Anfield Energy has completed the first underground blast in nearly 40 years at the Velvet-Wood uranium-vanadium mine in San Juan County, Utah, after securing an ATF blast permit in June and rehabilitating the first 700 ft of decline. Ground support now includes rock bolts, wire mesh, new haul roads, mucking, and installation of a primary surface ventilation fan with ducting, air and water lines, power and communications. A water treatment plant and dewatering pump are almost complete, enabling dewatering of historic workings and further underground development targeting 4.6 million lb eU₃O₈ (measured and indicated).

Gold surged as much as 15.3% month-to-date in August 2026, breaking out of a multi‑month falling wedge, vaulting back above its 50‑day and 200‑day moving averages, and tracking as its sixth-strongest month since the US abandoned the gold standard in 1971. A 4.1% jump on 5 August, driven by 30.4k COMEX futures long contracts added in a single COT week, was followed by a further 3.9% spike after the US Treasury pledged to at least double longer‑dated bond buybacks to $4 billion per operation. Despite the speed of the move, gold is only about 3.5% above its 200‑day average—far from the 43.4% overextension seen in January’s blow‑off, suggesting less immediate downside risk for hedging and royalty strategies.

Ethiopia’s Afar Depression and surrounding Arabian-Nubian Shield are framed as a textbook SEDEX setting, combining evaporite-derived dense brines, Neoproterozoic volcano-sedimentary basement and overlying carbonate platforms and calcareous mudstones acting as reduction traps. Nicholas Vafeas points to En Kafala’s iron-manganese-barium exhalative sequence (basaltic basement, reef limestones, layered sulphides) as proof the hydrothermal “plumbing” works, yet notes current exploration remains focused on VMS and shear-hosted gold targets such as Sun Peak Metals’ Tigray projects and East Africa Metals’ Harvest. Any future large-scale copper-zinc discovery would be structurally tied to Chinese-backed infrastructure, notably the Chinese-financed Ethio-Djibouti Railway and Port of Doraleh export corridor.