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

Skyharbour Resources (TSX-V: SYH)(OTC: SYHBF) CEO Jordan Trimble Talks Multi-Project Uranium Drilling 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, it’s great to have you on. How are you today, sir?

Jordan Trimble: I'm doing great. Thanks for having me on again.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, let's get right into it. I want to talk Skyharbour. You have a lot of catalysts. We talked briefly off-air about the sentiment in the uranium space and how now even the tech companies are starting to realize that the future is nuclear. 

I've got to ask you because you are one of the most well-versed voices in the space what the sentiment is like. I know you're on the conference circuit right now. What has the reaction to all of the news recently been on your travels?

Jordan Trimble: Well, it's positive, no question about it. I think the takeaway here is that we've seen some very significant headlines from various big tech companies, hyperscalers, signing notable agreements with nuclear utilities, advanced nuclear SMR developers. You've had just kind of a slew of positive headlines over the last several months. 

And we did speak about the one that kind of got things going in September, which was the announcement of the restart of Three Mile Island and the major power purchase agreement signed with Microsoft, a 20-year power contract, buying electricity from the power plant at nearly double the market cost in the area of about $100 per megawatt hour. So Microsoft is  getting behind that in a big way, and, again, no one would've thought that Three Mile Island was going to restart.

So there is a $1.6 billion refurbishment that'll take place over the next few years, and then they'll start generating electricity, again, from the Three Mile Island plant. And that'll be used to power, again, Microsoft's data centers, in particular, some of the data centers used for their AI business. 

And just in the last couple of weeks, we've seen a few other larger big tech companies falling into line as well, including Amazon. They announced several agreements, actually, including one with a company called Energy Northwest in Washington State that will enable the development of several SMRs that are expected to generate over 300 megawatts of electricity in the first phase. Now, that can increase to almost 1,000 megawatts total, so quite a significant project and agreement there.

They then followed that up with an agreement with utility company Dominion Energy in Virginia that would see them explore the development of an SMR project near an existing nuclear power plant owned and operated by Dominion. So Amazon gets into the mix with those several agreements. And then, we also saw Google. 

Google announced an agreement with an advanced nuclear company called Kairos Power. And they've signed a master plant agreement, which basically creates a path to deploy a fleet of advanced nuclear power plants. In this case, up to 500 megawatts over the next, call it, 10 to 11 years. And that would see Kairos develop, construct, and operate these reactors, as well as sell the energy to Google under power purchase agreements.

So a number of the largest tech companies, these hyperscalers, are getting in on the action. Obviously, the underlying takeaway being with the advancement of AI and the data center requirements and just a much larger need and demand for electricity from these big tech companies. Nuclear, being the only source of emissions-free, baseload, reliable, scalable electricity generation, is the perfect fit. 

A lot of these companies have net zero carbon goals. And in order for them to efficiently and effectively power the infrastructure that's required for their growing businesses, nuclear energy, and in particular going forward, the advent of small modular reactors is, I think, going to be an integral part of, again, providing the electricity and allowing for the growth within these companies.

Those were all positive headlines. We talk a lot about getting back to the fundamentals. These are flashy headlines; they're great news. They've certainly caught the market's attention. But really, what it's doing is unearthing to the average investor, the generalist investor out there, what we've already known about nuclear and the prospects for nuclear energy. 

As a result, uranium as a commodity is showing the benefits of this technology, of this electricity source, and we're now seeing more capital, more generalist money, coming into the sector. 

I still think it's early days. In terms of those flashy headlines and those flashy announcements, we’ve yet to really see that work its way into the market in terms of the supply-demand fundamentals and, particularly, the growing demand profile.

As we see these agreements and these plans come to fruition, I believe you're going to see that move the uranium price much higher as the demand profile continues to expand and grow, especially in the West. We haven't yet seen that take place… but over the next few years, we will see that happen.

We’ve talked about this at length but you've got a very tenuous situation right now on the other side of that equation with supply. So the markets continue to bifurcate East versus West. 

And one of the other big announcements out in the last few weeks was a major agreement signed between Kazatomprom and China's CNNC, the China National Nuclear Corporation, and actually two of the wholly-owned subsidiaries of CNNC. 

They announced a major agreement with Kazatomprom to buy uranium, to buy nuclear fuel, from the Kazakhs. The value of the transaction, together with previously concluded transactions, exceeds 50% of the total book value of Kazatomprom's assets.

What this is showing the market is that the largest producer, globally, which is Kazatomprom in the country of Kazakhstan, represents over 40% of global primary mine supply. But more and more of that primary mine supply is being earmarked for China, and for Russia, and for other Eastern countries. 

That, again, I think, is going to put upward pressure on prices going forward. As the market continues to bifurcate, Western producers are going to have to really ramp up production to meet the Western demand as we've just talked about. Whether that be demand from big tech and data centers, or the hyperscalers, or just the existing fleet.

We've seen announcements, not just with restarts as we've just talked about with Three Mile Island, but also there have been a number of reactors that have had their lives extended as well. The Western demand profile is quite robust and is growing much quicker than we thought it would even a few years ago.

Yet, Western supply has been relatively stagnant. And now, that Eastern supply, again, is being earmarked for Eastern consumption; a perfect example, as I just highlighted, with the Kazatomprom agreement with CNNC. Again, this is going to, I think, create a market that will be conducive to much, much higher uranium prices going forward.

Gerardo Del Real: I couldn't agree with you more. Let's talk Skyharbour specifically. You've had lots of news so let's get right into it. What's going on with Skyharbour? How are you positioned to close out 2024? And what can we look forward to in 2025?

Jordan Trimble: Yes, it’s going to be a mad dash to the finish line here this year. As we've spoken about in previous interviews, this is going to be our largest drill campaign we've ever carried out as a company in a single year. 

We completed our initial winter and spring program earlier in the year, which totaled about 8,000 meters: about 1/3 of that at our Moore Lake project and the other 2/3 at our Russell Lake project. We announced a new high-grade discovery at the Russell Lake project at a new target called the Fork Zone. 

The plan at Russell is to, obviously, go right back into that new Fork target and try to expand on that high-grade discovery where we had up to 3% U₃O₈ over half a meter, relatively shallow, and sandstone hosted. 

It's a target that has not been well-understood historically and very much was not tested by previous operators. One of the reasons being is that it is located under the powerlines that actually run up and power the McArthur River Mine just to the north. So the historical geophysics were somewhat inconclusive as a result of that due to the powerline interference. 

One of the things we're doing that we've just completed and announced here is an ANT survey, which stands for Ambient Noise Tomography. Basically, it allows us to go in there and back out, if you will, that powerline interference. It's a relatively new geophysical technique that's been used quite effectively by some other companies in the Athabasca Basin. 

So it's kind of a cutting-edge new tool that we have. In terms of the requirements for this target to further refine it, it's kind of a new perfect survey for us to get a better handle on what's happening there. We've just completed that. We'll get the data here, and then that'll help further refine the target when we get back to drilling it here shortly. 

We are planning to commence drilling very soon at Russell; we'll be following up on the success that we had earlier in the year with another 4,000 to 5,000 meters of drilling. We've also been wrapping up a few thousand meters of drilling at our Moore Lake project. Again, this being a follow-up to the program earlier in the year, which delivered some notable shallow high-grade drill intercepts. 

That phase of drilling will be wrapping up, and we're very, very pleased with what we've seen and what we've found in that program, including several step-out holes from multiple high-grade zones of mineralization. So we'll wrap that up and we'll wait for our phase on that. And then, like I said, we'll finish the last phase of drilling at Russell, which will take us right through to the end of the year.

When all is said and done, there will have been well over 15,000 meters of combined drilling across both projects completed with lots of news flow right through to the end of the year and into the new year. Then, we'll gear up for a busy 2025 with our main focus being on the Russell and Moore Lake projects. 

We also just announced that we've officially formed the 51%-49% JV partnership with Rio Tinto. We've locked in that joint venture with them. Not a bad name to have as a JV partner, one of the world's largest diversified mining companies. We're a majority owner of the project and operator, and we'll work with Rio on the project going forward to advance the project.

And then, we have a number of partner companies, as we've spoken about, again, previously. Just in the last few weeks, we've had several announcements out from North Shore at the Falcon project announcing plans for a drill program early in the new year. Terra Energy, which was previously Tisdale, has announced plans for a drill program early in the new year as well at the South Falcon East project. 

And at our Yurchison project, Madero Mining is currently earning in under an option agreement where they've announced plans for a couple phases of exploration over the next several months.

Of the eight current partner companies, three of those being JVs, five of those still actively earning in, we are expecting programs and news flow from at least half a dozen of them over the next six months. So we're well-positioned to take advantage of this rising tide, and, hopefully, we’ll continue to see positive headlines coming that the market's responding well to. 

But like I said earlier, I think the next 6 to 12 months, given all of the positive news flow, once that really works its way into the market, you’ll see, obviously, the uranium price respond to it. And as a result of that, you'll see, I think, a very, very strong next 6 to 12 months for the uranium equities.

Gerardo Del Real: I couldn't agree with you more. I couldn't be more excited. For those of us who saw the writing on the wall years ago for uranium, it's really, really neat seeing it actually play out. I said it off-air when we chatted briefly but I think it's going to be a fun couple of years. Jordan, anything else to add to that?

Jordan Trimble: No, I think we've covered everything. Lots of news to come, and we'll touch base in the coming weeks.

Gerardo Del Real: Look forward to having you back on. Thanks again, Jordan.

Jordan Trimble: Thank you.

Gerardo Del Real: Alright, cheers.

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