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

Skyharbour Resources (TSX-V: SYH)(OTC: SYHBF) CEO Jordan Trimble on Upcoming Exploration and Drilling Plans with JV Partner Orano for Summer 2026 at Preston Lake Uranium Project

 

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, interesting times in the commodity space. Great time to have you back on. How are you today?

Jordan Trimble: Doing great. It's good to catch up and yeah, lots to talk about.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, listen, let's get right into it. You just announced, along with one of several major JV partners that Skyharbour has, an upcoming exploration and drilling program for the summer of 2026 at your Preston Lake uranium project. So, I want to get to the details of that program.

But I got to start by asking you with the commodity space seeing a bit of weakness right now and the dollar index surging, where do you see the uranium space? We have this contradiction where the uranium spot price, which tends to be the least important but most watched indicator in the uranium space, is right around like the 82, 83 level. And meanwhile, the long-term contracting price is steadily creeping right towards that mid-90 level with companies like Cameco coming out on conference calls and saying, "Look, we're already negotiating price floors in the triple digits here with the utilities for future purchases."

So, I would just love to get your take on that contradiction and where we are in the uranium space.

Jordan Trimble: Yeah. I mean, look, we have seen this before where the spot price, as it does, oscillates around the long-term price. We're in a market right now where the spot price is lower than that long-term price in the mid-90s. And spot's been kind of bouncing around in the mid-80s. That's usually a pretty good, ultimately bullish indicator that there should be some movement catching up in the spot price. I don't really see a lot in the way of bearish sentiment and arguments against the long-term price. The long-term market's been quite healthy. It's continued to move higher as you pointed out. So, I do think you will see some arbitrage, if you will. I think you could see some utility buying directly in the spot market financial entities.

And keep in mind too, as we saw earlier this year in January and we've seen in the past, the spot price can move quickly as well to the upside. I mean, it doesn't take more than a week or two of the Sprott Physical trust, for example, trading at a premium, raising money and stacking pounds to really get the spot price moving.

So, it is interesting because the market and equity investors typically look at the spot price and that can help explain maybe some of the softest.

Although I will say, relative to some other metal prices, the uranium spot price is actually held in there pretty good over the last several months. Again, it's just been trading in this range here as the long term price has continued to steadily move higher. So, I think I'm very bullish, needless to say, going into the fall. This is not unusual given the seasonality. And I want to highlight too that we are coming into typically the strongest season and period of the year from mid-August right through to October, November for the uranium market and for uranium equities.

And look, the headlines just keep coming, right? I mean, we can talk about the price action, the slower market this summer, but the positive headlines, the fundamentals just keep getting stronger. So, the Department of Energy, for example, just announced its conditional commitment for the American nuclear supply chain loans to re-energize the large-scale nuclear reactor supply chain, drive down costs, and accelerate the deployment of the AP-1000 reactors in the US. This is a conditional commitment for a loan package of up to $17.5 billion. So, this is significant news.

There was the announcement last year with Westinghouse, with Cameco, with the DOE of this rollout of these 10 AP-1000 larger reactors in the United States. This is a pretty strong indication that they want to get this thing moving forward and they want to start breaking ground as soon as they can with this $17.5 billion low interest rate loan specifically to purchase long lead time items for these 10 AP-1000 reactors.

And then just literally the other day, the Canadian federal government up here announced its aim to boost the nuclear sector in Canada with up to 10 new reactors and to start exporting some of its nuclear industry, as well. So, a pretty significant announcement on the northern side of the border, as well. That's just in North America. And the list goes on globally.

There's no debate right now that nuclear energy is back in vogue and there's just a whole bunch, a confluence of factors that I think are going to lead to accelerating demand growth. And as we've discussed at length in previous interviews, it's the supply side that's quite tenuous right now.

Gerardo Del Real: No, I couldn't agree more. That was beautifully put. I think the second half of this year is going to be fantastic for junior resource speculators, especially if you're positioned in the right company. So, let's talk about how Skyharbour is positioning for the second half of this year, Jordan, with the news about the upcoming exploration and drilling plans at Preston Lake.

Jordan Trimble: Yeah. So, we just announced the summer program at Preston with our one of three larger strategic partners, France's largest nuclear fuel company and uranium mining company, Orano Canada. They're headquartered in Paris. They have an office, Orano Canada's offices, in Saskatoon. We worked with them as a joint venture partner now for a number of years at the Preston project.

This is a very large land package, just under 50,000 hectares, adjacent to NextGen's flagship project on the western side of the Athabasca basin. We have a number of the same corridors, conductive quarters, that trend from NextGen's ground east of the Arrow deposit that trend from NextGen's ground onto our ground at Preston. And these conductive corridors are the focus for us and for Orano this summer, to go in and continue drill testing those targets.

The program is starting with some geophysics, some airborne gravity surveys. And the plan is to drill up to 3,500 meters across several target areas. So, excited to have that work start here shortly. That'll add to the news flow later this year.

But this is all a part of what is the largest combined drill campaign Skyharbour has ever carried out, both at projects its sole funding as well as at partner-funded projects. So, this is one of several drill programs that's either underway or will be commencing shortly.

Collectively, we are anticipating over 30,000 meters of drilling across our project base, about just over 15,000 meters at one of our co-flagship projects, the Russell project, which we also just had some news out on. There's actually going to be three separate programs running there. So, Denison's funding two of them at the Wheeler North joint venture, as well as at the Getty East joint venture. So, those two summer drill programs will be commencing soon.But Skyharbour , we announced our program at the RL joint venture, which Skyharbour owns 80% of, Denison is funding their 20% of that project and we're planning to drill four to 5,000 meters this year at the RL claims, which if you look on a map is the bulk of the original Russell Lake project prior to completing the strategic property transaction with Denison late last year. So, over 15,000 meters in multiple phases of drilling at Russell, a good chunk of that funded by Denison.

Again, this just provides a heck of a lot of news flow over the course and most of that drilling is yet to take place, so most of that news flow yet to come.

And then we have our other co-flagship Moore Lake Project, which we own 100% of. We recently completed our winter-spring phase of drilling about just over 5,000 meters or so. Assays are pending from that. We're very, very pleased with what we've seen so excited to get some news out to the market sooner than later on that. And then we will be commencing a summer phase of drilling later this summer, which we'll have complete in the fall with news to follow.

So, a lot of drilling. And I think a good way to think about our story, our company, this year as an investor is you're getting exposure to multiple programs at several projects with strategic partners at a number of them. So, you're getting exposure to real discovery potential, not just at one or two projects, but at a handful of projects. And we're fully funded for this. We have larger partners like Denison and Orano funding drilling, funding some of the meters being drilled over the course of the next number of years.

And so, a lot to look forward to, a lot of catalysts. And again, I think that the timing for this, having just discussed the outlook for the uranium market in the next six months, couldn't be better.

Gerardo Del Real: No, listen, I just saw a report on Skyharbour that was really well written. $1 price target, that's a good 115, 120% bump from today's prices. That of course doesn't factor in the potential for major discoveries, given how aggressive you are being with the drill bit here the second half of the year. Jordan, anything to add to that?

Jordan Trimble: Yeah, that was the Haywood research that recently came out, an excellent report written by their analysts there. And we're actually doing a site visit later in the summer.

But I would say, in addition to all of the drilling, all the news, the discovery potential, the resource expansion potential that we offer investors, keep in mind we do have some pounds in the ground at a couple of projects including our Moore Lake project, which we're going to continue to grow a relatively shallow, high grade few zones of mineralization that could potentially down the road, given they're relatively shallow, be amenable to some form of surface mining ISR and/or SABRE. And so, we're doing a lot of work internally to evaluate that potential as well.

But also keep an eye out for additional properties that are being acquired and/or projects in our existing portfolio that we're looking to option, joint venture, or sell outright, so continuing to build our prospect generator business. We have one of the largest land packages in Northern Saskatchewan in the Athabasca Basin. We have 10 partner companies now spending over potentially 120 million in combined project consideration. So, there's a lot in the works happening behind the scenes to continue growing that prospect generator business.

Gerardo Del Real: Well said. Jordan, always a pleasure. Thank you so much for coming on.

Jordan Trimble: Thank you, Gerardo.

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