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

Skyharbour Resources (TSX-V: SYH)(OTC: SYHBF) CEO Jordan Trimble on Advancing Multiple Uranium Exploration Projects via the Drill-Bit in Canada’s Prolific Athabasca Basin Region

 

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the president & CEO of Skyharbour Resources — Mr. Jordan Trimble. Jordan, it's been a bit. How are you today?

Jordan Trimble: I'm doing very well. Yes, it's been a little while so it's good to catch up with you. We've had quite a bit of news flow in the last couple of months and a lot more coming up… so great timing to catch up.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, let's get right into it. You've been busy on multiple fronts. A partner-funded exploration program that's moving ahead. You've strengthened your team here recently. 

And I want to get into all of that because I think we're going to close the year out in very strong fashion. But before we get to the company-specific news, we have to talk sentiment because there have been a ton of catalysts in the uranium space, especially this past month. 

I have to get your take on all-things Microsoft. A number of developments with 14 of the biggest financial institutions pledging financing mechanisms for uranium production and development of critical metals in North America. 

So just your overall thoughts on the sentiment in the space right now. There’s a lot of exciting stuff going on.

Jordan Trimble: Yes, you covered two of the bigger developments in the last month here. And look, the sentiment has improved quite a bit just in the last few weeks coming out of what was a fairly choppy summer. 

As we’ve spoken about before, the fundamentals have not changed, and, if anything, they’re just continuing to improve. There was clearly a disconnect between the equities and, in particular, the long-term uranium contract price, which has continued to move higher even though we've had some volatility in the spot price. 

As you pointed out, there have been some major developments recently with Microsoft signing a $16 billion power purchase agreement with Constellation to basically provide the energy for some of their data centers over a 20-year period. And it just so happens to be the restart of Three Mile Island, which I don't think anyone was expecting would restart.

That really reinvigorated the market just a few weeks ago. And shortly thereafter, the announcement during Climate Week in New York City, fourteen of the largest banking institutions globally announced that they were getting behind that pledge that was made at the COP28 conference about a year ago where now 25 countries have signed a pledge to triple nuclear capacity by 2050. 

So it's one thing to have government on board; it's another thing to have the financiers and these large financial institutions getting behind it. So both of those headlines really lit a fire under the industry here and helped spark the rally that we saw in the last few weeks. 

There's been a couple of other notable developments that I think are worth highlighting as well. Obviously, the Kazakh news in August, which had kind of a mixed reaction in the market. There was a bit of a headfake with the news from Cameco that their JV production had declined.

And then, Kazakhstan came out with news even though the net sum of it was a revision downward of 2025 guidance by 17%. As we know, market expectations can be a little finicky. So we saw some choppiness but the bottom line is that Kazakhstan is still having issues with their production, ramping up production in particular, at some of their new development projects that are coming online. 

The bear case for this commodity for many, many years was that Kazakhstan could flood the market. And they simply have not done that. And we're continuing to see globally on the demand side a much stronger market for electrification, the need for electricity globally, the demand, which has been flat, in particular in the US for almost 20 years. 

We're seeing rising electricity demand, data centers in particular, which we've talked about in previous interviews. The electricity demand from data centers alone is expected to increase tenfold by the end of the decade.

And we're seeing countries around the world revising their prior policies towards nuclear power, whether that be with new power plants, whether they're conventional larger plants or the advent of the SMR coming online. We're seeing countries that even six or seven years ago were looking to phase out their nuclear power generation completely reverse their policy. 

So you've got these plant-life extensions occurring routinely. You've got the restarts, as I mentioned, Three Mile Island; Palisades is another good example. So the demand side is incredibly robust right now, and that's something, again, I think that three or four years ago was not expected by the market.

Now, on the supply side, there's a structural supply deficit as we talked about at length. Again, when you have the top producer, Kazatomprom, having to revise their guidance down significantly, you're seeing that have an immediate impact in the market. So the market is particularly sensitive to these supply disruptions, or shocks, and that's been another key driver for this upward momentum that we've seen with the uranium price over the last several years. 

So, a very exciting time for the commodity. Again, I get asked this a lot, what inning are we in? How much more does it have to go? Is this trade long in the tooth? I do not believe that is the case whatsoever. 

At about US$80 a pound where you've got currently both the spot price and the long-term contract price just slightly above US$80 a pound… we're a far cry away from the previous high in the mid-2000s, which was about US$130 to US$140 a pound in the spot price. 

Inflation adjusted, that's about just over US$200 a pound in today's prices. And the market was completely different then than it is now. You've had major cost inflation over the course of the last few years, in particular, and over the course of the last 15 to 20 years. 

And so the incentive price, your average marginal cost of production, all-in cost of production globally is much, much higher. So I foresee much higher prices for the commodity, and I think it's still very early on in this bull market.

Gerardo Del Real: How is Skyharbour positioned for it? You've been busy. I mentioned advancing exploration with partners on properties that are joint ventured. You've strengthened your board here recently and obviously have catalysts of your own. Can we go through those here?

Jordan Trimble: Yes, we're in great shape right now to take advantage of this rising tide with what is now the third-largest mineral tenure holding in northern Saskatchewan in the Athabasca Basin with over 1.4 million acres of uranium properties, or interests in uranium properties, across 29 projects in total. 

As we've talked about at length, we've got our two core projects, our two advanced stage exploration assets that we're actively drilling and advancing. That's Russell Lake and the adjacent Moore Lake project. We just announced, in the last month here, drilling recommenced at Moore Lake. 

We're planning a few thousand meters there to follow up on the results in the drilling we carried out earlier this year, which, as you may recall, delivered some very strong high-grade results; 7.3% U3O8 over 3 meters. Within that, there were grades as high as 15% U308. And again, it’s relatively shallow high-grade mineralization at Moore at the Maverick Zones.

We're continuing to expand that high-grade structural corridor called the Maverick Corridor. There are several high-grade lenses on that. They are predominantly sandstone-hosted but we have found some higher-grade mineralization in the basement rocks. There's still good upside potential at depth and along strike. 

That drilling has just commenced, and we'll have news out and results out from that later this year. We are then planning to continue working at our Russell Lake project, which is our other co-flagship advanced stage exploration asset adjacent to Moore Lake just south of the McArthur River Mine northeast of the Key Lake Mill and adjacent to Denison's Wheeler River Project. 

Earlier this year, as you know, we made a notable discovery. It's still very early on in that discovery process but we intersected a high-grade zone of up to 3% U308 over a half a meter. And that was within 2.5 meters of just under 0.8% — one of the best drill results historically at the project and relatively shallow at about 340 meters.

Interestingly as well, it's sandstone-hosted. So the follow-up to that high-grade discovery will be carried out here starting later this month and take us right through the remainder of the year into the new year. So that's a pivotal program for us. We're very, very excited to get back to work there and drill another 4,000 to 5,000 meters at Russell with a particular focus on that new Fork Zone discovery and looking to hopefully expand on the high-grade zone that we discovered there earlier this year. 

So the two main projects are going to continue to generate a lot of news and further potential for high-grade discovery, which would be a key catalyst for the company and our shareholders. 

We've been very active as well on the other part of the business, which is the prospect generator business that we've built. As you know, we have a number of partners, either JV partners or option partners, and we just announced in the last few days an eighth partner company, UraEx Resources. 

It's a private company run by some mining executives out in Toronto. It has a very strong financial backing as well. They're planning to go public so it's a good group and a good team to be working with. And we just announced an option agreement on two of our projects, the Bolt Project and the South Dufferin Project. And they can earn an initial 51% interest. This is combined project consideration. So exploration funding, cash and share payments, a total of $4.6 million over a three-year period. And then, they can essentially buy out the project for a total of $9.8 million. Again, that's combined project consideration over a five-year period. So a pretty good deal for Skyharbour and our shareholders.

We're excited for UraEx to go in and advance these projects. They have lots of strong exploration upside potential, in particular South Dufferin, which is a project that we acquired just over a year ago. And it's drill ready. There's mineralization at the project. It's on trend to a high-grade deposit that Cameco owns just to the north. 

And that's a project that rewards a lot of follow up work. I believe there is a good possibility that they can go in there and discover something very, very material. That was the most recent announcement and brings our total in terms of our prospect generator business to eight partners.

Three of those are joint ventures. Five of them are still actively earning in. And the combined dollar amount of exploration funding, cash, and share payments coming in, potentially, assuming all the partner companies complete their respective earnings, is now well over C$85 million in exploration funding, cash and share payments, potentially, coming into Skyharbour. 

Of those eight partner companies I just talked about, the newest one, but we are expecting a handful of the other ones as well to be either drilling or carrying out exploration programs in the next 6 to 12 months.

Gerardo Del Real: Jordan, before you go, I’ve got to ask, you recently strengthened the team… you’ve added some new people, a lot of experience, a history of success there… can you speak to the additions?

Jordan Trimble: Absolutely. This is a very exciting time for the company, and we've added two senior people to our team, both on the technical side and on the management and capital markets side. 

So starting just a few weeks ago with Serdar Donmez, who joined us earlier in September. Serdar comes to us with almost 20 years of experience working in the Athabasca Basin. Notably, he was a senior geologist at Denison Mines for 17 years with a focus primarily on Wheeler River, which, as you know, is adjacent to our co-flagship Russell Lake Project. Very similar geology. And so he is a match made in heaven to be perfectly frank, given that he was there at Wheeler River during the discovery of Phoenix and Griffin right through to the feasibility study a few years ago. So he knows the rocks and he knows the area very well.

Denison has been one of our largest corporate shareholders and strategic partners for a number of years. So it's a great fit. And he joins us as our vice president of exploration. So a significant addition to our geological team in Saskatoon. 

And then, more recently, we brought on a gentleman, Brady Rak, who was a broker at Ventum Financial where he was a top producer and has over a decade of capital markets experience. He has joined us as our vice president of business development. 

Brady brings a wealth of Canadian capital markets experience, and he's going to be working with me here in Vancouver. So two great additions to the team. Both of them see the potential and the growth that Skyharbour offers investors, and we're thrilled to have them join this really important time for the company.

Gerardo Del Real: A lot to like. Exciting times in the space. Jordan, the catch-up was overdue. I suspect we'll have news to talk about here on a consistent basis moving forward. Thank you so much for your time today.

Jordan Trimble: Thank you, Gerardo.

Gerardo Del Real: Alright, we'll chat again soon.

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