Uranium miner plots London float as father-and-son team reopen abandoned site in northern Italy
A firm planning to mine uranium in northern Italy has drawn up plans for a London float as it seeks to capitalise on renewed interest in nuclear technology.
Reveille Resources, which will be operated by Ippolito Ingo Cattaneo alongside his father, Andrea Cattaneo, are preparing to join London’s small-cap Aquis exchange as soon as this week.
The firm said its initial focus will be on two historical uranium deposits in Lombardy, northern Italy, known as Novazza and Val Vedello, for which licence applications were submitted last year.
Evidence of uranium at the locations was first identified as far back as 1912, before exploration began in the 1950s as part of Italy’s first nuclear energy programme.
Exploration at the sites was suspended in the 1980s after the Chernobyl disaster triggered widespread environmental concerns over nuclear energy.
But now, with warnings over Europe’s energy dependency on Russia and governments scrambling to invest in small modular reactor (SMR) technology, Reveille Resources hopes to be able to reopen the sites for further uranium mining.
‘Renewed interest’
“Against a backdrop of increasing concerns regarding energy security and access to natural gas supplies from Russia and the Middle East, together with the growing recognition of nuclear energy as a source of low-carbon baseload electricity, European governments, including Italy, are demonstrating renewed interest in nuclear energy, particularly in the development of small modular reactor technologies,” Reveille said.
“Concurrently, there is an increasing strategic focus on securing domestic and western-aligned sources of critical and strategic minerals, including uranium.”
The Cattaneos are set to own around one-fifth of the company following its float, while other mining companies they are involved in will also have shares, along with participation by New Jersey-based Yorkville Advisors Global, which has financed other energy-related firms including London-listed Fermi.
The company expects to be admitted to Aquis on Thursday.