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

Skyharbour Resources (TSX-V: SYH)(OTC: SYHBF) CEO Jordan Trimble on Drilling for Major Discovery in 2026

 

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the President and CEO of Skyharbour Resources (TSX-V: SYH)(OTC: SYHBF), Mr. Jordan Trimble. Jordan, it's been a busy, busy 2026. How have you been?

Jordan Trimble: I've been good. Yes, it certainly has been a busy start to the year. And looking forward to catching up and going through what we have in store for the next six to eight months.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, let's get to it. Look, we talked a bit off-air. And we're seeing companies in the basin that have exploration success with the drill bit get rerated and rewarded really well by the market. We just saw Cosa Resources with initial results on what looks like an emerging discovery of significance there with their partner, JV partner, Denison.

And look, when I see the news that Skyharbour has drilling underway and a renewed permit at the High-Grade Moore Lake Uranium Project, that excites me because I know we have the kind of market that rewards success with the drill bit. So let's talk about the news and let's talk about what comes next for the next six to eight months.

Jordan Trimble: Yeah, absolutely. So I mean, look, there's nothing quite like making high-grade discoveries in the Athabasca Basin. As we all know, it's one of the most exciting return potentials out there and risk return profiles. Yes, they can be challenging to discover because they are smaller deposits, but I always emphasize the fact that we have a much better kind of tool belt to use now than we did even 10, 20 years ago. So the technology, the geophysics, the understanding of the geochemistry, and the geological setting that these deposits are hosted in is improved drastically such that the discovery cost, if you will, of making these high-grade, very lucrative discoveries in the Athabasca Basin has come down quite a bit.

And look, with all the drilling that we have planned this year, I think we're right on the precipice of that. Now keep in mind too, we do have projects that do host high-grade. Moore Lake, as you just mentioned. We do have a small high-grade deposit there. Several high-grade zones of mineralization with over 20%, up to over 20% U308 in previous drilling. We just announced earlier in the year, which we caught up on some additional high-grade results of, call it, just under 12% U308 over a meter and a half. And we've just commenced recently an eight to 10,000 meter follow-up program, an initial phase of drilling at Moore Lake this year.

We are funded for and planning to drill eight to 10,000 meters. So about half of that will be in this winter and spring program. We also have our drilling permit renewed for another three years, which is great. So we have lots of work planned at Moore Lake. And we'll be following up on some of the high-grade intercepts that we've announced previously looking to build out a resource on that main Maverick quarter. The other part of the drilling, which is exciting is some of these new regional targets at Moore Lake that have had very little drilling, including the Nomad Zone, which is just under two kilometers southwest of the Maverick zones of mineralization.

And this is a brand new target area that we did some exploratory initial drilling in last year in 2025, and we're seeing all the right indicator minerals. So we're going to be following up on that as well. And then, there's a number of other regional targets, the Esker Zone, as well as the Nutana Zone that have some historical results and some historical high-grade drill results that have had very little follow-up drilling on. So in addition to continuing to expand the Maverick East and Main Maverick zones this year, we're also going to be testing some of the regional targets at Moore Lake.

But in addition to Moore Lake, we have the drilling now commenced at the Russell project, which we've gone through on previous interviews. But the major transaction we announced and closed late last year with strategic partner and large shareholder Denison Mines, it's worth noting that they added to their position in the company by buying a big block in the market in late December, a big vote of confidence for us and the company. And that was after we closed this big transaction whereby they've come in as a funding joint venture partner, an option partner at the Russell project, which we've reorganized into four new joint ventures or sub properties. And Denison can earn up to 70% at three of the four joint ventures.

The other joint venture, the RL claims, which actually is most of the original property area, we remain as the 80% majority holder and operator, Denison with the 20% minority interest that they'll be funding. So just in the last few weeks, we announced the commencement of drilling at the Wheeler North joint venture, which are the claims closest to Phoenix and Griffin. Denison's funding and carrying out an initial winter phase of drilling, which will consist of a few thousand meters. That'll be followed up in the summer with a more extensive program. And that's testing a number of targets that we had success within the last few years. I feel like we just scratched the surface at a few of these target areas, including some high-grade, up to 3% over a half a meter that we announced a couple of years ago at the Fork target.

So there's, I think, a lot more discovery potential. And collectively now with Denison, we will be advancing those claims. We also have plans to drill the Getty East claim, which is going to be operated by Skyharbour, but funded by Denison. And we will carry out our own drilling at the RL claims, which again, we're the 80% holder of. So in total between Russell and Moore, you've got a handful of separate now drill programs, exploration programs across a big property area. And we're very confident that we'll have results that will be market moving this year. So again, it's great to be back out in the field and now working collaboratively with our new strategic partner in Denison at Russell.

Gerardo Del Real: No, listen. As you know, one hole can change the whole trajectory of a year for the company. And you have a whole heck of a lot of shots on goal. Briefly, and before I let you go, Jordan, can you give me your take on what you're seeing and hearing out there in the uranium sector?

Jordan Trimble: Yeah. Look, I'm going to be at a conference, World Nuclear Fuel Conference in Monaco in a couple of weeks, so we'll get some good intel at the conference. But I think there's a couple of key things to keep an eye out on for the remainder of the year. We've seen the contract market, the long-term market really kind of ramp up in terms of the volumes contracted in the last six months. The last quarter of 2025 was notable in that over 70 million pounds were contracted and we saw the volumes really gap up. So there is a chance that we could see that replacement rate level of volumes contracted in 2026.

We could see that 170, 180 million pound threshold met or exceeded, which again is usually correlated with a uranium price moving much higher. So that's something to keep an eye on. We saw some big contracts announced between Cameco and India as well as Kazatomprom in India. And another kind of key theme there is a lot of these kind of more recent larger contracts that we've seen announced have been from, call it, Eastern sources of demand. I think that's going to force the hand of Western utilities and Western sources of demand to step into the market sooner than later as they see more pounds making their way ultimately out East, places like China and India, the Middle East, right?

So that's, I think, going to accelerate the need for these Western utilities, in particular, American, Canadian, Western European utilities to come into the market sooner than later. We've also now seen just even in the last few days here, the market kind of pick up out of its recent slumber and volatility. And we saw the Sprott Physical Trust raising money, and ultimately they'll be buying pounds in the market with that. So I do expect we'll see a bit of some strength in the spot market as well. So it's going to be, I think, a pivotal year for the sector. I think that we could see another breakout. We've seen it kind of trade in a range the last little while here, and I think we could see it breakout to the upside.

Gerardo Del Real: I couldn't agree more. I'm looking forward to getting drill results starting to come in. I think we're going to go and have a heck of a 2026 with a whole three quarters worth of assays result. Look, I think in the junior space, it's going to be a year of discovery, which of course is my favorite way to add value. Anything to add to that, Jordan?

Jordan Trimble: Well, just to wrap up with that and the discovery potential. We talked about Russell and Moore, but we have another few dozen projects in our project portfolio that will be advanced by partner companies in the next year or so. And Orano, the big French nuclear company is one of those strategic partners. They've just recently announced plans for drilling this summer and a big work program at the Preston Project, which we now have a joint venture with them on.

And we actually bought out the other minority partners. So it's just us and Orano now advancing that project. And then, we have several other junior partner companies planning exploration programs. So in total this year across Skyharbour's project portfolio, there should be north of 30,000 meters of combined drilling, good chunk of that at Russell and Moore Lake, but notable programs at some of the other partner funded projects as well.

So that's one of the, as I like to say, on an enterprise value per meter drilled metric. It's created one of the more compelling opportunities in the Athabasca Basin. And with more drilling, the discovery and resource expansion potential increases. So it's worth looking at the company this year. A number of those drill programs have recently commenced and we have a lot more planned for later this year.

Gerardo Del Real: Exciting times. Jordan, thank you again. Appreciate it.

Jordan Trimble: Thank you, Gerardo.

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