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Skyharbour Resources (TSX-V: SYH)(OTC: SYHBF) CEO Jordan Trimble on Start of Drilling at Co-Flagship Russell and Moore Uranium Projects in Canada’s 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, great having you back on. How are you?
Jordan Trimble: I'm great. Thanks for having me again.
Gerardo Del Real: Well, listen, we've talked several times throughout 2023 and we chatted recently here in 2024. It's good to see the uranium spot price over the US$100/lb level. It kind of reminds me of gold in a sense that it seems like gold wants US$2,000/oz to be the new floor, and anything within a couple of percentage points of that is likely to hold. In the uranium space, it seems like US$100 a pound is establishing itself as a potential new floor.
And so that's highly encouraging for companies that did what you did with Skyharbour Resources, which is advance assets into the portfolio that were accretive on the exploration side, and then bring in partners that maybe didn't have the network that you and the team had and recognize the value of those assets and are willing to spend their own money while you retain a substantial interest in any exploration success on the upside.
You simultaneously have two co-flagships and I think 2024 is probably going to be the year where Skyharbour is finally trading in dollars and not cents. So I thought I'd have you back on. I missed you at VRIC and then Roundup — but it's great to have you on.
Jordan Trimble: Yes, thanks for having me. We just missed each other at the conferences. It was a busy week, needless to say, with a few conferences here in Vancouver, and I'm sure we'll see each other at a couple of the upcoming conferences.
But look, it's been a notable start, obviously, to the year for the uranium price. We've seen it continue to surge higher, a little bit of a pullback in the last week or so, but that's to be expected. Hovering around US$100 per pound. And we saw the volumes pick up quite a bit last week.
So I agree, I think this could be the new norm. We've talked at length about this but the supply-demand fundamentals would dictate that this commodity price needs to go higher. Even at US$100/lb, when we look at it relative to where it traded in 2006, 2007, in particular, 2007, when it ran up to almost US$140 a pound in the spot market, well that's around US$200 a pound in today's prices.
So we're still a ways off of that, and there's still a very strong case for higher uranium prices as the market is quite tight right now. And I think we will, throughout this year, see this price continue to march higher, hopefully, in an orderly fashion. We were talking offline… it's never good to see these things go straight up. You do need these pullbacks and you need it to moderate at certain points.
And so it's a great start for the commodity and we've obviously seen some liquidity and price action in the equities as well. I still think that there's a very strong value proposition as we mature in this bull market for these smaller and mid-cap names. We haven't seen the smaller cap and some of the mid-cap names keep up with some of the larger cap names, which, again, this is completely normal given that we see these smaller cap, more leveraged names usually outperform significantly later on in the cycle.
And we are still seeing a lot of new generalist money come into this space. I can say that we're seeing new funds, we're seeing new investors come into the sector. There's still, I think, a lot of money on the sidelines that is yet to come in. And yes, at Skyharbour, we're entering this year embarking on what is going to be our largest single season drill campaign across both of our co-flagship Russell and Moore projects.
So for the first time, we'll be co-advancing these projects. We'll be moving the rig from Russell after the first 5,000 meters, which has just started, and moving it over to Moore to drill 3,000 meters — so a total of 8,000 meters and over 20 drill holes. That'll take us right through into the spring.
That'll provide lots of news flow going into the summer months, and we're fully funded and permitted right through the end of this year. We have plans for another 10,000 to 12,000 meters of drilling after we complete this initial 8,000 meters. That 10,000 to 12,000 meters will take place through the summer months into the fall.
The plan right now is to continue drilling both Russell and Moore; very, very exciting initial targets that we're drill-testing here at Russell. We talked a little bit about this last time but just to, again, highlight our expectations… we're following up on the program from last year and going into a couple of target areas within the broader Grayling target; a multi-kilometer-long target area.
We're going into a few specific targets that we think can deliver new high-grade discoveries. The first target that we're going to be drill-testing is called the Fork Zone. This is actually a somewhat new target that we've refined over the course of the last six months. Not a lot of historical work or drilling but a very intriguing geophysical signature.
And a number of the conductors trending from Denison's adjacent Wheeler River project carry right through onto our Russell Lake project. And this specific target area represents the continuation or extension of a few of these uraniferous conductors from the neighboring Wheeler River project. So that'll be the first target that we drill-test.
We're then going to drill-test what's called the Grayling East target, which, again, as the name implies, is over on the eastern side of this Grayling target area. As I said, it’s a multi-kilometer-long conductive fertile corridor. And then, we are planning ultimately to go and test a target just slightly to the north called the M-Zone Extension. Again, this is an extension of conductors from the adjacent Wheeler River project.
So all three of these targets that we'll be drill-testing in this phase of drilling are road accessible. We have a camp there, which brings our drill costs down quite significantly. In fact, our all-in costs at Russell will be somewhere between C$250 to just under C$300, all in a meter, which is 50% to 60% less than some other companies and programs that are on projects that are more remote in the Athabasca Basin. So it's a huge, huge advantage that we have, having the road, having the power lines, having that exploration camp.
It also benefits the drilling at Moore Lake. And again, as I mentioned previously, 3,000 meters at Moore, we’re, for the first time since 2017, going to go back and drill-test the main Maverick Zone. This has hosted some of the highest grade mineralization of the project.
We drilled there in 2017 and announced the best drill result from the property; 21% U3O8 over a meter and a half. That was within 6% U3O8 over six meters. There's still expansion potential. We haven't fully tested that so we're going to go back in and drill in that high-grade zone and try to expand that. Needless to say, with uranium prices at US$100/lb, if we're successful in what we're trying to do, it's going to have, I think, a much bigger impact than it would've six or seven years ago when uranium was less than US$30/lb.
So a very exciting initial 8,000-meter drill campaign, which will set the stage nicely for future drilling this year. Again, fully-funded and fully-permitted for all of this at Russell and Moore.
Gerardo Del Real: Couldn't agree more with everything you just said. For anyone that wants Jordan's very insightful macro take on the uranium space, I encourage you to listen to the interview prior to this one where you went into it pretty in-depth.
I'll spare you having to do that again for us, Jordan, but I would love to have you back on here over the next several weeks now that drills are revved up and ready to go. And look, a couple of weeks in the uranium space is an eternity sometimes with the velocity of the price action. Anything to add to that, Jordan?
Jordan Trimble: No, I think that that covers the upcoming catalysts at Russell and Moore. As you know, our partner companies, several of them, are about to commence drill programs, including North Shore at our Falcon project, as well as Tisdale Clean Energy at our South Falcon East project.
And we are expecting programs from our two joint venture partners, Orano and Azincourt, at the Preston and East Preston projects. And likely, we will see later this year at some point, some exploration carried out at Mann Lake and Yurchison.
So it's, again, going to be a very catalyst-rich year, not just the drilling and the work we're doing at Russell and Moore, but we're expecting five, maybe even six of the partner companies to be carrying out exploration and drilling programs throughout the year.
So again, we're building up Skyharbour to be that one-stop shop for high-grade uranium exploration and discovery potential across several projects in the Athabasca Basin. We've continued to add to our portfolio and we're continuing to execute on the prospect generator business.
A lot of recent inbound interest on potential new option and JVs and new partners coming in. So keep an eye out for news flow on that as well. And let's see what happens with the uranium price over the course of the year. Again, I'm very bullish, needless to say, and I still think that even though we have seen the price move like it has over the last 12 months, I still think there's a lot of runway left for a whole slew of reasons. And again, I do think that the equities, this year, will outperform.
Gerardo Del Real: I couldn't agree more. I am a huge fan of go-time. It sounds and looks and feels like it is most definitely go-time for the uranium space. Thank you so much.
Jordan Trimble: Thank you, Gerardo. Chat soon.
Gerardo Del Real: Alright.
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