Myriad ups stake in Wyoming uranium project to 75%

Vancouver-based Myriad Uranium (CSE: M) has earned a 75% interest in the Copper Mountain uranium project in Wyoming by spending over $5.5 million on eligible expenditures under the property option agreement with Rush Rare Metals Corp.

Myriad’s 75% interest and Rush’s 25% interest in the project are subject to certain underlying NSR royalties, the company said.

In October, Myriad obtained a new permit to expand drilling at the project where a past owner spent $25 million ($100 million today) in the late 1970s, before the Three Mile Island nuclear accident crashed prices for the heavy metal.

Union Pacific (NYSE: UNP) railroad outlined six open pits in a study at the time for the Copper Mountain project that sought to tap 245 million lb. uranium oxide (U₃O₈).

“Reaching the 75% expenditure threshold is an important milestone for the company, and it comes at a moment when the scale and potential of Copper Mountain are becoming increasingly clear,” Myriad CEO Thomas Lamb said in a news release.

“Our first phase of drilling and exploration has significantly exceeded expectations and the project has the potential to be one of America’s largest.”

Wyoming has once more become a centre of activity for United States uranium, with operating in-situ recovery mines, licensed capacity and a regulator base accustomed to the commodity, Lamb told MINING.COM sister publication The Northern Miner in an interview.