2-January-2015

Rose subsidiary, VANE Minerals (US) LLC, has signed a Purchase and Sale Agreement to sell its 50% interest in the Wate breccia pipe uranium project

Rose Petroleum plc, the AIM-listed (Ticker: ROSE) natural resources company, is pleased to announce that its wholly owned subsidiary VANE Minerals (US) LLC ("VANE") has signed a Purchase and Sale Agreement (the "Agreement") to sell its 50% interest in the Wate breccia pipe uranium project (the "Wate project") to EFR Arizona Strip LLC ("EFR"), a subsidiary of Energy Fuels Inc. The Wate project is owned and operated by Wate Mining Company LLC ("Wate") which is owned jointly (50:50) by VANE and Uranium One Americas, Inc ("U1"). VANE is the Manager of Wate.

Highlights:

  • Total sale price of US$1.5 million consisting of:
    • US$750,000 cash on closing, and
    • 2% production royalty capped at US$750,000
  • Closing date expected to be 16 January 2015

The Wate project has a NI 43-101 compliant resource of 1.118m lbs eU3O8 at an average grade of 0.79% eU3O8. The deposit was initially discovered in the 1980s in a drilling campaign carried out by Rocky Mountain Energy, a subsidiary of Union Pacific Resources and relinquished during a period of depressed uranium prices. The project was re-started by VANE and U1 in 2009, whereby further drilling was conducted and the NI 43-101 resource was subsequently established by Wate.

Under the terms of the Agreement, the transaction is set to close on 16 January 2015 (the "Closing"). At Closing, EFR will transfer US$750,000 to VANE, plus VANE's portion of the funds remaining in the Wate operating account and execute a royalty agreement for a two per cent contractual royalty capped at US$750,000, giving a total sale price of US$1.5M. EFR retains absolute right to purchase the royalty for US$750,000 cash, less any previously paid royalty. Timing of royalty payments cannot be anticipated at this time until further progress has been made on the production plans for the Wate project. The proceeds from the sale of the Wate project will be used for working capital and further exploration expenditures on both mining and oil & gas.

Matthew Idiens, CEO, commented: "We are pleased to announce the signing of the SPA with Energy Fuels, thereby moving forward with our intent to divest our uranium assets, as previously announced, and concentrate on our oil and gas projects which continue to gain momentum as well as our base and precious metals projects. The proceeds of the sale will be utilised in both the mining and oil & gas divisions, on the mining side, specifically pushing forward the porphyry exploration programme in Mexico. I would like to take this opportunity to wish our shareholders a very happy New Year and we look for to updating the market further as we move into 2015." 

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