Zadar Ventures Ltd (CVE:ZAD) jumped 18% on Wednesday in heavy volumes bringing its gains for November to 57%.
The Vancouver-based uranium explorer last week picked up two new properties in the Athabasca basin bringing to five the number of major projects the company is advancing in Saskatchewan and Alberta.
The Highrock and Riverlake Uranium projects bought from Canterra Minerals are situated near the past producing Key Lake mine which produced 209m pounds from 1983 to 2002.
The Athabasca basin is the epicentre of Canada’s uranium industry hosting apart from Key Lake, the McArthur River, Cigar Lake and Millenium uranium mines.
The Patterson Lake area in Saskatchewan is the current hotspot and with its PNE project Zadar joins Fission Uranium and Alpha Minerals which recently entered a joint venture, Azincourt Uranium, Aldrin Resources among others exploring the PL conductor corridor.
By the close Zadar pulled back slightly, but still up 16.6% at $0.315 on the Toronto Venture Exchange. More than 460,000 shares versus usual daily volume of around 75,000 shares changed hands on Wednesday, making Zadar one of the most actively traded stocks on the day.
The $5 million company, which raised $2m for its drilling activities in September, is up 36% since the start of year despite a tough uranium and junior mining market.
Spot prices for uranium are languishing at 8-year lows of $36 a pound and have not recovered since the Fukushima disaster in Japan in 2011 despite more than 70 reactors being built around the world, 29 of them in China.