PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Minerals explorer Cauldron Energy on Monday confirmed its intention to launch an off-market takeover offer for fellow-listed Energia Minerals, offering one of its own shares for every eight Energia shares held.

The offer was a 30% premium to the closing price of Energia shares on March 14, implying a value of A$0.034 a share, and a 29% premium to the five-day volume-weighted average price of Energia shares.

Cauldron executive chairperson Tony Sage said on Monday that the company’s bid for Energia rested on its confidence that it was on the verge of defining a major new uranium province in the Carnarvon basin, and that both Cauldron and Energia had large exploration and corporate synergies.

“We feel this region has the potential to host a globally significant in-situ leach uranium operation,” he noted.

Energia currently had an inferred mineral resource of 16.9-million tons, at 350 parts per million uranium oxide (U₃O₈) for 13-million pounds of U₃O₈ at the Carley Bore deposit at its Nyang project.

Cauldron, in turn, recently announced an exploration target of between 30-million and 115-million pounds of U₃O₈ at its wholly owned Yanrey project, in Western Australia, which is adjacent to the Nyang deposit.

“Nyang is situated along strike from our Yanrey uranium project and appears to reinforce Cauldron’s model of uranium mineralisation, and they share very similar geological settings,” Sage told shareholders.

“We believe both projects could be amendable to an in-situ leaching process, which is a very efficient and low-cost method of uranium production.”

Sage noted that, by combining these companies, Cauldron could create a uranium-focused entity that held a dominant land position in an emerging and potentially significant uranium province.

“The new company will have the financial, material and human resources to advance multiple uranium deposits towards development, in an environment suitable for low-cost and environment-friendly in-situ leach mining methods.”

Energia shareholders have responded positively to news of the potential takeover, with share prices up more than 15% on Monday, to trade at a high of A$0.032 a share.