Categories: Base Metals / Energy
Topics: General Base Metals / General Energy

Skyharbour Resources (TSX-V: SYH)(OTC: SYHBF) CEO Jordan Trimble on Setting Up for Multiple Partner-Funded Uranium Exploration Programs in Canada’s Athabasca Basin Starting in Q1 2022

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, great to have you back on. How are you?

Jordan Trimble: I'm doing good. Good to be back on. Lots to catch up on before the holidays here.

Gerardo Del Real: You've been busy behind the scenes. You've been busy in front of the mic and in front of the camera. I've seen you out there working. We have ourselves what I labeled as a very healthy pullback in the uranium space that I think is finally aligning market caps with excellent entry points for those that may have missed the first leg up. 

You had some pretty important news this morning. Let me read the headline and then I'll let you provide the context there. The headline reads:

Skyharbour stakes six new Athabasca Basin uranium properties totalling 147,510 hectares. 

This now brings the total land package to 953,663 acres, which, of course, represents one of the largest project portfolios in the Athabasca Basin. I would love for you to provide some context as to the motivation to bringing on six properties when you already have a flagship in an advanced stage asset that, obviously, is commanding the bulk of your attention… though, I have to say, you've been pretty successful at joint venturing a lot of the projects in the portfolio and setting up for a phenomenal 2022.

Jordan Trimble: Yeah. So, well, look, I'll start off by saying — getting back to pointing out the recent pullback — I agree, it's been a pretty volatile year, mostly good. 

We've had, certainly, a resurgence in the market. I have been purchasing more shares in the open market on this pullback. I truly believe — given the last month, month and a half — that the value proposition coming off of recent highs is incredible right now, and I'm putting my money where my mouth is. 

As we talked about prior to this interview, I think 2022 is setting up to be an amazing year. I think we'll see the uranium price, obviously, have a major move higher. But I think the equities… you're going to see new highs being set. Everything is lining up.

So yeah, just getting to the news today, this is something that's been in the works, actually, for a little while. Several weeks, actually, several months, we've been building up a portfolio — or adding to our existing portfolio — of uranium mineral claims in the Athabasca Basin. We wanted to make sure we got all of the land that we had looked at and were interested in before announcing anything. So this is the culmination of that. 

And as you pointed out, a very large land package. There's actually six separate properties, again, that comprise the 147,510 hectares. And that brings our total land holding in the Athabasca Basin region to just under 386,000 hectares — or as you pointed out, just over 950,000 acres — which is one of the largest and most dominant land packages that any company has in the Athabasca Basin.

This provides us with a couple of things. One, it now offers exposure to different parts of the basin that we previously did not have exposure to, in particular, the north part of the Athabasca Basin as well as the northeast part of the Athabasca Basin. For those that are familiar with our project portfolio, you'll see that most of the properties — actually all of the properties that we had prior to this staking — were on the southwest or southeast quadrants of the Athabasca Basin. 

So this provides some exposure to the northern end of the basin. And as a part of our prospect generator business — which we've talked at length about in the past — it provides us with more inventory, with more properties that we can now look to option or joint venture out. 

And as you've seen in the last several months, we've been quite active on that front, bringing in two new partners in Medaro and Basin Uranium Corp., both of which are preparing for exploration programs early in the new year, along with our two other option partners Valor and Azincourt; Azincourt, now being a joint venture partner.

Both of those companies — we had news releases out last week on both of them —  are preparing for drill programs early in the new year. Valor is planning for a 2,500 meter to 3,000 meter program at Hook Lake. Excited for them to test that high-grade surface showing at that project. And Azincourt, an even larger program — about 6,000 meters — that'll commence early in the new year at the East Preston project. 

So again, as a part of the prospect generator business that we're growing, that we're able to monetize some of our secondary projects with, we decided… this was several months ago… that it made a lot of sense to add to the portfolio. And that's what we see in this news release.

I will note, too, we did this through online staking so it's relatively inexpensive. There really isn't any annual cost to us. You get a two-year window before you have to spend exploration expenditures to keep the claims in good standing. So we have this ground for at least that period of time. And like I said, the idea here is to look to option or joint venture some of this property out to incoming interested partner companies. 

And yeah, it's a great release… it's a great development for the company… not to take away from the focus, though, at Moore Lake. As pointed out, Moore Lake is an advanced-stage exploration asset. Again, we've talked at length about it. We still do have results pending; the last few drill holes, which we're quite pleased with what we've seen in them. We're just waiting for the final geochem assays to come back from the drilling there — the program we completed in the summer and fall. So keep an eye out for that. That's a significant news release yet to come. 

And then, we are planning for a drill program at Moore Lake; fully-funded, early in the new year. And we are looking, as well, at a program at our South Falcon Point project, which is another core asset of ours; we own 100% of, which hosts the Fraser Lakes Zone-B deposit.

Gerardo Del Real: I’ve got to believe — if you're staking 147,510 hectares — that you're likely looking at a multitude of projects. Would I be correct in that assumption?

Jordan Trimble: Correct. So there were six projects and, again, these are scattered throughout the basin. That was part of the strategy, as I pointed out, to provide some exposure to different parts of the basin. And one of the other things I will note, these are exploration projects, earlier-stage projects but they have had historical work… and in some cases some drilling carried out on them. There's uranium showings on a few of them. 

And what's intriguing about most of them is they haven't had a lot of modern exploration carried out on them. So what's exciting for us is finding partner companies to bring in that can advance these projects using some new modern exploration and field techniques and methodologies and hopefully find new high-grade uranium deposits at them. So that's something we're going to be busy with in the new year is looking to find these partner companies to come in to advance these projects. 

And just one last note on that — and we talked about this in previous interviews — but for those looking at Skyharbour as a whole, not only are you getting exposure to the drilling and the exploration and the discovery potential that we are carrying out at our flagship project but we have multiple irons in the fire with these project partner companies and potential new partner companies coming in at these new projects we've staked.

Gerardo Del Real: Can't let you go before getting your take on the uranium space. A lot going on; a lot of moving parts. Again, I think this correction here, recently, in the equities is healthy going into 2022 and provides a solid entry point for people that feel like they missed the first leg up. Thoughts on 2022 and where you think things are headed? 

Jordan Trimble: Like I said, when we started the interview, I'm very bullish in 2022. I think this is similar to what we saw in the mid-2000s with the uranium bull market of '05 through '07. I think we're still very much in the early innings. 

These are healthy pullbacks; an opportunity for investors and shareholders to add to their positions. I've certainly been doing that. Look, I think the way I view it right now is that you have a lot of tailwinds and catalysts that I think we will see come to fruition in 2022. Look, the underlying fundamentals are as strong as they've ever been for this commodity. You have a major supply side response that's played out over the last several years and a deficit that's forming.

You've had physical holding companies and funds like Sprott and Yellow Cake, and now the Kazaks are coming in to clean up the market. We've seen, obviously, a move higher in the spot price. I think there's still a long way to go there. It's trading currently in the low to mid-US$40s — still well below the price needed to incentivize new production to come online. 

The recent announcements from China with 150 new reactors being built, or planned to be built, over the next 15 years. That's more nuclear capacity coming on the grid in China in the next 15 years than has come on globally in the last 35 years.

Again, I like to use this simple description of nuclear power: it's at the crossroads of two of the largest mega global trends that we've seen in the last 50 years. One of which is electrification. The world needs more electricity. Electricity demand will continue to grow. 

And the second is decarbonization and clean energy. And we need that electricity but we need clean electricity, and nuclear power is at the crossroads of both, right, and, hence, why we've seen interest in nuclear power and in the nuclear industry and the uranium mining industry increase. 

And I think we will continue to see that and it'll grow in 2022. And as a result, I think we'll see the uranium price move higher, and we'll see the equities follow suit.

Gerardo Del Real: Well said, Jordan. Great work! Get yourself some rest here during the break, and I'll likely see you on the other side of 2021, right?

Jordan Trimble: Yeah, absolutely. You as well, Gerardo, and we'll chat soon.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. Thank you again.

Jordan Trimble: Take care.

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