The third drilling campaign by Uranium Exploration Australia (UXA) on the highly prospective Stuart Shelf in South Australia"s Gawler Craton will include up to 20,000 metres of drilling.

In South Australia, UXA has nine exploration licences and four exploration licence applications within a mineralized corridor that includes BHP Billiton"s Olympic Dam mine, Oxiana"s Prominent Hill mine development and the recently discovered Carrapateena deposit.

UXA's exploration targets on the Stuart Shelf include basement-related iron oxide-copper-gold-uranium style of mineralisation similar to Olympic Dam, Prominent Hill and Carrapateena. The cover sequences above these basement targets is also being investigated for sedimentary hosted uranium mineralization.

Drilling has started on the first of these tenements, Griffen Well, following the collection and interpretation of detailed gravity surveys. Five drill targets have been identified on Griffen Well based on magnetic and gravity anomalies, with four of the targets also adjacent to an interpreted fault.

UXA has appointed experienced geologist Simon Powell to its technical staff. Simon Powell has 20 years of geology and geophysical experience in the mining industry in Australia, and joins UXA as exploration manager. He has worked in numerous technical roles in exploration and mining involving uranium, copper, gold and industrial minerals.

Before joining UXA, he was engaged by BHP Billiton and was involved with the supervision and coordination of up to 15 drilling rigs operating 24 hours per day on the Olympic Dam expansion project.

UXA managing director Patrick Mutz says: "We have successfully completed the assembly of all the necessary resources, including appropriate technical staff, and have launched our newest drilling campaign.

"Available drilling resources and geological staff are becoming more and more scarce in South Australia and in Australia in general. However, it is very satisfying to see that good people and resources still tend to gravitate to solid exploration programs. The addition of Simon Powell to the UXA exploration team is a great example of this principle at work."