Issue link: http://resourceworld.uberflip.com/i/661612
14 www.resourceworld.com A P R I L / M A Y 2 0 1 6 add long-life, high grade, copper and gold production to Lundin's asset base, within the next decade. "The company's cash position leaves additional room beyond the currently proposed transaction to remain opportu- nistic in the current environment," wrote Canaccord Genuity in a research report. Lundin Mining shares were trading at $3.75 on February 22, 2016 and Scotia Capital analyst Orest Wowkodaw says they offer "excellent exposure" to copper, zinc and nickel. He has reinforced that view with a buy rating on the stock and a target of $5.50. Lundin gained his first real taste of mining by prospecting for uranium in Saskatchewan years ago. He says he is "slightly bullish" on the outlook for the metal. However, when his company Denison Mines tried last year to buy Saskatchewan explorer Fission Uranium Corp. in a $483 million stock deal, the bid was voted down by Fission shareholders who felt that Denison wasn't paying enough for its Patterson Lake South discovery. Denison is a uranium exploration com- pany with interests primarily focused in the Athabasca Basin. It has few peers its size, is generating cash, and still reports exploration results that matter, wrote Dundee Capital Markets analyst David Talbot in a research report dated February 9, 2016. A key asset is its 60% stake in the Wheeler River joint venture, a large unde- veloped uranium project in the Athabasca Basin. It contains two mineralized zones (Gryphon and Phoenix) which together contain 114 million pounds of uranium oxide. The Phoenix unconformity deposit is the highest grade project in the world, and basement-hosted Gryphon adds poten- tially easier mineralization to develop. A preliminary economic assessment for those zones is expected to be announced in the first half of this year. Denison's bid for Fission was in keep- ing with the company's plan to become a uranium producer in Athabasca. Lundin said that remains the goal even though Athabasca uranium sector observers don't expect Denison to return with a higher bid for Fission, which recently attracted an $82 million strategic investment from Hong Kong Stock Exchange-listed CGN Mining Company Ltd. Given that Denison's Athabasca area assets include a 22.5% interest in the McLean Lake uranium mill, Leschuk said he is surprised that Denison has not been scooped up by Cameco Corp., or one of the other major players in the Saskatchewan uranium sector. "At Denison Mines, we are refocus- ing the whole thing on the Athabasca Basin,'' Lundin explained. "We are looking around. There are some good projects that are being drilled out. We would like to become a small producer in the Athabasca Basin if we could. There are a couple of deposits out there that might be worth looking at. We are going to try and become a focused company and try and spin off the African assets." While the Denison bid for Fission was making headlines, another Lundin com- pany, Lucara Diamond, found itself in Lukas Lundin's participation in the 80-day Cairo to Cape Town Motorcycle Tour through 11 African countries gave him some ideas on how to alleviate poverty with sustainable economic growth through the Lundin Foundation. Photo courtesy Lukas Lundin.