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IsoEnergy (TSX-V: ISO)(OTC: ISENF) CEO Phil Williams on Building a North American Uranium Powerhouse via the Drill as Uranium Marches Higher
Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the CEO of IsoEnergy — Mr. Phil Williams. Phil, it's great to have you on. How are you today, sir?
Phil Williams: I'm doing really well, Gerardo. Thanks for having us on. Great to talk to you again.
Gerardo Del Real: Listen, I want to talk IsoEnergy, and I want to talk about the recently completed C$23 million bought deal private placement. The company is cashed up at a perfect time with uranium seemingly surging higher and higher by the week with no end in sight.
But before we get into IsoEnergy specifically, I have to get your take on the uranium space and where you think we are in this cycle.
Phil Williams: Look, it still feels pretty early on, notwithstanding how fast and how far the price has come just in a short period of time. But the dynamics — whether you look at the demand side and everything we're seeing about new reactor builds, extensions, and SMRs — are pointing to a bright future on that side.
And the supply side, where we've seen it come out of Kazatomprom and a little bit out of Cameco; just more generally, uranium mines are hard to bring on on-time and on-budget at the rates people expect. So I think we're going to be in a very tight position in this market for the next couple of years for sure, and that's going to only mean good things for uranium prices and uranium equities.
Gerardo Del Real: Well, I couldn't agree with you more. I talked about the C$23 million bought deal. I'm pretty sure that you could have had twice the amount had you wanted to take it. Tell me about being cashed up in this market and how you plan on allocating that. 2024, obviously, is going to be a pretty pivotal year for the company.
Phil Williams: You're absolutely right. We had a lot of demand for that financing. And that financing was done at a premium to our share price at C$6.25 versus the underlying price that was in the mid-fours at the time because we raised what's known as flow through shares, which is specific money designed and has to go towards Canadian exploration expenditures.
So that's where that money is going with a big chunk of that budget this year funding us into next year as well. And the demand was very strong. I think what your investors or what your listeners might be interested in is just the complexion of the buyers that we're seeing. There are more and more names. It's not the same people that had been investing in the company over the last few years when uranium wasn't quite as interesting. It's new investors looking for bigger companies to back and writing big checks.
As you say, we could have taken a lot more money. Now, our balance sheet is very strong. We've got over C$80 million between cash and securities. We do own shares in a number of different companies. So we're really well-funded for this year and many years to come, quite frankly.
Gerardo Del Real: Let's talk specific catalysts. What do you have on the horizon, Phil?
Phil Williams: We've got two prongs of catalysts, and the first one is the Canadian exploration programs. They're going in earnest. We've got two rigs right now at our Hawk project. I think they finished two holes, with a third hole going in, and a couple more holes planned there. We're going to move one of the rigs up to Hurricane in the next week or two and start drilling there.
Hurricane, of course, is the highest grade resource in the uranium space, and we're very excited to drill new targets. We have — along strike to the east of the current resource — some really interesting targets that look like they could be additional positive mineralization.
I think it would be remiss not to mention the update that Cameco had the other day when they put out their financials. They started talking about their side of the border. Our resource is bifurcated by a border, and on the west side of the border is the Cameco Dawn Lake project. They put out, for the first time, really, in the public domain, some very exciting information about that project.
In their MD&A, they said they've hit mineralized intercepts in excess of 60% U308 over several meters, and they're going back this winter and they're drilling right across the border with aggressive programs. So there's a lot of work happening in that part of the world, and I think it speaks volumes to what potential they see.
Obviously, we know the potential on our side. But together, this is looking like a very formidable resource corridor, and we're excited to get in there drilling in the next few weeks.
Gerardo Del Real: Well, I'm excited to see what you're able to turn up. You mentioned having a multi-pronged approach. You obviously have the cash and the technical acumen to execute on that. Anything else that you'd like to add to that, Phil?
Phil Williams: Look, the other part of the catalysts will be in the United States. For listeners that aren't as familiar with that side of the portfolio, we have a number of past-producing mines in southeastern Utah that we're going to be aggressively moving back towards production.
These are mines that were in production in the last bull market that were put on care and maintenance. But all of the infrastructure is there. They're fully built projects. The permits are all in place.
We're going to announce a comprehensive work program in the next couple of weeks to explain to people how we're going from where we are today to a production ready position. Really, with prices where they are and where they could go, these projects could generate significant cash flow to help fund the work in the rest of the portfolio.
So we're excited. We'll be excited to say more about that in the next couple of weeks. I'd love to come back and walk you through that in more detail.
Gerardo Del Real: Exciting times! Absolutely, would love to have you back on. Looking forward to it. Thanks again, Phil.
Phil Williams: Thanks, Gerardo.
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