Arkle Resources (AIM:ARK), the AIM-listed uranium explorer, said drilling has intersected uranium mineralisation on six of ten fences across the Paleo East channel at its Erongo uranium project in Namibia, plus four step-out holes, spanning 2.9km of the channel's length.
The result matters because every one of the twelve mineralised intervals begins within five metres of surface, the same shallow setting that hosts the bulk of mineralisation at Orano's nearby Trekkopje deposit, which lies roughly 10km down the same palaeodrainage system.
The best intercept came from hole R057: 6m at 102 parts per million (ppm) of uranium oxide (U3O8) from surface, including 4m at 136ppm from a depth of 1m.
Hole R003 returned 3m at 99ppm U3O8 from 3m, including 1m at 262ppm from 4m, while hole R053 returned 5m at 72ppm from surface.
Arkle's four-licence Erongo project, in Namibia's northern Erongo region, became the company's core focus after it acquired an 85% interest in the ground in January and raised an oversubscribed £1.7m placing to fund exploration, reorienting the business from its earlier precious and base metal exploration strategy.
The Paleo East and Paleo West channels form part of a wider paleochannel (calcrete-hosted) target style the company has been pursuing alongside its uraniferous leucogranite targets, with vendor sampling in 2025 having returned grades up to 3,855ppm U3O8.
"Six of the ten fences we drilled across the Paleo East channel returned uranium, along close to three kilometres of its length, and every one of the twelve mineralised intervals starts within five metres of surface," said Rory Harding, chief executive officer.
The drilling programme comprised 1,558m across 78 vertical holes, with 1,390m in 66 holes at Paleo East and 168m in 12 holes at Paleo West, completed at the end of July as part of a wider 2,712m campaign across the licence reported on 14 September.
Carnotite, the uranium-bearing mineral, was visually logged in eight holes at depths between 1m and 22m, all confined to the Paleo East target.
The 2.9km of mineralised channel tested represents about 23% of the 12.7km interpreted length of the Paleo East array, leaving the bulk of the structure, 9.8km, still to be tested by step-out drilling.
Paleo West returned weaker results: only three of twelve holes yielded grades warranting sampling, with the highest at 31ppm U3O8, below the 40ppm reporting cutoff, and the target did not correspond with surface radiometric anomalies.
Arkle said it is now recalibrating its channel-depth interpretation and designing infill drilling across the mineralised sections, alongside trenching to identify further drill positions, while further paleochannel targets on EPLs 8298 and 8290 will be worked through using the same approach.
Assay results from the company's primary uraniferous leucogranite target, roughly 12km to the west-southwest, are expected shortly.