Reveille, the company focusing on Lombardy’s uranium reserves, is listed on the stock exchange

The company seeking to reopen the uranium mines in Lombardy has been listed on the stock exchange since 7 July. Reveille Resources is the UK-incorporated company that has absorbed Futuro Energetico Italiano, the special purpose vehicle currently carrying out a feasibility study into uranium extraction from the Val Vedello (Sondrio) and Novazza (Bergamo) deposits. It has been listed on the Aquis Stock Exchange (Growth Market segment) in London. The company is a spin-off of Zenith Energy, an energy firm based in Calgary (Canada) founded by Andrea Cattaneo, in partnership with the mining company Ajax Resources, which was established by Ippolito Ingo Cattaneo.

Through its IPO, Reveille raised £2 million following the subscription of 40,000 ordinary shares at 5 pence each (it closed yesterday at 13, with a market capitalisation of 13 million). It had already raised £680,000 through pre-IPO subscriptions. The main shareholder remains Zenith, with a stake of approximately 25.26 per cent, followed by Ajax at 15.02 per cent, the Cayman Islands-registered fund YA II PN Ltd at 12.52 per cent, the directors (collectively) at 23.32 per cent and the remainder in free float. On the board, Andrea Cattaneo is non-executive chairman, Ippolito Ingo Cattaneo is executive director and Andrea Barani (chairman of the Santa Devota Group) is an independent non-executive director.

“The uranium sector is characterised by companies that deal exclusively in this mineral. That is why we have set up a company dedicated solely to this and listed it on the stock exchange at a time when there is a great deal of interest in this material: London has been a centre for mineral trading since the 1700s. Reveille aims to capitalise on the wave of government decisions in favour of nuclear power, partly thanks to the technological development of small modular reactors, which is sweeping across Europe. Starting with Italia, with its two deposits in Lombardy, and then Sweden, which appears to be the country with the largest uranium reserves in Europe,” commented Andrea Cattaneo.

As stated in its introductory note, Reveille aims to “pursue a strategy focused on identifying undervalued historic mineral deposits with significant exploration potential across Europe”. Furthermore: “The Lombardy Project will be Reveille’s flagship project.” Here, in fact, in Novazza and Val Vedello, there are two deposits, discovered and developed by Agip Nucleare between 1959 and 1982. The exploration work carried out at the time by the National Committee for Nuclear Energy in collaboration with Agip identified an estimated resource of around 1,000 tonnes of metallic uranium in Novazza and around 6,000 tonnes of uranium oxide in Val Vedello, Reveille has indicated. He also provided an overview of the infrastructure: in Novazza, underground development has reached four levels, with over 100 diamond drill holes and more than 6 km of underground tunnels, whilst in Val Vedello there are 11,000 metres of underground development and 60,000 metres of drilling.

On 16 April, the application for an environmental impact assessment for the Novazza deposit was submitted, and the same will be submitted next week for Val Vedello (the company had been granted an extension until 15 July), with an estimated waiting time of 6–9 months. “We have a budget of up to 1.5 million for environmental assessment and design work; the rest will be decided later. Working with uranium is certainly capital-intensive, hence the decision to list the company on the stock exchange,” emphasised Cattaneo.