Categories: Energy / Mining Stocks
Topics: General Energy / Uranium Stocks

IsoEnergy (TSX-V: ISO)(OTC: ISENF) CEO Philip Williams on Acquisition of Anfield, Securing Expanded Near-Term U.S. Uranium Production and the Shootaring Canyon Mill

 

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today for an overdue catch-up is the CEO and director of ISO Energy, Mr. Phil Williams. Phil, it's great to have you back on. It's been a bit, how are you, sir?

Philip Williams: Yeah, I'm well, it's been too long. Gerardo, good to speak to you again.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, listen, clearly you have been busy. You just announced here the acquisition about a week or so ago of Anfield securing an expanded near-term US uranium production at the Shootaring Canyon Mill.

Now you've been quiet, and when Phil is quiet, typically there's stuff in the background that is requiring diligence. Congrats on this acquisition. I think it's a transformational one, and I think your timing couldn't be more perfect.

So I want to talk acquisition, but before we get into the details of that, I have to get your thoughts on all of the uranium catalysts, especially recently. We talked a bit off-air. People seem to be bored with the sector during the consolidation, and then all of a sudden we're seeing some of your peers on CNBC and we're seeing the mainstream media media pick up on uranium as the next big thing here. And I have to get your thoughts because I know it's got to be exciting.

Philip Williams: Yeah, look, it is, and as you said, it was a bit slow over the summer and then the news just started to hit. And by the way, this kind of news is what we, in the industry, have been expecting and knowing what's happening in the background.

I mean, the AI Data Centers tie-up with nuclear power. We've been talking about this for months, but it's finally hitting the mainstream and the headline after headline, whether it's in Barron's or Bloomberg or CNBC, as you point out, it's just supportive of what we already know. But it's great to finally see it hit the mainstream and get on the radar screen of more and more investors.

Gerardo Del Real: So Phil, I mentioned, it has been a bit for those that are maybe new to the company, new to the stock and new to the sector, can you just provide an overview of the company, the operations, the approach, and then let's get into the details of the acquisition?

Philip Williams: Yeah, sure. And IsoEnergy is the company that's been around since 2016 and it's built a portfolio of assets primarily in Canada and the United States through acquisition.

In fact, it's almost a year to the day that Iso announced the acquisition of a company that I started in 2020 called Consolidated Uranium, and that really expanded their portfolio from an Athabasca focus company with a tremendous Hurricane deposit to a global player looking to become a multi-asset producer. The Consolidated side of the transaction, we brought in some US projects, past producing mines in Utah, and this Anfield acquisition that we're about to talk to really bolsters that set of assets in a very complimentary nature.

Gerardo Del Real: Let's talk about how it bolsters those assets in a very complimentary nature. Tell me about the approach to the transaction here.

Philip Williams: Yeah, look, and again, just going back to that combination between Iso and Consolidated, we started with three past producing mines in Utah. And from the very outset, US was a focus for us. We wanted to get bigger down there, looked around and Anfield was just an obvious target.

We started some conversations in earnest at the beginning of the year and, as you say, these things take time and are brewing in the background. After spending some time with the team and really getting up to speed on the assets and then bringing in some external consultants to really get down to the nitty-gritty of the projects, it was all systems go. And we just realized the exceptional opportunity is what we're doing is we're combining not only resources, past producing mines, projects that are ready to go back into production. But we're acquiring the Shootaring Canyon Mill, one of only three licensed conventional mills in the United States. There's a scarcity value there, but also the ability to control our own destiny in terms of making finished product and selling it into what we expect is going to be a very constructive price environment next year.

Gerardo Del Real: I've rarely seen bipartisan support for anything in this country, and to have it in the uranium space has got to feel really good. Given the fact that you've made the US a key jurisdiction for you and the company, can you speak to that advantage as well?

Philip Williams: Yeah, look, it's tremendous, the support that the industry is getting, particularly on the nuclear side, and we're seeing it with the likes of restarting Three Mile Island, which is something that I think many people in the industry would never have expected. And so when you're getting that kind of support on the nuclear side, you know there's going to be a follow through on the uranium side because the country needs more production to meet the demand domestically and increasingly, some of the foreign jurisdictions that are supplying material are out of favor.

And then what I'm talking about here is obviously Russia and the pending ban on Russian fuel into the US so in the absence of that material coming into the country, it's all about homegrown uranium. Where are we going to get it from? It's going to come from projects like the ones that we're acquiring or the ones that we already acquired past producing mines in great US jurisdictions. And so we're pretty excited to do this transaction at this time in the market.

Gerardo Del Real: I'm looking forward to closing out the year in the uranium space. On a very strong note, what can we look forward to as it relates to Iso?

Philip Williams: Yeah, look, so I think there's two streams. I mean, we're really focused, of course, on closing this transaction. That's going to be about mid-December. We've called shareholder meeting and expect to be closed before the end of the year. And then we're going to come out of the gate strong in the new year as it relates to the US assets.

There's going to be updated technical reports, mineral resources, economic studies, mine plans for the comprehensive set of projects that we're now acquiring under the Anfield transaction.

At the same time, we have this jewel of an asset in Canada. Hurricane is the highest grade indicated uranium resource in the world, 34.5%, almost 50 million pounds of uranium. We've got lots of work programs planned there. We just finished an aggressive summer program.

Our guys are meeting next week and going to come back with aggressive plans to continue to explore there through the winter and ongoing results from those programs. And then we're just going to see where the market takes us. But just given all the tailwinds, I think next year is going to be a tremendous year for uranium.

Gerardo Del Real: I couldn't agree with you more, Phil. Thank you for the catch-up. Look forward to doing it more often.

Philip Williams: For sure Gerardo. Thanks very much.

Gerardo Del Real: All right, chat soon. Cheers.

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