NexGen Energy Ltd.

RK-25-232 cut 3.9 m above 61,000 counts per second within a 13.8 m mineralised interval starting at 452.2 m, which the company called its best discovery-phase hole at any property, Arrow included. With four other off-scale holes it doubled the shallow high-grade subdomain at Patterson Corridor East to 210 m along strike and 335 m vertically.

drilling result

A 43,000 m program starts at Patterson Corridor East, 9,000 m more than 2024 and among the largest in the Athabasca Basin for the year. The mineralisation there is vein-type in competent basement rock, which the company describes as highly analogous to Arrow.

drilling progress report

Patterson Corridor East grew from a single hole into a zone in one season: 34,000 m drilled, 19 of 30 holes mineralised, ten with multiple intervals above 10,000 counts per second, and the footprint now 600 m along strike by 600 m vertically. RK-24-222 returned a 17.0 m wide vein with several off-scale (above 61,000 cps) occurrences, the fifth PCE hole to go off-scale, and RK-24-220 and -223 reached 41,000 and 40,000 cps.

drilling result

The CNSC finished its 30-day completeness check of the May 21 submission on June 21, 2024, and the 60-day technical review by the Federal-Indigenous Review Team has now begun. Once all comments are resolved the EIS can be deemed final and a Commission hearing date set. The company says it is ready to start major construction on receiving the remaining approvals; the filing mentions no construction financing, and no approval has been granted yet.

regulatory community update

NexGen submitted responses to the remaining 49 technical comments from the CNSC (part of the original 274 questions on the June 2022 draft EIS), along with a revised federal EIS. The company says about 80% of its earlier responses were accepted in the first round. The CNSC now has a 30-day completeness check, then a 60-day technical review, after which a Commission hearing date can be set. This continues the federal environmental assessment thread, and it is a review step, not an approval.

regulatory community update

The C$224 million Australian placement closed, the shares issued as CDIs and stated to be aimed at deepening the ASX listing's liquidity and market capitalisation rather than at a specific project cost.

capital raising announcement

An upsized C$224 million placement into Australia: 20,161,290 shares at C$11.11 settled as CHESS Depositary Interests on the ASX, led by Aitken Mount Capital Partners with Canaccord Genuity. The price is two and a half times the C$4.50 bought deal of March 2021 and about four times what CEF Holdings paid in 2017.

capital raising announcement

A new discovery on the SW2 property, 3.5 km east of Arrow at Patterson Corridor East: RK-24-183 intersected 19.8 m of mineralisation between 347.7 and 367.5 m with peaks above 61,000 counts per second, on a conductor segment never drilled before and open along more than 1.5 km of strike. The company points out that 3.0 m of up to 61,000 cps is better on every metric than RK-14-21, the hole that discovered Arrow itself, which had less than 0.5 m above 9,999 cps.

drilling result

The at-the-market program is doubled to C$500 million and extended to January 2026, on the same terms with the same agents.

capital raising announcement

NexGen received Ministerial approval under Saskatchewan's Environmental Assessment Act to proceed with developing Rook I, resolving the provincial half of the environmental assessment thread; the company says it is the first full provincial approval for a Saskatchewan uranium project in more than 20 years. The federal environmental assessment and CNSC licence are still outstanding, though NexGen says it has submitted all responses to the federal technical review and has lodged initial applications for site earthworks, shaft sinking and water and waste facilities with the provincial ministry. No financing for the C$1.3bn build is mentioned.

regulatory community update

The Saskatchewan Ministry of Environment confirmed completion of its conformity review of the revised EIS NexGen submitted on July 5, 2023, and the provincial assessment moves to a 30-day public review due to start on or before September 2, 2023. After that the ministry will recommend to the Minister, who will make a decision. On the federal side NexGen says it is finishing responses to the comments received in Q4 2022, and that it completed the full licence application package to the CNSC in Q2 2023. The final provincial EIS is later than the Q1 2023 timing given in December 2022 (the filing does not say why), and none of this is an approval yet.

regulatory community update

A C$250 million at-the-market equity program is established with Virtu as agent, running to January 2025, allowing shares to be sold into the market at prevailing prices whenever the company chooses. It is a standing licence to issue rather than a raise, and a very different instrument from the negotiated placements of 2017 and 2020.

capital raising announcement

NexGen received the federal technical and public review comments and the provincial technical review comments on its draft Environmental Impact Statement, following the 90-day federal public review that ended October 12, 2022. It is now preparing the final EIS for submission in Q1 2023 and plans to file the remaining licence application documents with the CNSC in December 2022. This moves forward the permitting thread opened by the June 2022 draft submission; it is a review step, not an approval, and the company says it has also started detailed engineering.

regulatory community update

NexGen submitted the draft Environmental Impact Statement for Rook I to the Saskatchewan Ministry of Environment and the CNSC, the main document in the environmental assessment that began in April 2019. It included support letters from Clearwater River Dene Nation, Birch Narrows Dene Nation and Buffalo River Dene Nation, each of which has signed a Benefit Agreement with NexGen. The provincial technical review has begun and the CNSC is checking conformance before parallel technical and public review; this is a step in the process, not an approval.

regulatory community update

A C$150 million bought deal closed, 33,400,000 shares at C$4.50 through a nine-bank syndicate led by BMO Nesbitt Burns and Canaccord Genuity, seventeen days after the feasibility study. The price is two and a half times the C$1.80 Queen's Road Capital paid nine months earlier and two-thirds above the C$2.70 CEF Holdings paid in 2017.

capital raising announcement

The feasibility study, with the first mineral reserves NexGen has ever declared: 239.6 million lb U3O8 probable in 4,575 kt at 2.37%, drawn from a resource that now includes 209.6 million lb measured in 2,183 kt at 4.35% - the payoff from the 2018-19 conversion drilling. After-tax net present value is C$3.47 billion at 8% with a 52.4% return and payback under a year, on C$1.3 billion of pre-production capital and a 10.7-year life at 1,300 tonnes a day.

resource reserve update

A US$30 million financing with Queen's Road Capital closed on the same structure CEF Holdings used in 2017: US$15 million of shares, 11,611,667 at C$1.80, and US$15 million of five-year 7.5% convertible debentures converting at C$2.34. The share price is a third below the C$2.70 CEF paid three years earlier, which is what raising money in May 2020 cost. Cash reserves stand at about C$78 million.

capital raising announcement

NexGen released a third batch of assays, covering forty holes, to show continuity of grade and thickness at Arrow. Highlights were 46.0 m at 4.51% U3O8 including 4.0 m at 15.21%, 30.0 m at 3.09% and 44.0 m at 1.66%, with 37 assays still pending.

drilling result

NexGen released a second batch of twenty feasibility-stage holes, all hitting high-grade uranium in the A2 and A3 domains. Top results were 48.0 m at 3.81% U3O8, 41.0 m at 3.42% and 21.0 m at 5.06%, each located about 9-10 m from an earlier hole.

drilling result

The first assays from the feasibility program for twenty holes included 12.0 m at 33.78% U3O8 and 8.0 m at 32.88%, plus AR-19-227c2 at 49.0 m at 2.93% including 3.0 m at 22.66%. The five highlighted holes were drilled about 7 to 13 m from earlier holes.

drilling progress report

NexGen completed Phase I: 117 holes for 50,968 m on the resource, plus 14 holes for 6,314.4 m characterising the rock around the planned workings and tailings facility. Directional drilling cut the metres needed for conversion by 28%. Only radioactivity results were given, with final assays pending.

drilling result

Canadian and Saskatchewan regulators (the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission and the provincial Ministry of Environment) accepted NexGen's Project Description for Rook I, which starts the formal environmental assessment of the proposed Arrow mine and mill, run as a joint process. NexGen also filed an initial licence application with the CNSC for a licence to prepare the site and construct. This is the first regulatory step toward permitting after the 2018 prefeasibility study; the release gives no approval date and no approval has been granted.

regulatory community update

NexGen began its largest-ever drill program, a minimum of 125,000 m with 10 rigs at Arrow. About 71,000 m was to convert Indicated resources to Measured and 54,000 m to convert Inferred to Indicated, feeding a feasibility study due in H1 2020.

drilling progress report

The prefeasibility study and a resource update land together. Indicated resources rose 43% to 256.6 million lb U3O8 in 2.89 Mt at 4.03%, including an A2 high-grade core of 181.0 million lb in 0.46 Mt at 17.85%, with 91.7 million lb inferred. Because the study uses indicated material only, the mine life falls from 15 years to 9, but the head grade rises from 1.73% to 3.09% and average annual after-tax cash flow rises 64% to C$909 million; after-tax net present value is C$3.7 billion at 8% with a 56.8% return on C$1.25 billion of capital. A 125,000 m, ten-rig program - the largest in the company's history - is launched to take Arrow to feasibility.

resource reserve update

The last 28 holes of the summer program pushed mineralisation outside the resource boundary in several places: one hole returned 13.0 m at 20.74% U3O8 within a wider interval, 25 m outside the estimate in the A3 High Grade Domain and described as the best hole yet drilled in that shear; another gave 5.0 m at 11.72% 15 m outside it; and high-grade material was confirmed northwest of the A1 shear for the first time with 8.0 m at 1.43% including 4.5 m at 2.51%.

drilling result

South Arrow, discovered six months earlier, turns out to be a real zone rather than a one-hole curiosity: thirty-one holes returned results such as AR-17-166c1 with 20.5 m at 1.19% U3O8 including 3.5 m at 6.21%, plus a second interval of 24.5 m at 1.46%; AR-17-160c1 13.0 m at 2.18% including 4.0 m at 6.79%; and AR-17-178c1 11.0 m at 2.17% including 3.5 m at 6.73% only 142 m below surface. Shallow, stacked and outside the Arrow resource.

drilling result

The maiden economic study on Arrow, from Roscoe Postle Associates: an after-tax net present value of C$3.49 billion at an 8% discount rate, a 56.7% return, payback in 1.1 years and pre-production capital of C$1.19 billion, at US$50/lb uranium. Average output of 27.6 million lb a year in the first five years at an operating cost of about US$4.42/lb over that period. It is built on the December 2016 estimate of 179.5 million lb indicated at 6.88% U3O8 and excludes over 66,000 m of 2017 drilling.

resource reserve update

The first two exploration holes of the summer program found a new zone of off-scale radioactivity, over 61,000 counts per second in massive pitchblende veins, about 400 metres south of Arrow on a parallel structure that is almost entirely undrilled. The intervals are narrow but sit inside a wide envelope of the same hydrothermal alteration that surrounds Arrow, and South Arrow is open in every direction.

drilling result

Final winter assays: step-out hole AR-17-136c2 cut 13.5 m at 9.58% U3O8 including 5.0 m at 23.49%, forty metres outside the resource boundary in the A3 shear. In the Southwest Gap, ground excluded from the March 2017 estimate, AR-17-131c3 returned 21.5 m at 2.51% including 7.0 m at 4.68% and AR-17-131c4 22.5 m at 1.67%, joining the 180 m Southwest area to the Arrow deposit. Two holes 300 m southeast of Arrow returned only anomalous values.

drilling result

A US$110 million financing with CEF Holdings closed: US$50 million of shares, 24,146,424 of them at C$2.70, and US$60 million of five-year unsecured convertible debentures at a 7.5% coupon converting at US$2.69, two-thirds of the interest payable in cash and one-third in shares. CEF's chairman Warren Gilman joins the board. It is a large cheque for a company that has not yet published an economic study on Arrow - that comes ten days later.

capital raising announcement

Winter 2017 assays from Arrow, where NexGen's cached record begins - the deposit was found in 2014, before this database's coverage. Twenty-five holes returned intercepts such as 33.0 m at 4.58% U3O8 including 11.0 m at 8.78%, 49.0 m at 2.93% including 12.0 m at 10.35%, and 62.0 m at 1.27% including 12.0 m at 5.13%, against a standing estimate of 179.5 million lb U3O8 indicated in 1.18 Mt at 6.88%. A 25,000 m summer program with seven rigs starts, six of them on Arrow and one on a new target 300 m to the southeast.

drilling result