District Metals says Viken ranks No. 2 for uranium resource

A new estimate for District Metals’ (TSXV: DMX) Viken project in central Sweden raises uranium resources so much it’s now the world’s second largest deposit of the nuclear metal, the company said Tuesday. Shares shot up.

The report gives Viken 456 million indicated tonnes grading 175 parts per million (ppm) uranium oxide (U₃O₈) for 176 million contained lb. U₃O₈, an almost ninefold rise over the previous resource from 2010. Inferred resources grew 44% to 4.33 billion tonnes grading 161 ppm U₃O₈ for 1.53 billion contained pounds.

Viken was already one of the world’s largest uranium deposits, and the new report makes it the second largest, District CEO Garrett Ainsworth said in a release.

“The stunning growth of the current Viken [estimate] from the 2006 to 2012 drill data is a testament to the continuity in grade and thickness of the mineralized Alum Shale formation found across the Viken deposit,” he said. There’s “strong” potential to increase the inferred resource even more, he said.

District shares gained 23% to C35¢ apiece in afternoon trading Tuesday in Toronto, for a market capitalization of C$45.9 million. The stock has traded in a 52-week range of C25¢ to C50¢.

Swedish uranium momentum

The new resource for Viken, located 570 km north of Stockholm, adds to tailwinds for uranium in Sweden as the country moves towards lifting its 2018 ban on exploration and mining of the nuclear metal. Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson’s government has sought to overturn the ban since 2023, and the legislative changes lifting it are expected to take effect next January.

Sweden’s uranium output is minor by global standards, with its resources accounting for 27% of the European total, according to the country’s geological survey. But demand for the metal is high around the world as countries seek zero-emissions energy to power electricity-hungry AI servers. 

Viken’s global ranking

While Viken hosts the largest uranium resource by contained metal in Europe, how it ranks globally depends on how uranium projects are weighed.

District assumed a scenario in which Viken is compared to other deposits where uranium is the primary or secondary metal, Ainsworth said in an email to The Northern Miner, citing a table by S&P Global Intelligence on the world’s largest uranium deposits.

In that scenario, Viken sits under BHP’s (NYSE, ASX, LSE: BLT) polymetallic Olympic Dam project in South Australia.

Critical mineral bounty

Viken also hosts significant amounts of other critical minerals such as vanadium, zinc and nickel.

The new resource raises by more than 16 times the indicated vanadium tonnage, which now grades at 2,836 ppm vanadium oxide (V₂O₅) for 2.85 billion contained pounds. The inferred vanadium resource grows by 45% to 24.29 billion lb. grading 2,543 ppm V₂O_5.

The indicated zinc resource totals 413 contained lb. grading 411 ppm zinc, and inferred resources add 3.9 billion contained lb. at 417 ppm zinc.

Nickel comes to 332 million contained lb. at 330 ppm in the indicated category, and 3 billion contained lb. in the inferred category grades at 321 ppm nickel.

Sweden’s proposal to lift the uranium mining ban will influence District’s decision to pursue a preliminary economic assessment for Viken in the fourth quarter, Ainsworth said.

The new resource is based on 122 holes and includes data from holes drilled between 2006 and 2012 by previous operators, District said.