Toronto, Ontario, Aug 04, 2020 — – Appia Energy Corp. (CSE:API) (OTCQB: APAAF) (FSE: A0I.F) (FSE: A0I.MU) (FSE: A0I.BE) (the “Company” or “Appia”) is pleased to announce that it has acquired, by way of online staking, 100% surface exploration rights to two new claim blocks contiguous with the Company’s high-grade rare earth element (“REE“) and uranium Alces Lake property (the “Property“), northern Saskatchewan (Figure 1).
The new claims comprise 3,243 hectares (8,014 acres), expanding the Property area to a total of 17,577 hectares (43,434 acres). Both claims were staked over legacy occurrences of interest. Historic assessment records indicate that additional Hawker surface uranium occurrences were discovered to the east of the previous land package. The new staking around Hawker ensures that all of the historic surface occurrences and potential geological trends are located within the Alces Lake property.
The McInnis area was staked based on references to biotite-rich, radioactive outcrops discovered and trenched in the late 1960’s. No mention of Th or rare earth elements were made in the historic report, but based on the Company’s experience in the region, it is believed that the McInnis occurrences are part of the rare earth minerals system. McInnis is located ~12 km south-southwest, and along geological and geophysical strike of the Alces Lake high-grade outcrops.
The two new land acquisitions now provide Appia with an additional 11 km of prospective trends to explore for additional high-grade rare earth element and uranium zones, bringing the total to 41 km along a continuous regional geological trend. Appia is the largest landholder in an emerging rare earth minerals system district in northern Saskatchewan.
The Alces Lake Property encompasses some of the highest-grade total REE mineralization in the world, hosted within a number of surface and near surface occurrences that remain open at depth and along strike. The United States government is actively pursuing REE resources to ensure a domestic REE supply chain becomes established within North America. The Alces Lake property now totals 17,577 hectares (43,435 acres) in size and is 100% owned by Appia. The project is located close to an old mining camp with existing support services, such as transportation (i.e., 15 km from the nearest trail), energy infrastructure (hydroelectric power), a 1,200 m airstrip that receives daily scheduled services, and access to heavy equipment.
The Company also wishes to announce that it has granted 1,200,000 options to the Directors, an Officer and Consultants of the Company. The options are exercisable at a price of $0.25 for a period of five years.
The technical content in this news release was reviewed and approved by Dr. Irvine R. Annesley, P.Geo, Advisor to the Board of Directors of Appia, and a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101.
About Appia
Appia is a Canadian publicly listed company in the uranium and rare earth element sectors. The Company is currently focusing on delineating high-grade critical rare earth elements (“REE”) and uranium on the Alces Lake property, as well as prospecting for high-grade uranium in the prolific Athabasca Basin on its Loranger, North Wollaston, and Eastside properties. The Company holds the surface rights to exploration for 65,601 hectares (162,104 acres) in Saskatchewan.
The Company also has a 100% interest (subject to a 1% Uranium Production Payment Royalty and a 1% Net Smelter Return Royalty on any precious or base metals payable, provided that the price of uranium is greater than US$130 per pound) in 12,545 hectares (31,000 acres), with rare earth element and uranium deposits over five mineralized zones in the Elliot Lake Camp, Ontario. The Camp historically produced over 300 million pounds of U3O8 and is the only Canadian camp that has had significant rare earth element (yttrium) production. The deposits are largely unconstrained along strike and down dip.
Appia’s technical team is directed by James Sykes, who has had direct and indirect involvement with over 550 million lbs. U3O8 being discovered in five deposits in the Athabasca Basin.
Appia has 73.9 million common shares outstanding, 90.3 million shares fully diluted.
Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements: This News Release contains forward-looking statements which are typically preceded by, followed by or including the words “believes”, “expects”, “anticipates”, “estimates”, “intends”, “plans” or similar expressions. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance as they involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions. We do not intend and do not assume any obligation to update these forward- looking statements and shareholders are cautioned not to put undue reliance on such statements.
Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Market Regulator (as that term is defined in the policies of the CSE) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.