As uranium resources double, how does Hathor fare against the giants?

Though it still has a ways to go, Hathor Resources has expanded high grade uranium resources in Saskatchewan to the point where it's difficult to escape comparison to major deposits next door.

HALIFAX -

In the heart of Canada's high-grade uranium country, a junior uranium explorer is playing catch up with the majors.

In early 2008 Hathor Exploration (TSX: HAT) discovered rich grades of uranium at what has become known as the Roughrider project in Saskatchewan's Athabasca Basin, home to major operations of uranium giants Cameco and AREVA. By 2009 Hathor had sketched out a humble, yet enticing, first resource estimate of some 12 million pounds U3O8 (uranium) at grades in the two percent range.

Hathor would eventually call the deposit Roughrider West and it has since grown exponentially in size. By late 2010 the indicated and inferred resource base leapt from 12 million pounds to about 28 million pounds uranium, including a solid, high-grade core of some 24 million pounds grading in the 11 to 13 percent range. Meanwhile Hathor discovered a second deposit, Roughrider East, and then a third, the Far East zone, after marching its drill rigs hundreds of metres farther east.

Now, as exploration of the Far East zone continues, Hathor has in hand its first resource estimate for the East zone: 30 million pounds uranium @ 11.6 percent in the inferred and indicated categories. That brings to nearly 60 million pounds, mostly high-grade uranium Hathor has so far defined at Roughrider in a region that boasts Cameco and AREVA's crown jewels in terms of high-grade uranium deposits.

While inferred and indicated resources are far from the reserve-status the majors' advanced-stage and producing deposits enjoy, a comparison between the junior's Roughrider deposit and those the big guys hold next door can nonetheless help put into perspective how Hathor and its flagship project stack up in a family of heavy-weights.

Starting 100 kilometres away there is Cameco and AREVA's (respectively 70 and 30 percent owned) McCarthur River underground mine. That is what Cameco calls the world's largest high-grade uranium mine, holding reserves of 335 million pounds U3O8 at grades of 19.5 percent. On McCarthur Cameco heaps praise, writing on its website, "Ore grades within the deposit are 100 times the world average, which means the operation can produce more than 18 million pounds of uranium each year by mining only 150 to 200 tonnes of ore per day."

Fifty kilometers closer to Roughrider there is the yet-to-be mined Cigar Lake, a joint-venture between Cameco, AREVA, Idemitsu, and TEPCO. This time Cameco calls Cigar Lake the world's largest undeveloped high-grade uranium deposit at 209.3 million pounds U3O8 with a grade of about 17 percent in reserves. Then, coming 25 kilometres closer to Roughrider and down in grade, there is Cameco's Rabbit Lake underground mine. It has some 25 million pounds uranium in reserves grading about 0.77 percent U3O8.

And finally, beyond deposits, AREVA's McClean uranium mill is a scant 11 kilometres to the east of Roughrider. In AREVA's words: "McClean Lake boasts the newest and most technologically advanced uranium mill in the world; it can process ore grades from less than 1 percent to 30 percent uranium."

So how important are Hathor's 57 million pounds of mostly high-grade uranium in terms of the region's giant, high-grade deposits? Quite. While Roughrider is still, clearly, a fair bit smaller than its heftier and more mature cousins in the neighbourhood, and Hathor still has a good ways to go before proving the project in terms of economics, one fact remains. With a resource base leaping passed 50 million pounds U3O8 and strong potential to expand in the Far East zone, Roughrider is no longer the tiny newborn once more easily ignored.

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