(MENAFN- ProactiveInvestors - Australia) Toro Energy (ASX: TOE) has begun three airborne electromagnetic surveys over newly-granted tenements in the Wiso and Reynolds Range Projects of the Northern Territory.
The 2,500 line kilometre program, using the Fugro-operated Tempest system, is being carried out over the prospective in-situ recoverable (ISR) uranium provinces.
The Northern Territory Government is financially supporting the projects through its Bringing Forward Discovery program.
The projects have strong potential to host ISR uranium systems similar to the Toro discovery at Theseus in Western Australia.
Like Theseus at the time of discovery, these projects have received no prior exploration beyond shallow rotary air blast drilling, despite their close similarity to existing ISR uranium provinces of the Frome Embayment in South Australia and the Chu-Sarysu Basin in Kazakhstan.
The Chu-Sarysu Basin in Kazakhstan is a world class uranium province, with numerous operating ISR uranium mines scattered along several regional redox fronts, hundreds of kilometres long.
Toro has an extensive ground position in the Reynolds Range-Wiso region that equates in area to one of the Kazakhstan redox fronts, and on that basis the exploration upside in the poorly-explored Tertiary basins of central Australia is considered immense.
The three surveys â€" Wiso Regional, Reynolds Range Regional and Mount Denison detailed surveys â€"will enable Toro to map the distribution and groundwater chemistry of Tertiary cover and underlying Neoproterozoic-Palaeozoic basin architecture to better target large scale sedimentary uranium systems.
The Fugro-operated Tempest system is being used because it can delineate the prospective geology for uranium and other commodities in a cost effective manner.
These surveys should be completed within two weeks, after which data processing and interpretation will take place.
Wiso regional survey
The Wiso regional survey, 1.5 kilometre line spacing, covers a large expanse of the Lander Trough of the Arunta Province, the southern depositional axis of the Neoproterozoic Wiso Basin, including its abrupt fault-bound southern margin.
Toro has already identified a saline groundwater discharge zone in the Tertiary cover on the adjacent tenement EL27301 via a geophysical survey in 2010.
This scenario is a direct analogue of the Theseus Prospect, which lies within Tertiary sands above the steep northern margin of the genetically-related Ngalia Basin.
Reynolds North regional survey
The Reynolds North regional survey, 1.5 kilometre line spacing, incorporates a large unexplored area with over 200 metre thick Tertiary sedimentary cover, characterised by interlayered permeable sands and impermeable clays, with disseminated organic matter.
This survey extends geophysical coverage northward from Toro's Mount Denison survey, which in 2010 led to the discovery of an active redox front within coarse Tertiary sands.
Anomalous gamma and uranium assays, including 0.6 metres at 151 parts per million eU3O8, from the redox front support the contention of an active uranium mineral system in the region.
Mount Denison detailed survey
The Mount Denison detailed survey, 500 metre line spacing, is planned to infill the existing regional airborne electromagnetic lines at the Mount Denison roll-front discovery.
This will enable Toro to more accurately define follow-up drilling targets at the prospect.
The three surveys outlined largely cover newly-granted tenements on Aboriginal Freehold Land, for which Toro has been actively negotiating access agreements with Traditional Owners.
Data collected from the Wiso and Reynolds Range projects to date indicate similar geological-host and redox characteristics compared to the "Kazakhstan style" roll front deposits.
A$12M funding
Toro recently secured A$12 million in funding through a convertible debt facility from Macquarie Bank, increasing the company's working capital to A$19.5 million.
The increased funding places the company in a strong financial position to fund completion of the Wiluna Uranium Project Definitive Feasibility Study and finalise the process of negotiation with potential joint venture or funding partners.
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