Categories: Energy
Topics: General Energy

ALX Uranium (TSX-V: AL) CEO Warren Stanyer on the Commencement of Drilling with Partner Orano at the Close Lake Uranium Project in the Athabasca Basin

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me is the Chairman and CEO of ALX Uranium (TSX-V: AL)(OTC: ALXDF), Mr. Warren Stanyer. Warren, how the heck are you?

Warren Stanyer: I'm very well, Gerardo. And thanks for inviting me on your program for the interview today.

Gerardo Del Real: Thank you for coming on. Pretty important, pivotal time for ALX and ALX shareholders. You just announced that diamond drilling is underway at Close Lake in the Athabasca Basin with your partner.

I would love for you to provide the details and explain why this program is as important as any in recent memory for the company. I mean, your shares are trading, I think, at what, the $0.045, $0.05-level and you wouldn't know that you have this big, well-connected, technical partner drilling a property that you have the right to earn up to 51% of. Right?

Warren Stanyer: Well, I have a lot of respect for our partners, it's Orano and Cameco and JCU, which is the Japanese uranium company that's undergone several reorganizations over the years. These people are very experienced. They've had many discoveries under their belt. For us to have an opportunity like this is – well I wouldn't say it's unprecedented – but it is pretty rare.

This property was under wraps for a long time. There was a couple of great drill holes on it in the past and lots of sort of scattered showings. But we're in an area that's, it's kind of an arcing east-west across Close Lake and all the indications point to a potential setting for mineralization. So we're drilling into it as you and I speak.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. And tell me about the target. This is obviously the world's richest uranium district, you're in between monsters. Right? Tell me about the target, what you're hoping to hit.

Warren Stanyer: Well the target is near a hole that exhibited some very strong indications that it could be a mineralized setting. One thing, if you think of the sandstone as almost like a layer cake or a sponge cake, it can absorb liquids like syrup. So when the hydrothermal activity occurs that brings uranium in solution, the sandstone absorbs that. And so you end up with a uranium halo above a potential deposit or a deposit.

Warren Stanyer: So what we saw in the historical hole, which is Hole 144, is that there was uranium gowing up into the sandstone for over a hundred meters. Normally the uranium content is sandstone. It's like about that of a sidewalk, a sterile, barren sandstone. But when you got up to 1 PPM uranium instead of 0.2, when you're three, four or five times back around, you know that something happened there. You don't know exactly where. But that's the trick.

So we're drilling near that hole. We have two holes planned there and that's about as good as it gets. You've got the graphitic conductor, you've got other alteration in the sandstone, you've got uranium enrichment in the sandstone. As little as it sounds, it's always been one of the great tells of where a deposit may lie.

Gerardo Del Real: Now, this initial program, I understand it to be approximately, what, 3,000 meters?

Warren Stanyer: 3,000 meters in four holes. We're using a helicopter to move around. It's the most inexpensive helicopter drilling I've ever seen, and it's partly because we're dealing with Orano. They get everything at a lower price, including the room and board for all the people that are working on the project. They're all staying at Cigar Lake. We're not paying a hotelier. We're not paying a caterer the normal rates. These are lower rates, so it's really a very efficient program.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. When do we anticipate results?

Warren Stanyer: If we make a discovery, you're going to find out very quickly. I hope for that of course. That's what we do. We're searching for new deposits. It could be weeks. It could be a month. I just really can't say. We're not the operator, so we can't really make that decision. We have to wait for something material to occur.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, I'm looking forward to assays. I know that you are always wheeling and dealing, Warren. What can ALX shareholders expect in the next couple of months? Do you have more deals that you're looking at?

Warren Stanyer: We certainly do. We picked up the former Axis Lake nickel deposit, or a majority of it, in Northern Saskatchewan. And we've got some plans for that. We've got some other plans. It's not announced yet, but there's other base metals projects we're interested in. And we've also had an opportunity for a gold project recently.

The universe will unfold as it should, and I hope that our shareholders can appreciate that we are looking for other commodities as well. Uranium has always been our first call, but you can't sit around and ignore the prices of nickel and the prices of gold and say, "Oh no, we don't do that."

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. Warren, thank you so much for coming on. I'm looking forward to chatting soon and hopefully we're documenting a discovery. Right?

Warren Stanyer: Yeah, we'll take a saber and knock the top off a bottle of champagne with it.

Gerardo Del Real: Fingers are crossed, sir. You have a good one. Thank you so much.

Warren Stanyer: You're welcome. And thank you, Gerardo.

Gerardo Del Real: All right. Bye now.