Cameco plans to invest between $50 million and $55 million on uranium exploration during 2008 as part of our long-term strategy to maintain our leadership position in uranium production.
Brownfield Exploration
Approximately 26% of the uranium exploration budget will be for brownfield exploration projects in the Athabasca Basin. We plan to invest about $13 million on six advanced projects. The largest proposed investment will be at McArthur River, with $3.5 million to be directed toward diamond drilling on the northern extension of the prolific P2 fault. At the Rabbit Lake operation, surface exploration will continue to focus on both regional and mine-related targets, principally east and north of the Eagle Point mine.
The Dawn Lake joint venture plans to continue delineation work on the Tamarack deposit. Environmental studies will continue while more engineering-related geotechnical work will be initiated. An initial resource estimate is intended to be undertaken once all the 2008 drilling program assay results are available.
Exploration activity at the Cree Zimmer and the Waterbury Lake/Cigar Lake projects continues in 2008. Priority targets on the Cree Zimmer project include the P-zone and the area along the main Key Lake fault southwest of the former Gaertner and Deilmann uranium deposits. In 2008, exploration on the Waterbury Lake project will be focused east of the Cigar Lake orebody to follow up on the mineralization encountered and also in the Tibia Lake area.
The Millennium deposit is expected to proceed to the mine planning and development stage following completion of the feasibility study and a positive development decision, which is pending. We expect the feasibility study will be complete by the end of the first quarter of 2008.
Exploration on the Cree Extension joint venture will shift to testing along the Millennium trend and on a parallel trend.
Regional Exploration
The remaining exploration expenditures in 2008 are expected to be allocated among 63 projects worldwide, the majority of which are at drill target stage. Our largest investments are planned to be in Saskatchewan, where a $2.7 million program is scheduled to be completed on the Virgin River project as followup on the Centennial zone mineralization.
We will also focus on projects in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut regions of Northern Canada, where Cameco has a large land position. A significant proportion of the $9 million earmarked for Australian exploration will take place on new land positions in Western Australia and South Australia.
In 2008, exploration will also take place in the US, Mongolia, South America and in Africa. Cameco continues to evaluate other regions and projects globally, and we will add to our land position as new prospects are confirmed.