so we should start our first drilling in Argentina which as a group we’re very proud of. We start about 600-1,000 metres of diamond drilling at Las Marias,” Topping says.

“So at the moment there are three programmes that are either done or imminent and we have a couple waiting to start in the next few months time.”

Wasting no time and continuing to operate ahead of the pack, Cauldron has a solid, diverse and extremely exciting drilling programme set-up here. The growing demand for uranium is clear, this company’s capability, land holding and ability to act fast where necessary is crystal, and as the company works towards everything from readdressing Argentina’s energy security (it is a great nuclear generator with little local supply), to working on its exemplary joint venture with the Korean consortium, this drilling programme is just the beginning.

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