Aussies buy Labrador uranium miner

Australian miner Paladin Energy Ltd (TSX:PDN)(ASX:PDN) announced Friday that it has concluded a definitive agreement for the purchase of the uranium assets of Aurora Energy Resources Inc.. Aurora was a wholly owned subsidiary of Fronteer Gold (TSX:FRG)(NYSE Amex:FRG).

Aurora Energy holds title to significant uranium assets within the highly prospective Central Mineral Belt in Labrador, including the Michelin deposit as well as the Jacques Lake, Rainbow, Nash, Inda and Gear deposits and has secured the most prospective ground within the CMB.

Paladin will pay Fronteer Cdn$260.87 million for Aurora through the issuance of new shares in Paladin.

According to a news release, “Paladin considers the CMB to be one of the few remaining, underexplored uranium districts globally and this acquisition not only provides Paladin with a noteworthy mid-term development asset but also offers an excellent opportunity for both significant new discoveries and expansions of the existing deposits. This highly strategic transaction fulfils Paladin's long held ambition to expand its footprint into Canada, a leading country in uranium mining, both in terms of resources and its stable political and business environment, providing the Company with an important new platform from which to plan its continued growth.”

Paladin plans to continue further testing and exploration to define the size of the assets it now holds. John Borshoff, managing director and CEO of Paladin said that the company intends “to advance these assets and will commit to regional target identification and testing upon resolution of the current uranium mining moratorium, which was put in place by the Nunatsiavut Government to provide the necessary time to complete a Land Use Plan and Environmental Protection legislation, both on track for completion by March 2011. The goal will be to advance towards a definitive economic study and district development plan once a sufficient resource base has been defined thus benefiting Paladin shareholders, our customers and the stakeholders of Nunatsiavut and Newfoundland and Labrador.”

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Frontier to buy out Aurora Energy

Frontier announced Monday it will buy up the remaining common shares in Aurora Energy that Frontier doesn’t already own.  Aurora’s share prices have dropped like a stone in recent weeks.

Aurora’s main asset is uranium in central Labrador.

In light of some comments made in the legislature recently, someone at Aurora might want to reconsider titling the page of their website “Our Assets”:

In reading the documents that have been accumulated by the government as they brought themselves to the point of writing this bill, it surprised me to read some documents – I don’t suppose it surprised me, but it upsets me to read some documents in which, for example, Abitibi-Consolidated has been claiming ownership of the land and ownership of the water. No, they never owned it. They had a lease that allowed them to use it and the lease was renewed, but it is not ownership.

Whose assets are they again?

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