NYSE American-listed Uranium Energy Corp (UEC) has closed its third acquisition in the Athabasca basin in the last 12 months, advancing its strategy of assembling a premier North American uranium portfolio.

The company announced that it would buy exploration-stage projects from Rio Tinto for C$1.5-million. These include a 60% equity stake in the Henday Lake joint venture (JV), 100% of the Milliken project, and a 50% equity stake in the Carswell JV project.

The Henday project is less than 5 km from the Roughrider project, which UEC recently bought from Rio Tinto.

“All three projects exhibit the features we seek when acquiring quality exploration assets, including uranium anomalism and hydrothermal alteration. In addition, these projects exhibit excellent prospective geology with minimal to no sandstone cover that will result in lower exploration costs and shorter timelines to discovery. With our operator status and the data already collected on Henday, Carswell and Milliken, these projects offer strong potential synergies to our existing portfolio in the Athabasca basin,” said VP exploration, Canada Chris Hamel.

UEC president and CEO Amir Adnani added that the latest acquisition built on the landmark acquisitions of UEX and Roughrider in the last 12 months.

“This acquisition represents an important component in our strategy to assemble a premier North American uranium portfolio, featuring near-term US production, Canadian development-stage projects including JVs, and a pipeline of exploration projects with excellent growth potential.

“Since the acquisitions of Roughrider and UEX last year, the Canadian team has issued technical reports on the Roughrider, Horseshoe-Raven, and the Shea Creek deposits. We have also added James Hatley as VP production, Canada to the team to augment the advancement of our Canadian assets towards production,” commented Adnani.

With the transaction, UEC has added an additional 17 986 ha of prospective ground in the Athabasca basin to its existing portfolio of 441 771 ha.

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