Categories: Energy
Topics: General Energy

Skyharbour Resources (TSX-V: SYH) CEO Jordan Trimble on Divesting a Gold Interest for Shares to Focus on Uranium

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me once again is director and president and CEO of Skyharbour Resources (TSX-V: SYH)(OTC: SYHBD), Jordan Trimble. Jordan, you got some news out. Thank you for coming back on. It's a pleasure.

Jordan Trimble: Hi, Gerardo. Thank you for having me again.

Gerardo Del Real: Wonderful. Now, you had some news out this morning. Can you share the details of the news, because I think it's very interesting?

Jordan Trimble: Absolutely. We just announced a deal with a company called TomaGold. It's a TSX Venture listed company, LOT gold company with projects throughout North America, predominantly in Canada. We have had a 24.5% minority interest in a project in Red Lake called the Baird Property. This is basically a project that's been in the portfolio for many years. Well over a decade here. It hasn't seen a whole lot of work in the last 10 years on it, but 24.5% is owned by Skyharbour, 51% by Goldcorp which was previously Placer, and then 24.5% by New Gold. Goldcorp is the operator, but again it's been relatively inactive in terms of exploration over the last little while. Being in a uranium company portfolio, as I say, it was really just collecting dust for the last little while.

What we've done with TomaGold is a sale of our 24.5% minority stake to them for 600,000 shares of TomaGold, so a sizable position in the company. I like the prospects for TomaGold. I think they got a good portfolio of projects in North America as well as a dynamic management and technical team. I think those 600,000 shares are going to be worth a lot more going forward. It's a good way for Skyharbour to monetize an asset that really wasn't getting any value in the market, and also maintain exposure to the gold market, to a gold company that I think has a bright future ahead.

That's the gist of the deal. I think one of the underlying highlights though is we have been active in monetizing some of these non-core assets. We will continue to do so. We have one other project in Ontario that's called South Bay. It's a zinc-sulfur-copper project. We're actively looking for partners on that as well. The focus is the uranium projects in Saskatchewan, which we will be working on later this year.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. I find that really interesting because having exposure to a better gold market and multiple commodities, truthfully I wasn't aware that Skyharbour had that 20 plus percent interest. 24% I think it was. To see you be able to monetize that behind the scenes I think speaks volumes to the quality of the deal making and how active you've been in this market. What else can we expect, Jordan, from Skyharbour here in the near future? You're obviously very busy behind the scenes.

Jordan Trimble: Yeah. We have a lot on the go. The big news obviously a few months back, blockbuster deal with Denison Mines to acquire the Moore Lake uranium project on the east side of the Athabasca Basin. Again this was a project that my head geologist, Rick Kazmierski, had worked on for a number of years with JNR Resources when he ran JNR. Made a high grade discovery there at the Maverick Zone, a 4% U308 equivalent over 10 meters at a relatively shallow depth of 260 to 265 meters. That's the flagship. That's the focus for the exploration. That's going to provide us with the best discovery potential going forward. We will be drilling that later this year, as I've mentioned in a previous interview.

We do have 250,000 hectares of property, 5 projects scattered throughout the Basin. A number of these projects, there's an opportunity to partner up with other companies, other groups on, to help monetize, to help create value from these projects. The prospect generator model I'm a big fan of. I think especially in the Basin, when you have a large land package, it's the right model. We have the property package now to utilize this model and we will be looking to bring in other partners, strategic partners, to come in and help work some of these other projects that we have.

Again, the main news flow, the main catalyst really over the next 6 months is this upcoming drill program and Moore Lake. It is the flagship now for the company, and obviously Denison as a large strategic shareholder in the company, and having spent many millions of dollars working this project over the last 6 or 7 years as well, we'll be working quite closely with their technical team in Saskatchewan along with our technical team in Saskatoon led by Rick Kazmierski.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. Excellent. Jordan, it's really exciting to see you working behind the scenes. Now, I know it's been a touch uranium market, but a lot of the smart money, a lot of my contacts are starting to position themselves in the better uranium juniors. What are you seeing out there when you're negotiating these deals, when you're talking to potential JV partners? What's the interest like?

Jordan Trimble: The last 3 years we've been able to acquire these projects, this portfolio of projects in the Basin, because we have been in a depressed uranium market. We've been able to opportunistically acquire these assets at very attractive valuations. Without a difficult uranium market, we would not be in the position we're in. Now, I see this market turning. I see it turning sooner than later. I spoke a little bit about it in our last interview, but I truly believe that this impending contracting cycle, utilities having to come back to the market and enter into these long term contracts, the new demand that's coming online from places like China, from India, Russia and other emerging markets, I do see that moving the price here sooner than later. I also see this rising tide we're starting to see in the general resource space. I think that'll spill over into the uranium market.

The fact of the matter is, is there aren't a lot of uranium companies left and that's an opportunity for the ones that have been able to get through this difficult market. They've been able to get their hands on top tier assets, quality management, and technical people, geologists and engineers. What I'm seeing is now the contrarian money starting to come back into the sector. I see there's more deals being done. I think the smart money is recognizing the opportunity and they're taking advantage of it both for investors investing in equities and companies, but also the companies looking at projects, looking to build portfolios. There is an opportunity right now, there has been for the last few years, to buy these assets. What I see going forward though is as the market starts to improve, the prices, the valuations of these assets will obviously increase as well. That's where we will be again opportunistic in striking deals that are value add for the shareholders, for the company on the portfolio or on a couple of projects that we have in the portfolio. Again a big land package offers us that ability, that opportunity, and we will look to take advantage of it.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. Jordan, you've done an amazing job of adding some incredible assets at very opportunistic prices, frankly. You have a great team obviously in place. What's the cash position look like?

Jordan Trimble: As you know we just closed a $2.4 million financing, so we're fully cashed up right now financed for this upcoming drill program, which we have about a million 2, a million 3 earmarked for, and then the rest obviously we would like to be marketing the company more given this recent transaction, this recent deal with Denison. I think there's a lot more substance. The asset base has improved drastically with Moore Lake, and as you can see we are also doing deals on other projects we have, so the news flow will be quite consistent over the next 12 months.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. Well, again the quality of the deals that you struck in the past speaks volumes and I'm looking forward to what the future holds. Hopefully we have you back on soon.

Jordan Trimble: Absolutely. I really appreciate it.

Gerardo Del Real: Jordan, thank you for your time.

Jordan Trimble: Thank you.

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