Drilling Program Commences at West Bear

UEX’s Interest in Christie Lake Increases to 64.34%

Webinar to be Held on Tuesday, February 25th

SASKATOON, Saskatchewan, Feb. 20, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- UEX Corporation (TSX:UEX) (“UEX” or the “Company”) is pleased to announce that the winter drilling program has commenced on the West Bear Project.  The drill program will be focused on the discovery of new cobalt, nickel and uranium mineralization within similar geological settings to that observed at the West Bear Co-Ni Deposit.

The first holes of the program will be drilled in the Umpherville target area, located 2 km immediately north of the West Bear Co-Ni Deposit along the northern rim of the highly prospective West Bear Dome (see Figure 1).  The one and only drill program at Umpherville occurred in 1977, long before UEX discovered that the Athabasca Basin contains basement-hosted Co-Ni Deposits.  At the time these holes were drilled the prevailing uranium exploration practice dictated that drill holes be terminated at depth of no more than 25 m below the unconformity surface.  At West Bear, the best cobalt and nickel concentrations occur within the fault structure at least 30 m below the unconformity. 

Within the Umpherville area, the historical drilling encountered uranium mineralization at the unconformity on two fences of holes located approximately 1200 ft apart (see Figure 2).  The historical drill holes did not test the ideal uranium or cobalt target on and between these two fences. Of significant interest to UEX is historical hole ML-77-05, which intersected 0.22% eU₃O₈ over 4 ft (1.22 m) near the unconformity.  Encouraged by these results, the historical operator made two separate attempts to expand the size of the ML-77-05 uranium mineralization.  Both attempts were abandoned when the holes collapsed after encountering intense hydrothermal clay alteration, similar to that observed in the West Bear deposits. 

Using modern drilling technology, UEX is confident that results of historical hole ML-77-05 will be successfully followed-up during this winter’s drill program.

There has been no historical drilling over a distance of 1.5 km along strike of the easternmost fence of Umpherville holes (ML-77-15 & 16).  A total of 15 drill holes totaling 1,900 m is planned for the Umpherville target area and along strike to the northeast where several other prospective targets have been identified containing anomalous cobalt and nickel concentrations.