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Additional	Information
Market:	TSX
Sector:	General Mining
Epic:	FDC
News:	Latest news
Web Site:	Forum Uranium
Other Articles:	03-12-200827-11-200809-05-2008

Forum Uranium: on the hunt in the Athabasca and Thelon basins

by Paul Ljucovic

As described by President and CEO Rick Mazur, Forum Uranium [TSX.V-FDC] is “a discovery company.”   Strategically, he feels that shareholders can be best served by selling off assets once they are confirmed. His team of highly experienced Uranium exploration geologists has discovered approximately 332MM pounds of the mineral over their careers, and with Forum’s rich portfolio of projects they are poised to increase that tally.

Indeed, in an April 22nd press release, Forum announced that the winter program had drilled into a major basement-hosted hydrothermal alteration zone at their Maurice Bay Uranium deposit in the Athabasca Basin of Northern Saskatchewan. Given that alteration at this magnitude occurs with other basement-styles of mineralization such as Cameco’s Millennium deposit and AREVA/UEX Shea Creek Deposit, the find is a promising development.

Interest in Uranium exploration is a fairly recent phenomenon driven by the parabolic rise in Uranium prices. Having hovered in and around the US$10/lb mark between 1995 and 2003, it spiked in July 2007 at US$138/lb. While prices have fallen back somewhat (it has been selling around US$63/lb lately), as we look into the latter half of 2008 and beyond, a buoyant price of between US$90/lb and US$105/lb forms the consensus. A key issue for the industry in the long term is the creation of a stable supply as the secondary-supply market (de-commissioned nuclear weapons) dwindles.

Mazur has been busy implementing his four-point strategy for Forum: build the team, acquire quality assets, fund the treasury, and generate awareness.

Assembling the right team to implement Mazur’s vision meant that candidates had to be the best in the Uranium industry. In June 2005 Dr Boen Tan joined Forum as a member of their Technical Advisory Board.  A year later he took on the full-time role of Chief Geologist.  With thirty-five years of Uranium exploration experience, his most notable achievement to date was the discovery of the 200MM pound Key Lake Uranium mine. In April 2007, Mazur brought on Ken Wheatley as the Vice President of Exploration. Ken brought with him twenty-seven years of Uranium exploration experience and the discovery of 132MM pounds of Uranium over eight deposits.

Forum has assembled an impressive portfolio of assets. Currently they hold one Coalbed Methane and eight Uranium properties. The Coalbed methane  project  (known as the Merritt project , which is 250 km East of Vancouver in Southern British Columbia) was the original asset in Forum’s portfolio. With Rick’s arrival, the focus shifted quickly toward Uranium and he plans to shed the Merritt project when the right buyer comes along. Seven of the eight Uranium projects are in Saskatchewan’s world-class Uranium-rich Athabasca Basin and one is in Nunavut’s Thelon Sandstone Basin.

While high Uranium prices have brought in many new players and made viable resources that were previously “out of the money,” shallow deposits are more able to weather price fluctuations. A key tenet in Forum’s asset acquisition strategy was to gain a foothold in the Athabasca Basin for shallow deposits at a time when other companies were “getting out of the game”. The Athabasca Basin, located in Northern Saskatchewan and Alberta, is known as the world’s leading source of Uranium. In fact, approximately thirty percent of the world’s current supply comes from the region. Cameco’s McArthur River mine, which began operating in 1999, is the world’s largest high-grade uranium deposit and mine. This mine supplies about twenty percent of the world’s current needs.

Four of Forum’s properties in the Athabasca region are being actively pursued in 2008: Key Lake Road, Henday, Maurice Point, and Orchid Lake. The company expects the first three in this list to reach the Plan and Permit stage by Q4 2008.

Key Lake Road is owned 100% by Forum. It covers 111,564 ha of the Eastern margin of the Athabascan Basin and is located twenty km South of Cameco’s Key Lake Mine/Mill complex. During the 2006 and 2007 seasons, Forum Uranium drilled forty to fifty wide-spaced holes to a combined depth of approximately 6,000 metres.  Very favourable results were reported in the DD Zone, where Uranium mineralization (with grades ranging from 0.011% over 0.2m to 0.09% over 0.2m) intersected over a total length of more than 140 metres. Mineralization was also found in the Hobo Zone and the Millison Zone.

The Henday project is also owned 100% by Forum. Found in the North-eastern margin of the Athabasca Basin, it covers 7,204 ha. The project’s proximity to AREVA/Denison’s Midwest Lake mine project and Denison’s Mae Zone make it compelling. The Midwest Lake mine project (41MM lbs of Uranium at an average grade of 5.5%) is slated to go into production in 2008. In the Mae Zone Denison recently reported 10.5 metres grading at 12.4% to 22.6 metres grading 26.7%. One key benefit of the Henday property is that the mineralization is shallow, with the depth of the unconformity ranging from 125 metres to 220 metres. Forum conducted 5,000 metres of drilling during the 2008 winter season.

Forum entered into a 50/50 Joint Venture with Superior Diamonds Inc on the North Thelon project in Nunavut. The 101,175 ha property consists of three project areas: the Kiggavik North and South and the Tanqueray Option. All three projects are adjacent to Areva/Cogema’s Kiggavik-Sissons project, where a two year feasibility study has commenced (on a resource estimate of about 57,000 tonnes of Uranium at an average grade of 0.24%). In 2008, Forum plans to conduct airborne geophysics, ground geophysics, mapping, and prospecting. Drilling is projected to begin in July 2008, with Plan and Permitting in Q4 2008.

In a market where liquidity is tight, firms need to explore all available avenues to raise funds. Joint Ventures are useful vehicles that allow exploration to continue (four of Forum’s Uranium projects are JVs) without going to market. In September 2007, Forum entered into an agreement with Mega Uranium Limited whereby they could earn a 55% interest in the Maurice Bay project by spending C$8MM over three years and issuing 100,000 Mega shares to Forum. In March 2008 Forum completed a private placement with Agnico-Eagle Mines Limited worth C$3MM (the issuance of 6,122,449 units of Forum at C$0.49 per share). So with approximately C$6MM in cash on hand at the end of Q1 2008, the company is well positioned to complete its exploration plans for the year.

Mazur has been successful at generating awareness of Forum in the industry by amassing a portfolio of projects in strategic locations and by initiating an ambitious exploration schedule for 2008. His vision for Forum is well on its way to being realized.

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