NexGen Energy Ltd.

RK-25-232 cut 3.9 m above 61,000 counts per second inside a 13.8 m mineralised interval from 452.2 m, which the company calls the best discovery-phase hole it has ever drilled at any property, Arrow included. With four other off-scale holes it doubles the shallow high-grade subdomain at Patterson Corridor East to 210 m along strike and 335 m of vertical extent, eleven years after the Arrow discovery hole and 3.5 km away from it.

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 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

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

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

The third and final assay batch, forty holes: 46.0 m at 4.51% U3O8 including 4.0 m at 15.21%, 30.0 m at 3.09% including 8.0 m at 11.35%, 44.0 m at 1.66%. The company's stated purpose is continuity of grade and thickness rather than growth, and after 2019 the case for reclassifying Arrow's indicated tonnes as measured rests on a matched set of paired intercepts.

drilling result

A second batch of twenty holes, high grade in every A2 and A3 target: 48.0 m at 3.81% U3O8 including 6.0 m at 13.50%, 41.0 m at 3.42% including 7.0 m at 15.48%, and 21.0 m at 5.06% including 4.0 m at 18.38%. Each is paired in the release with the neighbouring hole it twins, and the grades line up.

drilling result

The first assays from the feasibility program confirm the radioactivity readings, including 12.0 m at 33.78% U3O8 and 8.0 m at 32.88%, with AR-19-227c2 returning 49.0 m at 2.93% including 3.0 m at 22.66%. Twenty holes reported, each drilled within 7 to 13 metres of an earlier hole with comparable grades.

drilling progress report

Phase I finished: 117 holes for 50,968 m on the resource, plus 14 holes for 6,314 m characterising the rock around the planned workings and the underground tailings facility. Directional drilling cut the metres needed for the conversion by 28%. Radioactivity results only, with assays following in three batches over the rest of the year.

drilling result

The 125,000 m feasibility-stage program begins - the largest drill campaign the company has run - designed to tighten drill spacing to between 9.0 and 16.7 metres so indicated resources can be reclassified as measured, the highest confidence category, and to feed a bankable feasibility study.

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