Australian company, Crossland Uranium Mines will accelerate development of its international uranium exploration programme following the final activation of a joint venture agreement with Canadian explorer, Centram Exploration. Centram – which graduated to Toronto’s TSX Venture Exchange on June 29 – has successfully raised C$5 million, sufficient to support the Vancouver-based company’s minimum A$4 million funding of Crossland’s exploration program in the Northern Territory and South Australia. Centram must spend a total of A$8 million on the Crossland projects before it earns a 50% interest in them.

Crossland’s Executive Director, Geoff Eupene, welcomed the green light for the joint venture and said two Crossland directors would join the Centram board and attend the company’s annual general meeting and planning meetings in Canada this week. “Under the terms of the joint venture agreement, Crossland and Centram will also both initially contribute $2 million to fund future uranium acquisitions and exploration outside Australia,” he said. “The meetings in Canada are aimed at planning future exploration programmes and acquisitions, both in Australia and overseas.”

Uranium activities are being undertaken by Crossland and Centram outside of Australia through their newly-established Canadian-based jointly owned entity, Crosscontinental Uranium, which last month announced its maiden international foray – into West Africa. That project sees Crosscontinental currently set to acquire over 6,000 km2 of prospective uranium permits and permit applications in Burkina Faso.

In Australia, the three uranium targets under exploration by Crossland and Centram are:

• Chilling in the uranium-rich Pine Creek Orogen of NT
• Charley Creek in the Arunta region of central Australia, northwest of Alice Springs
• Kalabity in SA’s Curnamona Province, which hosts several uranium prospects.

Eupene said Crossland had just completed its first detailed exploration on the Australian uranium prospects in South Australia and the Northern Territory with an airborne geophysical survey on the promising Kalabity Exploration Licence. “The Kalabity work is the first of several detailed airborne geophysical surveys planned on Crossland’s titles during the current dry season, he said. “The high quality survey results are being used to plan the next exploration phase at Kalabity. This will involve geochemical sampling of prospective areas revealed by the survey, and by earlier work undertaken on the project by PlatSearch and previous exploration.” Crossland and Centram are earning an initial 60% interest from the owners, PlatSearch and Eaglehawk Geological Consulting, by exploration expenditure of A$500,000. Under the terms of the joint venture, Centram will provide funds for this work.

Eupene said Charley Creek would be the next project to be flown, with that survey expected to commence within the next week and involve almost 10,000 line km of detailed survey. “The survey of the Chilling project in the Pine Creek Orogen, involving over 25,000 line km, will commence later into the dry season, to enable the area to dry out from the Top End wet season,” he said. “The presence of surface water is undesirable for radiometric surveys as it can mask the radiometric response of soils.”

Crossland’s Board and management team includes Eupene and Chairman, Bob Cleary – two experienced Australian uranium experts who have both been closely involved with the definition, development and operation of the Ranger mine in the NT, Australia’s largest uranium producing mine. David Mosher, a Director of Centram, led the exploration team that discovered the Jabiluka deposit, Australia’s largest uranium orebody, lying about 20 km north of Ranger.