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 welcome to CEO insights I'm Marilyn thezman with Inn I'm speaking with gilero pensado VP of exploration and development with blue sky uranium hi gilo hi night to be at pdac again like every year good moment um let's talk about the I guess the recent news that your company has released and that's the preliminary economic assessment for the Iana um deposit could you talk a bit some a bit more about the highlights of that PA and why it's uh important okay the first thing that we wanted to prove

that is after the inflation and the changes in the market in the uranium Market particularly that how Iana was improved in the last PA before covid-19 so many things changing so we had to prove that how it looks this project from the economic point of view and we knew that it could be improve it but although we have inflation we have better Market condition and some better ER deposit condition because in between we were doing some infill because the other strategy was trying to improve the category of the

resources going from inferring to indicating the risk in the project from the mineral resource point of view so that was the two point that we wanted to show that the economics are still good in fact they are better much better and we theas the resources and now I mean 80% of the resources at the Iana area are indicated now before we are 100% infer it uh and if we see the mining plan prospected that the PA more than 80% is indicated the other good thing is that we could found that uh due to the

infield we found some good results in the core zone so in the economics finally impact that the first few years of production you have better grade so you have a payback faster than expected uh we also wanted to prove that we are still although with higher values on the operating cost but we are still in the very lower level on the operated cost compared to in the to the actual market so if you see today I mean the uh overall operating cost is Cash cost is 23 and something per pound at the market which actually is about

$100 and the PA is prepared at $75 per pound as long-term price uh prospected and if you see all included uh with the sustainable and the credit it's 25 so we are still a very profitable project uh so this is the first thing that we wanted to show why we wanted to do this because we are preparing the Iana deposit to the PFS and now the market is indicating to us that it's the right time to accelerate the speed into this process because the market is going up and if we have I mean we need a PF that probably

may take one year because it's not I mean it's very straightforward project and after that a decision point if you go into into production that with permit and so on could be other two years uh so we find that is the right moment to accelerate that process we need the financing to do all this process so okay we we wanted to show to the actual shareholders and the potential investors in the pret that how good are the economics today and where we could be in this ER upside Market we could probably take

advantage of this Market very rapidly in this industry terms I mean in three four years from now so this is that was the strategy for the ph and you're referring to obviously the you know soaring prices of uranium that's been happening recently which was has has been a good positive for I guess you know for the uranium sector but it's not only the good prices today it's also that the uranium Market changed it in the last few years and previous PA I remember because we wrote in the PA that I mean

the spot pry had a minor ER impact in the General Market Market in the last few years with the uranium shortage with the lower production from several H production centers or the care maintainance H station some of those mine I mean the market is started to show New Market condition and the long-term contract that the this sector used to use now they were reduced several years and most of those contract are mainly focus in buying uranium but not fix it price so some of those H new contracts are

using in the in their terms potential future spot price so now the spot price start to have more influence into this market so all those in chance so we expected for this PA or we use it the long-term price of $75 per pound but we are seeing that how though these higher prices are more sustainable that it was in the past due to these changes in the market so this is something that we need to take advantage of that those condition and this is what we are doing so the Iana Pro uh deposit is part of

the Amaro Grande project could you talk about the short and long okay the sh is what I we are talking what the since the beginning we started all of these when the uranium price was $20 per p and in a huge District more than 40 km long by 30 40 km wide huge area to be prospective new area that always when you start to work in a new area you have a learning Cube to walk along and you know that the first year going to be you are going to be some frustration due to that until you understand the model Iana to help us

the different things the strategy was first to specify the type of deposit that we were looking at that district and if the small unique or single deposit could be economic by itself and at what price because the mineralization is from surface down to 25 M and in and in poor Consolidated or an Consolidated sediments so finally we are talking about the sun Quarry where you produce Uranus so very low operating potential so we have to prove and show to the investors that what is the potentiality of the district and

this is what we achieved very rapidly with theana deposit but we still know after more than 15 years of exploration of the district how many targets we still have so the strategy is okay Evana deposit is a 11 12 year estimated production eon economic profitable but this is the starting point for entire District that could be providing Min mineral into a central facility in Nana and because the mineralization this type of deposit that they are near surface is in the as I mentioned po Consolidated

sediment you can do economic some minor deposit that could be alone s economics but if you can preconcentrate as you we prove it for Iana deposit you can preconcentrate on site and go into more economic rate move into the plan that is start to create a long-term ER strategy is like standing the life of the mind so it's like we are focused now and with this new marketing conditioning and trying to move this rapidly but at the same time we are we continue dis exporation of Target in a initially in an area of 20 30 kilometers

around Nana deposit trying to Define mization that we know from sfet trying to Define another potentially economic deposit near by the Iana deposit uh and still we have other 80 kilom long District to explore but I mean we this is for a long time if you compare this with huge districts like because this kind of depositing sediments in general they're related to Big bases and take time to explore if you see kazakistan today the first producer I mean they were exploring for 50 years now and now

they show all the entire potentiality and this is part of the learning queue and this is something that the NADA we are just on the just beginning with the first discovery and we expect to Define more deposit because we already know Target that they could be potentially becoming a new deposit or geological condition that could be provided a new new deposit so we are playing the two games the short trying to move Ivana into a potentially near medium-term production and the chances to extend the Mind life of

theana the deposit with a satellite deposit nearby that you can extend the minor like doing the deposit and the Brownfield at the same time man multigenerational project um what's the uh upcoming what are some of the upcoming catalysts and what are the next steps for the project pfls the per visibility study I mean now we want now we presented the pa uh we we were working the last year in the new a processing study that was delayed more than expected I should say uh so finally was not included this PA because we

wanted to show at least economic term now but we expect to be finalize it that those term which are coming I mean they looks good and we want to show those results for the ER pre visibility study trying to have all the resources into indicated uh and measure it probably some of those trying to Der risk the entire project so we go into the PFS as long as we can in a PFS as close to the feasibility study as possible and you say okay why you're going to do all of that because the for example the

infield Drilling in general we are talking about we by now we have 848 holes but if you see that those are a lot of number of hle but if you see the amount of met really it they represent 11,000 because the average dep is only 15 M so it's it's very I mean h from the operational cost I mean it's very easy to move forward into that Cas so if we can theis the project in a very good way without spending so much money doing that let's do now let's let's try to deras the project as much as possible I

mean the market always I mean need to help the risk balance investment and risk and we are trying to help to our shareholders and invested okay if you are coming to this Market we are trying to help you as much as we can in each day do risk in the project as usual I mean this is usually happen but in this case in particular uh we can do probably more than common let's do it if doesn't cost much let's do it going to be a support to for the investors mik yeah so you've outlined a lot of great points about the

project and what you're doing right now so we're here obviously we're at pdac if you could summarize for an investor why lose Sky uranium is a compelling investment opportunity at this time what do you say to that well for all of this I mean there are no much projects in the world that you can say okay we are near medium-term potential production ER mines we are in a country which is a nuclear country that not many people know Argentina is a well recognized worldwide nuclear country in fact the

general manager of the international atomic energy agency he an Argentina Argentinian he was reelected recently uh and Argentina have three nuclear reactors but we have not been producing since 25 years ago and Argentina need to recuperate the self-supply of uranium because they also have the capacity to produce nuclear fuel so do the next stages in the in the nuclear cycle but we are buying a yellow the concentrate from kazakistan from Canada so where we could be recuperating that so this is a good point uh to do it

the understood the important of the nuclear sector for the energy transition the nuclear sector used to say in the past that the goal would be 20% of the energy should be nuclear today is about 10% in the world and recently the L last cup 28 they move up they we were conservative in our number they say No it should be 30 so okay so we need to Def find more uranium resources and we need so it's a good point to be investing in a very profitable H PA stage Target but with capacity to rapidly move forward is a

very easy and straightforward type of deposit on Surface no drilling ER blasting or crashing for example for the mine very low operating potential operating cost so this is a good point is an nuke when you unique H project Asana the deposit only but if you see the exploration potential for the strategy in the long term I mean the potential could be I mean for extend the M Life as happen in many cases in many district in different Commodities you can extend the mine life for many many years and this is the strategy from the

near term and the long term right well thanks again Gil for sharing your company's update and for taking the time today thank you and thanks everyone for watching join us again next time for another engaging conversation on CEO insights if you like this video make sure you subscribe to our Channel and turn on notifications so you don't miss future updates and interviews see you next [Music] time