Uranium Energy Corp (UEC) has signed a definitive agreement to acquire 100% of Rio Tinto’s wholly-owned Roughrider uranium project in Canada for $150m.
Under the terms of the agreement, UEC will make a cash payment of $80m and issue 17,805,815 UEC shares of its common stock, valued at $70m.
The company intends to fund the cash portion of the transaction using its existing balance sheet, which comprises more than $173m in cash and liquid assets, as of 10 October 2022.
UEC president and CEO Amir Adnani said: “With this accretive fully funded acquisition of the Roughrider Project, we’re able to achieve multiple objectives. We thank Rio Tinto for entrusting UEC with the Roughrider Project and welcome them as our new shareholder.”
“Our next steps for Roughrider will be to first complete an updated S-K 1300 technical report summary based on over 650 diamond drillholes already completed for a total of approximately 225,000 meters of drilling on the Project.”
The Roughrider project is a development stage, conventional uranium project located in the eastern Athabasca Basin of northern Saskatchewan, Canada.
It is located around 13km west of Orano’s McClean Lake Mill, close to UEC’s existing Athabasca Basin properties, and covers 597ha of area.
The Roughrider West Zone was discovered in February 2008, by Vancouver, Canada-based uranium exploration company Hathor Exploration, during the winter drilling programme.
Both Rio Tinto and Hathor have conducted extensive study and drilling campaigns, which helped a better understanding of the project’s geology.
Adnani added: “UEC is currently engaging with consultants to develop a technical report update in the next few months. Second, UEC intends to progress with permitting and a production study of Roughrider and optimise its integration with UEC’s existing Canadian platform.
“The acquisition builds on our strategic objective to create the leading Western supplier of secure and 100% unhedged uranium with a two-pronged platform: 1) near-term, fully permitted and low-cost US ISR production; and 2) a Canadian high-grade conventional pipeline.”
