Mineral exploration is never a sure thing but Arnold Armstrong, chief executive of International Enexco, has high hopes for the C$6 million drilling campaign now being conducted by joint venture partner Cameco at the Mann Lake uranium project.

It's been 45 years since Arnold and his team originally staked the claim in the prolific Athabasca Basin of Saskatchewan and in the years which followed some of the most prospective uranium targets in Canada, probably the world, have been identified there.

It's enough to have enticed two of the biggest uranium companies in the world into partnering with Enexco, Cameco, the company that pioneered basement hosted uranium exploration at the Millennium deposit, and French nuclear giant Areva.

Arnold explains how the winning partnership came to be: "We staked it in 1968 and then we made a deal with Chevron and then Chevron brought Cameco and Areva in.

Then, Chevron went out of the mining industry entirely and that's how Cameco wound up with control at 52.5 per cent. Areva has 17.5 per cent and we have always had 30 per cent."

In the recent past Cameco has been largely focussed on its major Cigar Lake property. But in 2011 the Enexco team was notified that Cameco had decided to undertake a small geophysics program for the 2012 season.

That was the first sign that the spotlight was about to shift to Mann Lake. "They told us that they really like this project and it is one of their best exploration projects", explains Spiros Cacos, corporate development director for Enexco.

And when Arnold attended the 2012 yearly joint venture meeting, he was encouraged the moment he stepped though the doors. Even before Cameco announced its intentions, it was clear that something big was about to go down.

"Everybody seemed to be very excited", recalls Arnold. "For example, Areva brought seven representatives to the meeting all the way from France and they were quite enchanted by the project."

With all the partners assembled at the table, Cameco then announced the largest leap forward ever contemplated for Mann Lake, a C$6 million exploration campaign which outstrips the largest budget in previous years by four times.

It will very nearly double the amount of drilling done at Mann Lake to date.

After announcing the plans, Enexco raised the C$1.8 million required to cover its portion of the drilling program. "The next day after Cameco's budget came out, Denison Mines became aware of our project and were very eager to see how they could team up", says Spiros.

Denison, an uranium exploration company with interests in Saskatchewan, Zambia, and Mongolia, as well as a 22.5 per cent interest in the McClean Lake uranium mill in Northern Saskatchewan, bought 13.9 per cent of Enexco for C$1.8 million.

The first order of business at Mann Lake was to conduct geophysical testing on the final corner of the property which was never tested in previous programs. Bill Willoughby, Enexco's chief operating officer, explains: "We've have a geophysical conductor which extends across the property about six kilometres long. There's more geophysics to be done in the northeast corner up against the Hughes Lake property." Cameco is also project operator at Hughes Lake and plans to explore this season.

The program at Mann Lake consists of 28 drill holes with an additional 10 contingency holes, using three separate rigs for approximately 21,000 metres of drilling. The rigs are already on site at Mann Lake and collaring of the first drill holes commenced in the middle of January.

Drilling is planned along the entire extent of the six kilometre trend, but Arnold is particularly excited about an area where in 2006 high grade uranium was intersected in drill hole MN-013.

"The first hole we're drilling is near MN-013", explains Arnold. "The program is a run the full length of the property, however if we hit on this first hole we'll continue to drill there."

The attractions of drilling near MN-013 are clear. "In 2006 one of the holes that came back from a drill program, at 518 metres, had 0.25 metres of 7.12% uranium and 0.4 metres of 5.53% uranium", says Spiros. "The stock went from C$0.30 cents up to over C$4.00 at that time."

For a brief moment it looked like Mann Lake was really getting into gear and Enexco then raised roughly C$13 million at C$3.50 on the news to push the project ahead. But the following year, the markets collapsed and the outlook for uranium turned for the worse.

After a long look at the markets at large, Enexco decided to invest the money in its Contact Copper project and return to Mann Lake with Cameco at a later date.

Since then a number of factors have prevented further drilling in the vicinity of MN-013 at Mann Lake. Most dramatically in 2010 thin ice on the lake caused the drill rig to begin to sink, and as a result the closest drilling to MN-013 has been 30 metres, or 100 feet, away.

That's a considerable distance when you consider that many of the most exciting Athabasca deposits are exceptionally high grade and small in dimensions. "For example", says Arnold, "Cigar Lake is very small. They have this huge peak and are exceptionally rich but, generally speaking you can put one of these in a football field."

That's not to say the area around MN-013 is the only target on the property though. In fact, Arnold says, "every hole we've drilled has hit boron, which is a geochemical pathfinder for uranium, and anomalous amounts of uranium." If Cameco has a successful program, 2013 could be a defining year for International Enexco.

Qualified Person: William Willoughby, Ph.D., P.E. is the Company's Qualified Person for the purposes of National Instrument 43-101 and has prepared or supervised the preparation of the disclosure of any scientific and technical information contained in this article.