URANIUM – The Nunavut Impact Review Board is asking Areva Resources to fix up the draft environmental impact statement for its Kiggavik uranium project before it will review it, CBC News reported Jan. 20. The NIRB says the changes must be made before it will undertake a technical review of the document. Areva submitted the document to the board in December. The Kiggavik project is a proposed uranium ore mining and milling operation located about 80 kilometers west of Baker Lake in central Nunavut. In a letter dated Jan. 18, the NIRB said the format of the table provided to locate items in the 10,000-page document didn’t match its guidelines, and there were sections of the report that require clarification or additional information. The board says its request is not unusual. “"I would say it’s common. It certainly happens,” said Ryan Barry, the board’s executive director. “Given the size and the effort of putting together a document like this, I think it would be amazing if there were no sorts of deficiencies or no areas where something was missed. “The conformity review analysis that we do is really just a presence/absence check, so our goal with it isn’t actually judging the quality of those 10,000 pages. It’s to go through the guidelines that we issued and the conformity requirements within those and basically do a yes/no analysis to see if we can find the information that was requested.” NIRB’s letter says it was unable to locate information in the document using the table provided. “Given that it is a very large document, having that table properly formatted was a key issue for us,” said Barry. “We also found that for some of the information, even just with a cursory review, there were some sections where we were concerned that the level of information that was being supplied might not meet with the expectations of the board and with the reviewers that would be looking at the document itself.” Barry McCallum, Areva’s manager of Nunavut affairs, said the board’s request was not unexpected, and the company is working to address the items of concern. “We are going through them in detail, and we will provide NIRB with a date when we expect to meet them,” he said. “The documents we prepared, in fact, are sound, but there are thousands of pages, and there are dozens of pages of guideline requirements. So, having met them all was not expected. At a minimum, we believe we will be providing a more detailed concordance table which we believe will meet some of the deficiencies. And we will meet all of the deficiencies before long. “We’ve put a lot of work into this document. The document is sound. This is the first step in the review of the document, and we look forward to all of the steps over the next year and a bit to get to the end,” McCallum added.

MANAGEMENT – Kivalliq Energy Corp. Jan. 19 reported the following additions to its leadership team: Dale Wallster has joined the board of directors; Andrew Berry has been appointed chief operating officer; and Bill Cronk, P.Geo., was appointed exploration manager. Kivalliq’s board and executive are focused on advancing the high-grade Lac Cinquante Uranium Deposit and demonstrating the mineral potential of the 91,056-hectare (225,000 acres) Angilak Property in Nunavut. “Kivalliq’s board is constantly seeking ways to enhance shareholder value through exploration, team building and corporate development opportunities. We are excited to have added such depth to our team with these appointments, and we see these individuals playing a very big role in Kivalliq’s future success,” said CEO Jim Paterson. “Dale has many decades of experience in mineral exploration, most recently in the uranium sector as a key player in the success of Hathor Exploration. Andrew and Bill both have considerable expertise in the management of large scale exploration and logistical projects in Canada’s north.” Wallster is a geologist and a prospector with over 30 years of experience in North American mineral deposit exploration, with a focus on the targeting and discovery of unconformity-related uranium deposits since 2002. Berry joined Kivalliq in April 2009 as project manager and most recently held the position of vice president, operations where he was responsible for overseeing, on budget, Kivalliq’s C$17 million exploration program at Angilak. Cronk has more than 23 years of experience as a geologist and manager of exploration programs for precious metals, base metals, and uranium deposits. He has worked in Africa, Europe, North and South America; with more than 9 years of combined exploration experience in Alaska and the Canadian Arctic. Kivalliq also said it granted stock options to its directors and officers, in accordance with the terms and conditions of the stock option plan of the company, entitling them to purchase 3.35 million shares at the price of C50 cents per common share, expiring Jan. 19, 2017. The Lac Cinquante deposit currently has an NI 43-101 inferred mineral resource of 1.78 million metric tons grading 0.69 percent U3O8, totaling 27.13 million pounds U3O8, (15.2 pounds U3O8/t) at a 0.2 percent U3O8 cut-off grade, the Lac Cinquante Deposit is Canada’s highest grade uranium deposit outside of the Athabasca Basin. Since acquiring the Angilak Property in 2008, Kivalliq has invested about C$30 million in its project, conducting systematic exploration with ground and airborne geophysics, geological mapping, prospecting and about 48,000 meters of reverse circulation and diamond drilling.