Categories: Energy
Topics: General Energy

Skyharbour Resources (TSX-V: SYH)(OTC: SYHBF) CEO Jordan Trimble on Multiple High-Potential Uranium Drilling Projects in Canada’s Prolific Athabasca Basin

 

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, always a pleasure to have you. How the heck are you doing?

Jordan Trimble: I'm doing well. Happy New Year to you and looking forward to catching up.

Gerardo Del Real: Same. Listen, let's get right into it. When I look at bull markets, when I look at commodities, I like getting in early. I like getting into a trend that is massive, long-lasting. 

And I really love companies that have a diverse business model, a good treasury, a great management team, multiple flagship projects — preferably with partners that are already majors because of the technical expertise that brings. And then, of course, I need catalysts, right? I am very drill-centric. I like to see the discovery cycle play itself out alongside commodity super cycles. 

I say all of that to say Skyharbour is looking pretty darn good right now. You just had some news where you're commencing the very first 10,000-meter drill campaign at the Russell Lake uranium project. Congratulations there. I've talked about the major partners. I’ve talked about the drilling. I'll let you provide the context but I'm excited for this program.

Jordan Trimble: Yeah, absolutely. I appreciate that. It's a very exciting time for the company. Our inaugural drill program at this recently-optioned Russell Lake project; we've talked about it in previous interviews. 

But this is a transformational option agreement and deal for the company, paving the way, potentially, for a 100%-ownership in this advanced-stage exploration asset strategically located on the eastern side of the basin, adjacent to our existing co-flagship Moore Lake project and wedged between the McArthur River Mine to the north, the Key Lake Mill to the south, and Denison's flagship Wheeler River project to the west. 

Denison, obviously, is a large, strategic shareholder of ours, and we have a very close-working relationship with their team. It's taken a few months. We've been preparing for this program. It's the largest individual single drill campaign we've ever carried out as a company. It's going to take us right through the next few months into the late spring, early summer. Needless to say, as you pointed out, it'll provide a significant amount of news flow and potential catalysts.

Very, very exciting to get into what we deem to be the highest-priority initial targets at the project. With this initial 10,000 meters — it'll be spaced over a few phases of drilling, 3,000 to 4,000 meters each and a couple of breaks in between — it will allow us to get all of the data, get all of the geochem assays in, and continue drilling, and continue picking targets that are appropriate for us and make a lot of sense for us to go in and drill test.

But this first phase of drilling here, we're going to go back into — and I've highlighted this previously — some of the conductive corridors and EM conductors that were previously drill tested by the operators that had the project; Rio being the most recent operator, then, before that, Hathor. They did a lot of exploratory drilling. They did some good work but very widely-spaced drill fences. 

And what's quite intriguing to us is that you have mineralized drill fences, some of which are 300, 400, 500 meters apart. And you have mineralization. You have uranium in these drill holes and very little to no drilling in between, no infill drilling, in between these mineralized drill fences on fertile conductive corridors.

The first target is called the Grayling Zone, and it's a multi-kilometer conductive corridor. It actually is a part of a much larger conductive system, or corridor, that trends from our property up onto Denison's Wheeler River project, what's called the M-Zone, and then back onto our project again further up to the northeast. We're going to be testing the southern extent of that conductive corridor, the bottom multi-kilometer part of what is a 10-plus-km-long trend.

And in the previous drilling at the Grayling Zone, again, like I said, they've had multiple drill fences that intersected mineralization. In fact, a couple holes intersected multi-percent U3O8, or uranium, over skinny widths, but very little systematic drilling, very little infill drilling.

So we're going to go back in. We're going to test a couple of targets where there's coincident geological and geophysical anomalies. In particular, there's a couple of targets that have structural traps. And by that, there's these offsets in the geology that allow for potential deposition of uranium. This is very common in the basin. It can be a key ingredient in high-grade uranium deposition. We see that here at Russell at this Grayling Zone target area, and we're going to be testing that with the first several holes.

There's a number of other targets, again, along strike, and there's no lack of targets elsewhere on the project. That's a big property, 73,000 hectares. We talked a little bit about this in the news release. We announced it last year. But we've contracted a company called Condor Consulting to basically go through all of the historical geophysical and geological data and exploration and drilling, and basically do a full historical data compilation and reinterpretation, reexamining all of this information with some modern tools and thinking. 

This will provide us with a priority list of regional targets outside of the main conductive zones and target areas that we're going to be drill testing initially. So we're going to have probably a few dozen higher-priority target areas that come out of this that are regional targets at the property.

This is all going on now. Obviously, the 10,000 meters is really the focal point for the news flow for potential catalysts. We've seen recent discoveries just in the last few months generate major, major wealth creation and returns for investors. We've talked in the past that the size of the prize for high-grade, large uranium deposits in the Athabasca Basin; it’s a massive potential return for investors. 

Needless to say, with this initial drill program that we're carrying out, we're hoping to deliver that to our shareholders.

Gerardo Del Real: I don't want to get too much into the diverse business model that I mentioned up top, but I do want to touch on it a bit because there are so many catalysts outside of what I describe. 

And mind you — correct me if I'm wrong, Jordan — I say that you have multiple flagships because, in my opinion, you do. I think both projects are extremely, extremely qualified to consider themselves the flagship project. Individually, you happen to have two of them. Kudos to you. 

But you also have this portfolio of other projects that are also seeing exploration that provides shareholders a shot at a significant discovery with other people's money — an upside on the Skyharbour side. Can you touch on that part of the model real quick?

Jordan Trimble: Sure, in addition to Russell Lake, as you point out, the co-flagship project where we've been drilling quite extensively over the last five and a half, six years is Moore Lake. We own 10% of it. It, too, is an advanced-stage exploration asset with several high-grade zones of uranium mineralization and drill results that are highlighted with 21% U3O8 over a meter and a half; a historical drill hole that we actually drilled in 2017. 

And we've more recently — as you know and your audience knows — we've been drilling a little bit deeper into the underlying basement rocks at the Maverick corridor at Moore Lake. And we've continued to have success delineating high-grade zones of uranium mineralization in these basement rocks.

And we do have planned this year to continue the work, to continue the drilling at Moore Lake. It's adjacent to Russell Lake. It's relatively easy for us to move the drill rig around. In fact, there's going to be cost savings associated with the infrastructure that we are acquiring at Russell Lake, which includes a 40-person exploration camp. 

There's the road that services the McArthur River Mine and power lines that go up to the McArthur River Mine that basically traverse the western part of Russell Lake. So it's a benefit to both Moore and Russell to have the infrastructure that we have there.

But moving on to the prospect generator business and some of these partner companies, as you alluded to, it's going to be the busiest year collectively for our partner companies. We now have seven partner companies, two joint ventures, one with Orano at Preston, the second joint venture with Azincourt at East Preston. They're about to embark on a 6,000-meter drill program. We're thrilled to see the results and the potential discoveries from that program.

And then, we have, currently, our five active earn-in option partners, including Valor at Hook Lake, Medaro Mining at Yurchison, and Basin Uranium at Mann Lake. And then, the two more recent option agreements that we announced include our largest deal to date with Tisdale Energy. We just received conditional approval for that option agreement at the South Falcon East Project. 

That project in particular, it's a more advanced-stage exploration project. It's got a small resource; it's got lots of exploration upside. So we're very excited for Tisdale to go and likely be drilling there at some point later this year. It's a C$10.5 million exploration expenditure requirement for them to complete the earn-in up to 75% — so lots of work being done in addition to C$11.6 million in cash and share payments that need to be made to Skyharbour.

And then, last but not least, late last year, we announced our fifth option agreement with a private Australian company, Yellow Rocks, at two of our properties up in the northeast quadrant of the Athabasca Basin. That's subject to listing and a few other last pieces they're putting together.

All in all, we've signed option agreements with these seven partner companies that total well over C$70 million in partner-funded exploration expenditures in cash and in share payments. It's a significant amount of money being invested into the projects and quite a bit of money and stock coming into Skyharbour. In fact, we're right now, and over the next couple of years, expecting to get between C$2 to $3 million a year from cash and share payments from these option partners, again, assuming they all earn-in.

But it's a great complement to the main focus, the main business, which is high-grade uranium exploration and discovery at our core projects of Russell and Moore. It provides multiple shots on goal or irons in the fire. And again, like I said, we've seen some notable discoveries in recent years. 

And with Skyharbour, there's going to be not just our 10,000-meter initial program at Russell and Moore but there's going to be several other substantial drill programs that will be funded by these partner companies at some of the other projects.

Gerardo Del Real: It's a lot to like for a uranium company. Uranium, by the way — which is in the early innings of a bull market — but a uranium company with a market cap just over C$60 million. It's a lot of drilling and a lot of shots at a major discovery. 

And we know bull markets in the uranium space, Jordan; any quality company with quality projects and quality management in a uranium bull market doesn't trade for C$60 million; it trades for hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars, depending on those discoveries. So, excited for the program!

Let's have you back on soon to get your take on the uranium space and the other pipeline of news that I know you have in store here for shareholders. Thanks again for your time. Anything to add to that?

Jordan Trimble: No, I think we covered it all and looking forward to catching up again.

Gerardo Del Real: Alright, Jordan, thank you!

Jordan Trimble: Thank you.

 

 

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