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

Standard Uranium (TSX-V: STND)(OTC: STTDF) President & VP Exploration Sean Hillacre on Partner-Funded Drilling at Canary JV Project in Canada’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’s great to have you back on. Catalyst-rich 2024. You just had some news on another project and wanted to have you on and get an update on how things are coming along there.

Sean Hillacre: Yeah, sounds good. Good to be back and we're really excited to get going on Canary for the first time, fresh off some inaugural success at Atlantic. So the team is refreshed and ready to go, and we're going to be hitting the ground running here in a couple of weeks.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, let's talk about this project. Let's talk about the joint venture and the way that the deal is structured. Tell me about the project and what you visualize here as far as targets go. I know you have a partner that has the option to earn, I believe, up to 75% on the project if they hit certain financial milestones. Is that accurate?

Sean Hillacre: That is accurate. So our partner on the Canary project here is an Australian group called Mamba Exploration. Our targets at Canary are very similar to what we're chasing at Atlantic and at our Ascent projects over on the east side of the Athabasca Basin. 

So that classic unconformity-related, super-high-grade uranium mineralization. So coming up to Canary here, we've got essentially three stories on the project. We're going to be starting off with the northern conductor, which has never been drilled ever. So a really exciting area to come into. 

We've been developing targets on that conductor for the last couple of years. We ran a 3D resistivity survey over top of the conductor, and we've got a heck of an anomaly to go drill for the first time. Both our team and the team at Mamba are super excited to go get that drill spinning.

Gerardo Del Real: You’ve made it a point over the past several years, you and the team, you've done a great job of putting together these large targets and land packages that have seen very little exploration in the modern sense. 

Can you explain the thesis… you get into it a bit in the news release… but for those that maybe didn't take the time to scroll all the way through it and get into the technical details, can you explain the thesis on exploration in this part of the basin?

Sean Hillacre: For sure. I mean, the eastern side of the basin, historically, has been the most explored across the Athabasca. That's where the two operating uranium mines are at MacArthur and Cigar Lake. 

But up in the northeastern portion of the eastern trend there, it has seen very little drilling compared to everywhere else over there essentially. With the discovery by ISO Energy of the Hurricane deposit, it lies actually in the western of these two geological domains. It's called the Mudjatik Domain. 

Until Hurricane was discovered, most of the exploration was focused in the transition zone a little bit further to the east between the Mudjatik and the Walston. So just to kind of stay out of the technical weeds too much, it just kind of opened up this whole new area on the eastern side of the basin. Looking a little bit further west there as well.

We, like you said, have picked up some really good packages of land. We were a little bit ahead of the curve before this uranium bull run really started. So we've got a good foothold in a lot of really good areas that haven't seen a lot of historical exploration but have all the ingredients we're looking for to make these high-grade discoveries. 

So Mamba is earning in up to 75% in this project, like you said. They've got to spend about C$6 million in exploration expenditures over three years. So we've structured the deal that they come in, they fund the exploration, and we are the operators. 

We make it a turnkey operation for these partner companies to come in. We've got the technical team to run it. We've got great relationships with all the vendors, everything's all lined up. And then, we've got the First Nations agreements in place as well.

So a really good opportunity for partner companies like Mamba to come in and earn into a really good piece of land that hasn't really seen much exploration, like I said. Another thing that Canary has going for it is shallow targets, Gerardo. There's essentially a no vacancy sign on the Athabasca Basin right now. It's completely staked up. It hasn't looked like this for several years, since 2006 - 2007. 

The fact that we've been able to secure some land throughout 2019 - 2020 — the first years of the company being public — is really advantageous for us now… now that things are heating up and people are banging on our door to try and get into a good piece of land.

Canary has some really robust targets on it, shallow, like 200-300 meters, maybe, to the unconformity; really economically feasible for uranium discoveries. If we find something here, we're going to be laughing. It's going to be a really good situation. We're going to test this northern conductor for the very first time. We've got 1,000 to 1,500 meters planned that will cover Mamba's year-one expenditures. Fully funded by them. They've got the capital. And we're ready to go. 

We’ll be doing some more work probably later this year to push along the story for the other two conductors on the project as well, one of which looks geophysically identical to the Roughrider deposit, which sits just to the south of the project over on the east side as well. 

So a really exciting piece of land that we’ve got, and we're going to be heading up there in early May here.

Gerardo Del Real: I mentioned it was a catalyst-rich 2024. I know you and I will be chatting often, frequently, because there's lots and lots of news that you have pending here. What comes next, Sean?

Sean Hillacre: Yeah, like I said, we're coming off of some initial success from our first fully-funded drill program at Atlantic. Now, we're coming into the second one. This is the perfect time to get into the company and get in early before pre-discovery. We've got tons of programs. 

This is the second of probably at least four drill programs this year, which is pretty outrageous for a company of our size. So look, get in now. I can't stress it enough. We've got a ton of catalysts coming up. Let's drive some buying and then make a lot of people happy this year. 

We've got a lot of shots on net, and we've got some really great targets to test for the first time. So it's going to be an exciting and the biggest year yet for the company. So we're all looking forward to it.

Gerardo Del Real: I'm a biased shareholder. I wrote a check in the last financing. I'm looking forward to writing checks at higher prices, hopefully, sooner rather than later. All the best on the exploration side, Sean, and let's chat again soon.

Sean Hillacre: Absolutely. We'll be wrapping this program up in about a month. And then, it'll be a short break until the next drill program with Aero Energy at Sun Dog by Uranium City. So we'll be talking soon, Gerardo, and lots to look forward to here. Thanks for having me on again.

Gerardo Del Real: Appreciate the update. Take care.

Sean Hillacre: You too. Bye-bye.

Gerardo Del Real: Cheers.