The Company holds 15 properties, totaling of 345 unpatented mineral claims (“claims”), plus 3 Utah State mineral leases, covering 8,200 acres, or 33 square kilometers (km2), situated within the Colorado Plateau geological region within the states of Utah and Colorado. Fourteen of these properties have a history of production, with over two dozen former mine portals and shafts among them. All of the properties have known uranium mineralization and are in five major mining districts as follows: the Uravan District (Montrose and San Miguel counties, Colorado); the La Sal, La Sal Creek, and Lisbon Valley Districts (San Juan county, Utah); and the San Rafael River District (Emery county, Utah).
Utah/Colorado Property Highlights:
- Each of the fifteen Properties hosts sandstone-type uranium deposits;
- The Green River Property, 15 miles west of Green River, Utah is a highly prospective uranium asset with an existing underground mining permit and surface use permit;
- Most project sites host existing underground mine workings and historical estimated uranium resources;
- A solid working relationship with the property vendors provides the Company with local expertise in permitting, drilling and underground mining;
- Most properties are accessible year-round by road, and are in proximity to local communities and services;
- Exploration work on, and evaluation on the properties will commence with geological analysis, supported by the digitization of a comprehensive library of geological data, past production records, and mine plans. Confirmation drilling will be conducted where justified.
- NI 43-101 Technical Reports are planned where sufficient information is found to be available.
Uranium Mining in Utah and Colorado
Uranium mining in Utah and Colorado has a significant history, closely tied to the discovery of rich uranium mineral deposits in Colorado’s southwestern region and contiguous southeastern Utah. The Uravan Mining District of Colorado and Utah hosts the Uravan Mineral Belt, a 70-mile (110km) zone of uranium-vanadium deposits in San Miguel, Montrose, and Mesa counties, Colorado, and Grand County, Utah with a history of 80 million pounds of uranium oxide (U3O8) production and over 400 million pounds of vanadium pentoxide (V2O5) production since 1945. The uranium and vanadium production has come from the Colorado Plateau type uranium/vanadium deposits, hosted by sandstones of the Upper-Jurassic Salt Wash Member of the Morrison Formation.
Today, the Uravan Mineral Belt remains a key area for uranium exploration, with modern mining techniques targeting its widely distributed deposits to meet the new opportunities for production as global demand for uranium continues to grow. The region’s rich history of uranium mining has established Utah and Colorado as long-standing and significant players in the global nuclear energy sector. In addition to Colorado’s Uravan Belt, Utah has produced uranium-vanadium from its San Rafael River, as well as the La Sal, La Sal Creek, and Lisbon Valley Mining Districts.
Property Details
Green River Property – The project includes 49 claims of 1,009 acres (4.0 km2) located 15 miles (24 km) west of Green River, Utah, just north of U.S. Interstate I-70. The property is accessible to established infrastructure, offering significant logistical and operational advantages for resource development.
A historically productive site, the Green River Property in the San Rafael River District, is a region renowned for its uranium-rich geology. A portion of Urano Energy’s (“Urano,” or the “Company”) Green River Property is permitted for small-scale underground mining and surface disturbance, enabling Urano to initiate targeted operations with efficiency and reduced regulatory delay.
A significant quantity of detailed data has been acquired along with the property and permits. Specifically, the Company has access to a full set of 1-inch to 50-foot scale mine maps of the underground workings compiled by the previous operator, Atlas Minerals Corp. These maps show elevation, thickness and grade of all drill hole uranium mineral intercepts and are complete through the date mine production was suspended. A proprietary intra-company report dated 1984, when Atlas shut down operation of it mill and all mines, provides historical estimates of remaining uranium reserves for portions of the Green River property at the time of mine closure. The Company will be systematically verifying and integrating this data to provide updated uranium resource estimates for the Green River Property.
With its combination of estimated historical uranium reserves, drill hole maps, surface mineralization, active permits, and strategic location, the Green River Property presents a compelling opportunity to establish a current uranium resource estimate, together with the potential for further project development. This aligns seamlessly with Urano Energy’s commitment to advancing high-quality domestic uranium resources to meet the growing demand for clean, sustainable energy solutions.
North Lisbon Valley & Central Lisbon Valley Property – The project package contains 100 claims covering 2,060 acres (8.3 km2), and one Utah State Mineral Lease of 480 acres (1.9 km2). The Lisbon Valley District, located about 40 miles southeast of Moab, UT, is a south-easterly trending, historic uranium-vanadium-producing belt, spanning 16 miles (25 km) in length and up to 1 mile (1.6 km), or more in width. This region produced 78 million pounds of uranium oxide between 1948 and 1988, when production ended, accounting for 9% of total U.S. domestic uranium production during that time. Most of this output came from the lower member of the Upper Triassic Chinle Formation, known as the Mossback Member.
Lisbon Valley ranks as the second-most productive uranium district of its size in the United States. Additionally, the district has yielded over 24 million pounds of vanadium pentoxide (V2O5) with the central and southern areas of the district hosting high concentrations of vanadiummineralization ii.
The district also offers significant exploration potential for uranium in the underlying Cutler Formation, which contains extensive sandstone units identified in the late 1970’s as economically viable hosts for uranium mineralizationii.
The vendors have provided the Company with a significant database for the North Lisbon Valley Property, including downhole gamma logs of drill logs for the most recent exploration drilling conducted on the Property by Vane Minerals Corp. between 2007 and 2009. Lithology logs, property, and workings maps at scales of 1 inch to 100 feet and 1inch to 200 feet compiled by Homestake Minerals, as well as other proprietary reports, will be verified and integrated to prepare a formal exploration program to collect sufficient information to prepare a NI 43-101 Technical Report. The North Lisbon Valley project may also include an exploration drill program to test the underlying Cutler Formation for uranium mineralization.
East La Sal & West La Sal Property– The East and West La Sal Property totaling 52 mineral claims of 1,029 acres (4.2 km2) and two Utah State Mineral Leases of 1,121 acres (4.5 km2), covering a grand total of over 2,150 acres (8.7 km2), is comprised of three separate properties: East La Sal, West La Sal, and Rich. The 3 claim groups are located within the east-west trending La Sal Mineral District. The district is up to one and a half miles wide extending due east about 12 miles from La Sal Junction, UT. The West La Sal group is situated about 3 miles east of La Sal Junction. The East La Sal claim group lies 10 miles east of the West La Sal group and the Rich group is located midway between the two La Sal claim groups.
The La Sal Belt has produced about 6.2 million pounds of uranium oxide and over 30 million pounds of vanadium pentoxideii. The Pandora, La Sal and Beaver Mines recently began production to mine some of the significant uranium reserves remaining in the La Sal District. The La Sal District has produced the highest uranium grade ores (i.e. 0.35% U3O8) of any Salt Wash hosted mining district on the Colorado Plateauii. Excellent infrastructure exists with nearby powerlines, access roads and Utah Highway 46 bisecting the West La Sal Property, and running easterly throughout the district. The region has a history of providing an experienced workforce.
The West La Sal claims cover the historical Bandit and Sunset Mines, operated by Union Carbide Corp. in the 1980’s, prior to the shutdown of all company mines in March 1982. The Company has access to detailed mine maps of the formerly permitted Sunset Mine, including essential information such as thickness, grade, and elevation of uranium mineralization. It also has access to reports from Union Carbide that provide historical uranium reserve estimates indicating which uranium reserves were mined and those that remain unmined upon shutdown in March 1982. Additionally, the Company has acquired detailed mine and drill hole maps created by Union Carbide, Mineral Reserve Corporation, Cotter Corporation, and General Electric Corporation that identify uranium mineralization located on properties immediately adjacent to the Company’s La Sal property boundaries for both the East and West La Sal properties. Data verification, analysis and integration will be applied to focus future drilling to test targets on the La Sal properties along trend from the known uranium mineralization.
Dulaney Property – Building on the Dulaney Extension property previously acquired by Urano Energy (See C2C Press Release of Oct. 23, 2024) this Dulaney Property adds 6 mineral claims and 123 acres (0.5 km2), consolidating Urano’s total holdings in the area to 122 claims covering 1,659 acres (6.7 km2). Urano’s Dulaney property also lies between two U.S. Department of Energy uranium lease blocks, which host multiple noted uranium deposits. The Dulaney Properties are located about 6 miles west of Slick Rock, Colorado.
The Company has access to detailed underground maps and select drill logs together with proprietary historical uranium resource estimates for the 6 claim Dulaney Property. The maps and data were compiled by Cotter Corporation, former owner of the Dulaney Property. The Company will review and confirm the data used to make Cotter’s historical uranium resource estimates while developing a plan to determine the best way forward for development of the consolidated Dulaney properties.
Additional Properties – The Company acquired significant data in connection with the transaction, including various amounts and types of data for the remaining properties. The Company will work towards verification and compilation of this data on a property-by-property basis as corporate resources allow.
The technical disclosure on this page was approved by Dr. Douglas H. Underhill, CPG, Chief Geologist for Urano Energy Corp., and a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101.
Qualified Person
Technical information in this news release has been approved by Douglas Underhill, PhD. Geology, MBA, CPG, a Director of Urano Energy Corp. and “Qualified Person” as defined by National Instrument 43-101 – Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects.
1Chenoweth, William L., 1981, “The Uranium-Vanadium Deposits of the Uravan Mineral Belt and Adjacent Areas, Colorado and Utah”. In New Mexico Geological Society Guidebook 32, Western Slope, Colorado” and Goodnight, Craig S., William L. Chenoweth, Richard D. Davyault and Edward T. Cotter, 2005: “Geologic Road Log for Uravan Mineral Belt Field Trip, West-Central, Colorado” Rocky Mountain Section of the Geologic Society of America.
2Mills, S.E. and Jordan, B., 2021, “Uranium and vanadium resources of Utah—an update in the era of critical minerals and carbon neutrality”: Utah Geological Survey Open-File Report 735, 26 p., 1 appendix, Online: https://doi.org/10.34191/OFR-735
3Chenoweth, 2006, Utah Geological Association Publication 32