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

Standard Uranium (TSX-V: STND)(OTC: STTDF) President & VP Exploration Sean Hillacre on Multiple Drill-Projects in Canada’s Sweet Spot for Uranium Discovery, Development & Production: Saskatchewan’s Athabasca Basin

 

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the president & VP of exploration for Standard Uranium — Mr. Sean Hillacre. Sean, it is great to have you on. How are you today, sir?

Sean Hillacre: Doing really well, Gerardo. Thanks for having me back.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, listen, let's jump right into it. Uranium seems to have put in a pretty solid bottom right around the low-to-mid-US80s per pound. I suspect that we're going to see much higher prices here in the interim. And Standard Uranium is positioned really, really well with a number of catalysts here in 2024.

I'm a biased shareholder, of course. I thought I'd have you on and get an update to see how things are coming along. You have multiple projects that are going to see activity this year so I thought it was a perfect time. Thanks for coming on.

Sean Hillacre: Yeah, absolutely. Like you said, it's going to be the biggest year yet for Standard Uranium. We've really delivered on our new business model, incorporating the project generation side of things since last summer. We've got three drill programs that are fully funded this year: Atlantic, Canary, and Sun Dog.

We are actually just wrapping up our inaugural drill program on the Atlantic project as we speak. And we're looking forward to updating the market later this week with our preliminary results for that. 

The program went really well and was on-time and under budget so we're excited to update people on that. We just put out some news this morning, updating people on Canary. We are slated to start that project in early May. That will also be the inaugural drill program on Canary… so really excited to get the drills spinning over there as well.

Gerardo Del Real: I’m a new STND shareholder; I got involved a few months back and participated in a financing where I wrote a check. But for those who are not familiar with the Standard Uranium story, can you give a brief overview of what 2024 looks like because, again, as I mentioned — and I hate to overemphasize — but it's going to be a busy, busy year with multiple shots-on-goal as far as discovery potential goes.

Sean Hillacre: Absolutely. Standard Uranium went public in May of 2020 so we're relatively new but we have a very experienced board and management team. We've built a fantastic technical team on the geology side of things. So like you said, we got a lot of shots-on-goal this year.

Since last year, we've expanded our portfolio to 11 projects all the way across the Athabasca Basin. In the first couple of years of exploring, we were mainly focused on our flagship Davidson River project, which is over across the street from NexGen’s Arrow deposit and Fission's Triple R deposit. We've done a few modest programs on that one. And we’ve drilled our Sun Dog project a couple of times up by Uranium City. 

We’ve expanded our business model by bringing in some partners that were interested in getting into the Athabasca Basin space. We have some really good real estate for that, and people have been knocking on our door non-stop trying to get in and join us on our journey here to push our non-core projects forward. So those are some of the ones I've been mentioning. 

The Atlantic project started off the year for us. That's over on the east side of the Athabasca Basin and represents our first drill program on the east side just north of the Hurricane Uranium deposit. So that's our exploration thesis on the east side: Atlantic, Canary, and Ascent are the three main projects there. 

And then, like I said, we've expanded and staked some more ground over on the east side as well. So we've got a nice pipeline of everything from early-stage greenfields exploration to drill-ready projects. And by bringing in our partners, like you said, it's going to be our biggest year yet. 

We have three fully-funded drill programs, like I mentioned, at Atlantic, Canary, and Sun Dog. Two are situated basically back-to-back over on the east side, those being Atlantic and Canary. And then, we'll be going up with our partners at Arrow Energy to drill Sun Dog again. So we've got a lot of things going on. 

We're just wrapping up at the Atlantic project, like I said. The geos and drillers will come back for a couple of weeks and get a little bit of rest. And we'll gear up to hit Canary as well, and we've secured our vendors for that. Everything is lined up and ready-to-go to drill Canary for the first time. And then, immediately after that, we're going to be heading up to the Uranium City area to drill Sun Dog once again.

Right now, we have some geophysics underway at Sun Dog to help refine our targets for this summer. We're running a high-resolution VTEM Plus survey with Geotech Ltd. That’ll give us some really good resolution on the conductors there and really add to our targeting toolbox when we go back to Sun Dog this summer.

Following that, we're looking at doing a program on our Ascent project. We’ve announced a term sheet with Summit Fusion Pty. Ltd. on that one. We actually recently doubled the size of that project through low-cost staking to cover more of the edge of the basin. That one is up in the northeast part of the basin, and we’re really excited to push that one along. We'll see if we can get a deal done and sign a definitive agreement to push that one forward this year.

And then, following that, we're going to be looking to do another capital raise to fund our Davidson River project. We haven't been back to drill that one since 2021. It's our flagship for a reason: the blue sky and torque on that one is exceptional for looking for high-grade, basement-hosted uranium over on the southwest side of the basin. 

We're going to be coming back to the market to raise some cash to go and potentially drill that one this fall. And we could be looking at four and maybe even five drill programs this year — which is pretty bananas! And like you said, lots of shots-on-goal and lots of news flow and catalysts for people to look forward to throughout 2024.

Gerardo Del Real: That's a lot to like for a company with a market cap of roughly C$14 million. Sean, I’m looking forward to having you back on, and I’m really looking forward to hearing the news out of the Atlantic project. It’s great to hear that the program came in on-time and under budget.

I'm an Atco Mining shareholder as well. It has an option to earn into 75% of that project. Obviously, I'm heavily biased for good results there and really eager to get you back on to chat about Atlantic and the rest of 2024. Thank you again for the update… it should be a fun, fun year for us.

Sean Hillacre: Absolutely, Gerardo. Thanks for having me.

Gerardo Del Real: Alright, chat soon. Cheers.

Sean Hillacre: Take care.