UEX Corporation (TSX:UEX) is pleased to announce the sixth and final tranche of assay results have been received for the final twenty-four holes drilled during the winter drilling program expanding the West Bear Cobalt-Nickel Deposit on the 100% owned West Bear Property, located in the eastern Athabasca Basin of northern Saskatchewan.  

Highlights from the sixth tranche include hole WBC-143, which intersected 8.3 m averaging 0.33% Co and 0.75% Ni from 55.5 m to 63.8 m, which contained a subinterval of 0.55% Co and 1.39% Ni over 4.0 m from 55.5 m to 59.5 m.

The Company completed 126 holes totaling 11,412.5 metres during the winter drill program.  All results from this drill program have now been received.  UEX announced assay results from the first 102 holes in the Company’s news releases dated February 7, 2019, March 18, 2019, April 1, 2019, April 15, 2019 and April 30, 2019, available at www.sedar.com or UEX’s website at www.uex-corporation.com.

Assay results from nineteen of the twenty-four holes received in the sixth tranche returned composite grades that exceed the cobalt equivalent (“CoEq”) grade of 0.023% CoEq, the same cut-off grade used in UEX’s maiden resource estimate for the West Bear Cobalt-Nickel Deposit announced on July 10, 2018 available at www.sedar.com or UEX’s website at www.uex-corporation.com (see Table 1 and Figure 1).

The Company has also collected and submitted to the laboratory an additional 757 samples from 62 historical sonic drill holes and 12 historical diamond drill holes identified as containing previously unsampled intervals considered favourable for hosting cobalt-nickel mineralization.  UEX is still awaiting the laboratory results from these historical holes.

This winter’s drill program has successfully grown the West Bear Deposit along strike to the west and down-dip to the southeast.  Assay results have also encountered good grades in infill holes located within the footprint of the Deposit as defined before the start of the winter program.  We are looking forward to receiving the sampling of the seventy-four historical holes, as they will be key to defining the ultimate shape of the Deposit.

– Roger Lemaitre, President & CEO

Sample Collection and Compositing

Samples are selected using a portable X-Ray Fluorescence Spectrometer to aid in the identification of mineralized intervals.  Selected drill core is then split in half sections on site and one half is collected for analysis with the other half core remaining on site for reference.  Where possible, samples are collected at a standardized 0.5 m interval through zones of mineralization but respect geological units and intervals. 

The samples were shipped to the Geoanalytical Laboratory at the Saskatchewan Research Council in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.  Analysis at the SRC laboratory for Cobalt and Nickel was completed using the ICP-OES method with an Aqua Regia digestion.  The SRC Geoanalytical Laboratory is an ISO/IEC 17025:2005 accredited facility (#537) by the Standards Council of Canada.

Assay intervals were composited using a cut-off grade of 0.023% Cobalt equivalent (CoEq) using the equation CoEq = Co + (Ni x 0.2).  All depth measurements and sample intervals reported are down-hole measurements from drill core. 

About the West Bear Cobalt-Nickel Deposit

The West Bear Property is an advanced exploration project located in the eastern Athabasca Basin of northern Saskatchewan, Canada that contains both the West Bear Cobalt-Nickel Deposit and the West Bear Uranium Deposit. The Property is approximately 740 kilometres north of Saskatoon, west of Wollaston Lake and measures approximately 7,983 hectares comprising of 24 contiguous areas to which UEX has 100% ownership, with the exception of Mineral Lease 5424 in which UEX owns a 77.575% interest.  The Deposit is located within an area of the Athabasca Basin that has excellent infrastructure and is situated within 10 km of an existing all-weather road and power lines that service Cameco Corporation’s nearby Cigar Lake Mine and Rabbit Lake Operation, as well as Orano’s McClean Lake Operation.

The West Bear Cobalt-Nickel Deposit currently has a strike length of over 600 m and a dip length of over 100 m. On July 10, 2018, the Company announced a maiden inferred resource estimate for the Deposit of 390,000 tonnes grading 0.37% cobalt and 0.22% nickel, which equates to 3,172,000 pounds of cobalt and 1,928,000 pounds of nickel. The West Bear Cobalt-Nickel Deposit mineral resources were determined using a cut-off grade of 0.023 percent cobalt equivalent (“CoEq”), using the equation CoEq = Co + (Ni x 0.2).  Only mineralization located within a conceptual open pit was included in the final resource estimate. 

Qualified Persons and Data Acquisition

The technical information in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Roger Lemaitre, P.Eng., P.Geo., UEX’s President and CEO and Trevor Perkins, P.Geo., UEX’s Exploration Manager, who are each considered to be a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101.

About UEX

UEX is a Canadian uranium exploration and development company involved in nineteen uranium projects, including eight that are 100% owned and operated by UEX, one joint venture with Orano Canada Incand ALX Uranium Corp. that is 50.1% owned by UEX and is under option to and operated by ALX, as well as eight joint ventures with Orano, one joint venture with Orano and JCU (Canada) Exploration Company Limited, which are operated by Orano, and one project, that is 60% owned by UEX with JCU (Canada) Exploration Company Limited which is operated by UEX. 

The company is also involved in one cobalt-nickel exploration project located in the Athabasca Basin of northern Saskatchewan.  The West Bear Project was formerly part of UEX’s Hidden Bay Project and contains the West Bear Cobalt-Nickel Deposit and the West Bear Uranium Deposit. 

The nineteen projects are located in the eastern, western and northern perimeters of the Athabasca Basin, the world’s richest uranium belt, which in 2017 accounted for approximately 22% of the global primary uranium production.  UEX is currently advancing several uranium deposits in the Athabasca Basin which include the Christie Lake deposits, the Kianna, Anne, Colette and 58B deposits at its currently 49.1%-owned Shea Creek Project (located 50 km north of Fission’s Triple R Deposit and Patterson Lake South Project, and NexGen’s Arrow Deposit) the Horseshoe and Raven deposits located on its 100%-owned Horseshoe-Raven Development Project and the West Bear Uranium Deposit located at its 100%-owned West Bear Project.

Two photos accompanying this announcement are available at:

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/02ac3aa3-0992-41dd-8405-d855252bbbde

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/fed6f86d-ea5f-4a58-88c5-512738823abd