[Music] thank you welcome to co insights I'm Marilyn De Guzman with investing News Network I'm speaking with Jordan Trimble president and CEO of Sky Harbor resources about the company's latest updates and the uranium Market welcome Jordan thanks for having me yes great to have you uh let's start off our discussion with just a brief introduction of what Sky Harbor resources is so Sky Harbor is a high-grade uranium exploration in early stage development company we built up the company over the


last 10 years we've now amassed one of the largest property packages by acreage in the northern part of Saskatchewan in the Athabasca Basin which is the highest grade depository of uranium in the world it's also one of the top mining districts as ranked by the Fraser Institute we've just recently added to that portfolio and now have 24 projects covering over 500 000 hectares or over 1.2 million Acres these projects range from earlier stage exploration properties more Grassroots projects that we typically group into


our Prospect generator business so we actively looked to vend those projects out to partner companies who will then Advance them and then the earlier stage projects ranges all the way up to more advanced stage exploration assets that either host uranium resources and or high-grade uranium results in previous Drilling and that's multi percent u-308 in historical drilling so the two main projects that are more advanced stage exploration assets that we are actively advancing that we're funding the


exploration and the drilling at are our Russell Lake Project which we've recently optioned from Rio Tinto we have an ongoing 10 000 meter drill program there making very good Headway very happy with what we're seeing at this inaugural drill program at the Russell Lake project and adjacent to Russell Lake it's a co-flagship project with Russell project called Moore Lake which we own a hundred percent of it's been the focus for the company over the last six years we've done a fair bit of


drilling there over those uh six years and we've had high grade drill results including 21 u-308 over a meter and a half and that was Within six percent u-308 over 6 meters so two primary projects uh and then uh well over 20 other projects that again are a part of our Prospect generator business and just a quick note with the prospect generator business we've now signed option agreements with seven different partner companies uh on eight of our other projects the seven option agreements


total to over 70 million in Combined project consideration including exploration expenditures funded by these partner companies as well as cash and share payments assuming that all of these partner companies complete their earnings at these respective projects so a dominant land package a lot of exploration and drilling funded by us and our partner companies across five or six projects uh currently in over the next 12 months so a very Catalyst Rich uranium exploration company uh in with the focus in the Athabasca basin


right so your focus in is in the uranium space and there's been a lot of activities in terms of emerging and Rising demand for uranium and then on the other side you amassed this uh you know big land package so where do you see your company in terms against that backdrop of um you know a rising demand in uranium and where do you see your company playing a role in that uh dynamic yeah it's a great question so our job is to find the nuclear fuel of the future our our role uh in this part of the


cycle as an exploration in early stage development company uh is to discover delineate and de-risk high-grade uranium deposits in the Athabasca Basin that can then be used to fuel nuclear power plants uh and uh there's a lot to unpack there with the uranium Market the fundamentals um but just to cover some some basic high level points so uranium is is the fuel and nuclear power nuclear power is the only source of emissions free base load meaning 24 7 reliable affordable scalable electricity generation just in


the last few years we've seen a notable Resurgence in this industry very much underpinned by three major macro Trends one being electrification the need for more electricity globally hand in hand with that and second is clean energy and decarbonization again nuclear being the only source of Base load emissions-free electricity generation that we have and third and probably most topical right now is energy security and Independence so with the war in Russia and Ukraine that has really kind of put a uh the


industry in a bit of a bind here as Russia is a major player uh in the uranium mining industry as well as in other parts of the nuclear fuel cycle so in with the enrichment and conversion markets they represent about 30 to 40 percent of global capacity so as Russia is carved out from the west and Western nuclear utilities have to be less reliant on Russia and Russian Allied states that means that they're going to have to start sourcing uranium and other nuclear fuel products from Western suppliers and so getting back to


companies like Sky Harbor and other explorers developers and producers that are active in the Athabasca Basin these companies are going to have to step up to the plate going forward and provide that long-term term secure supply of uranium especially for Western utility nuclear utility companies now looking at the fundamentals the supply demand fundamentals globally for the market these are some of the strongest underlying fundamentals of any commodity out there you have currently about 190 to 200 million pounds of annual demand


now what's exciting right now is that demand is really starting to pick up quite a bit globally and we're seeing the Advent of a small modular reactors and other Advanced nuclear technologies that will just add fuel to that fire and increase the demand going forward but that current 190 to 200 million pounds of of annual demand is in the backdrop of primary mind supply of only about 140 to 145 million pounds of primary Mine Supply now over 50 percent of that primary Mine Supply comes from


Kazakhstan Russia and Uzbekistan so getting back to the the market bifurcation that we're seeing East versus West that's where you're going to have to see new Supply coming from Canada coming from the U.S coming from Australia and other Western jurisdictions so we have this major Global Supply deficit it's even more exacerbated in the west um and uh the the the the the last 10 years we've seen major under investment in this sector in the uranium mining industry so we simply don't have uh the


new Supply slated to come on in the next few years to meet the demand and meet the growing demand going forward when we take a step back and again look at uh the Contracting market so uraniums typically traded through a spot Market hit the spot price has been increasing recently now north of 53 dollars a pound we're seeing that steadily move higher there's a big disconnect right now too between the equity mining equity valuations and the and the uranium price but we are seeing that your uh spot


price move higher we've actually seen utilities coming into the market buying in the spot Market uh we haven't seen a lot of that uh recently but that's a very exciting new development and and typically that can lead to Major price spikes uh in the spot market so there's the spot market and the contract Market long-term contract Market most uranium most material uh historically is traded through long-term contracts so a utility company will purchase from a producer through a long-term contract and what's


exciting right now in this market is there's a new long-term Contracting Market that's really starting to kick off here so we're seeing the the the Contracting volumes globally pick up quite significant secondly in 2022 we saw about 120 just over 120 million pounds contracted up from 100 the year before and up from 70 to 80 the prior years now if you look at when the uranium price has moved significantly historically and when you have these these big bull markets in this commodity it typically corresponds with years when


there's a lot of Contracting volume now we are seeing this Contracting volume these volumes pick up in fact just last week camaco had a very very bullish uh quarterly uh and earnings call that where they explained that this Contracting Market uh is is really starting to ramp up they alone have contracted over 250 million pounds recently and and so what's happening is the Contracting picks up as more material is committed to buy in these long-term contracts by utilities that just simply means that the next marginal


buyer is is likely going to have to pay more for the next pound of uranium is we see the Contracting market and the spot Market tightening up that will lead to Upward pressure on the uranium price we're nowhere near the historical highs of about 250 million pounds contracted annually or the replacement rate Contracting rate which is about 180 million pounds as we see this Vault these volumes pick up I suspect we'll also see the uranium price pick up as well so a lot of Tailwinds right now


we've we've seen that um also we've seen these holding companies these physical holding companies like the Sprott physical uranium trust and yellow cake add to that by sequestering tens of millions of pounds out of the market and and we we haven't seen much activity from most of them recently but that's another potential Catalyst in the coming years as more money comes into the sector we can we can see as we have seen in the last few years more material bought and sequest Mastered by these


physical holding companies so a very exciting time both on the demand side uh for for Uranium but also as we see Supply constrained globally and as we see the Market bifurcating East versus West there's a very strong case to be made that will see higher uranium price and and this should be reflected uh in in higher share prices across the board for Uranium equities right and I want to pick a pick up on something you mentioned so with the uh racing demand for Uranium because you know nuclear reactors are being


restarted or being built to new ones across the globe um but you know Supply will will have to keep up with that but as we know you know starting up a new mind takes years um more than that more than a decade even so what do you in your opinion what would accelerate that and sort of in in terms of just being able to catch up with that or at least you know close that Gap is it just you know more Investments like what uh what are your thoughts on that well I think this Supply Gap ultimately gets filled um you know it has to be


filled with new production coming online but you hit the nail on the head it doesn't uh doesn't it takes a while to get a new uranium mine permitted uh and to get it into production um you know it's very technical mining typically speaking certainly in the Athabasca Basin in other parts of the world and uh there's you know several additional layers uh in permitting uh uranium mine uh versus other metals so as I said there's been a major period of under investment for the better part of


the last 10 years uh over 10 years now since Fukushima and we're now seeing this coiled spring if you will uh scenario play out where there just simply hasn't been a new PRI a new primary mind Supply coming online to meet the growing demand and I think what's surprising a lot of Market participants is just that the growing Demand with the the existing Fleet so reactor Life Extensions some of these reactors now extended to over 80 years of operating life but also the new reactors coming on


globally you look at China for example they have plans to build 150 new nuclear power plants over the next 15 years that's 10 nuclear power plants in China alone coming on each and every year for the next 15 years more nuclear capacity in one country in the next 15 years than has come on globally in the last 35 years and then I did touch on the uh these new small modular reactors and smrs we're seeing just here in Canada the first SMR coming online at the Darlington plant in Ontario a billion


dollars that's been injected from the Canadian infrastructure Bank to develop and commercialize that SMR and I think these these smrs could be a brand new source of new demand for for the west and I think the have a major impact on that demand number going forward there's over uh 435 operable reactors just under 60 currently under construction That's not including any estimates for smrs some of these Advanced new nuclear technologies and models coming on but there's hundreds uh more ordered planned


and proposed globally I mentioned China but also other parts of the world like India Russia the Middle East you know these countries and these regions need clean base load electricity reliable electricity and nuclear is really the only option for that right and it certainly helps I guess with the supply increasing the supply if you're in the right neighborhood so speaking of the at the basket base and you've uh if you want to talk about the most recent news that you've had this you know acquisition of the different


project can you talk a bit more about that what was the value proposition for that project yeah absolutely so we announced the 100 acquisition of What's called the South Dufferin project uh we're acquiring this from Dennis in mines in a mostly stock deal Denison has been a very large corporate strategic shareholder Sky Harbor for a number of years they're obviously becoming a larger shareholder now they've been a a very important partner uh company of of ours and their president and CEO Dave Cates is a


director of Sky Harbor and personally is quite a large shareholder so there are a lot of synergies there the South dafron project is a drill ready project in the south central part of the Athabasca Basin we did not have much exposure to this part of the Athabasca Basin and it is host to several high-grade zones of mineralization including just to the north of our South Dufferin project the Centennial deposit which is a very high grade uranium deposit owned by camaco now it's we're on the same major


structural Trend the Virgin River sheer Zone which trends uh in the Northeast Southwest Direction and a number of the drill targets at South Dufferin are are based around this this main this big Regional structure um it has been drilled uh historically there is some anomalous uranium uh mineralization some of the historical drill holes and we are going to be looking to find a strategic partner capable strategic partner to come in and option or JV this project from us as I mentioned earlier we have two parts of


our business at Sky Harbor first and foremost we are an exploration and early stage development company we have focused exploration and drill programs that we fund at our main projects Russell and Moore Lake and then the other projects fall into the second part of the business which is Prospect generation so South Dufferin slots in nicely with those other projects that we we still own a hundred percent of that we're looking to find Partners on we had just announced a few weeks prior as well


some additional staking so like I said earlier we now are one of the largest land holders with over half a million acres and we've done this through property deals like the one at South Dufferin as well as through online staking which is a very inexpensive means of acquiring properties in the Athabasca Basin so we we will be looking as I said to bring in new partner companies at some of these recently acquired projects while we stay focused on our exploration and drilling at our main projects and we are


working our way through a major 10 000 meter drill program at our Russell Lake Project which is just south of the MacArthur River mine the highest grade richest geranium deposit in the world just north north east of the key Lake Mill and uh it it basically encircles Russell Lake in circles Denison's Flagship wheeler River Project to the north to the East and to the south in fact a number of the targets at Russell Lake are the continuation of uriniferous conductors from wheeler River so it's a


very exciting new acquisition uh Russell lake is for Sky Harbor and and we're excited to finish this initial 10 000 meter drill program where we're going to be following it up with another drill program later this year and to have a steady flow of news and drill results coming out over the coming months oh yeah that's a huge undertaking and we'll uh look forward to hearing more about results of that drilling campaign that you're doing at Russell Lake yeah no it's a the main catalyst for the


company and in just one last note to uh the more Lake Project or co-flight ship project adjacent to Russell Lake uh we are planning some additional exploration and drilling there this year as well as a mineral resource estimate at the Maverick the high grade Maverick Zone as I I pointed out earlier some very high grade uh historical drill results uh at at that uh at that property and a lot of upside potential still there as well so we'll be uh testing both uh targets at Russell Lake as well as at the adjacent


more Lake project and we do benefit from mining infrastructure including road uh power lines and a camp at the Russell Lake Project to bring our Drilling and exploration costs down at both Russell and more right well I appreciate you all joining me today and sharing your insights on the market and uh your this is some news from your company thank you for having me and join us again next time for another engaging conversation on CEO insight [Music]