Standard Uranium (STND) - Technical Analysis and Due Diligence

Standard Uranium Ltd. is a junior uranium exploration company based in Canada, focused on the advancement of its 5 uranium projects in the Athabasca Basin region of Northern Saskatchewan, Canada. The Athabasca Basin is the world’s leading source of high-grade uranium and is responsible for 20% of global uranium production. The company’s projects consist of the Davidson River, Sun Dog, Atlantic, Canary, and Ascent projects.

Interview with Jon Bey, CEO, and Sean Hillacre, VP Exploration of Standard Uranium (TSX-V:STND)

Company Overview

The Davidson River Project is a 25,886-hectare project in the southwest Athabasca uranium district, and the Sun Dog Project of the company is a 17,309-hectare land package located in the south end of the Beaverlodge uranium district. The Atlantic, Canary and Ascent Projects of the company lie within the eastern Athabasca Basin.

Standard Uranium Ltd. recently announced that it had concluded its winter drill program at the Sun Dog project. The executed drill program consisted of 1,242.3 m of exploration drilling through 4 drill holes. The drill program was only able to test three of the four predetermined drill targets due to the early deterioration of ice road conditions. The company was also able to conduct high-resolution ground gravity and UAV magnetic surveys across the Skye, Haven, Johnston Bay, and Java target areas of the project, leading to the identification of further drill targets. The drill targets are scheduled to be explored in the company’s planned 2023 winter exploration drilling program.

Standard Uranium Ltd. plans to conduct a fourth drill program at its flagship Davidson River project. The drill program is scheduled to commence in the middle of May 2022 and is aimed at identifying high-grade basement-hosted uranium mineralisation at the project.

Management

The company is led by Jon Bey who is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and director. Bey has been involved in the junior mining exploration industry for over 13 years and has experience in various mineral sectors including uranium, gold, silver, zinc and lead. He has been involved with the management of various publicly-traded companies on the Toronto Stock Exchange (YSX), the TSX Venture Exchange, the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) and the London Stock Exchange. He is also the founder and Managing Director of the Steel Rose Group of companies.

Martin Bajic is the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of the company and holds a B.A. and a diploma in accounting from the University of British Columbia (UBC. He is also a member of the Chartered Professional Accountants of BC. Bajic has over a decade of experience in serving as a director, CFO and consultant for various resource and technology publicly traded companies.

Sean Hillacre is the Vice President of Exploration for Standard Uranium Ltd. Hillacre was previously part of the technical team progressing the Arrow uranium deposit of NexGen Energy Ltd. as an exploration geologist. He has a unique and balanced background integrating academic geoscience with industry experience and has a comprehensive understanding of project development.

Sean McGrath is President of the company’s board and is a Chartered Professional Accountant in Canada and a former Certified Public Accountant in Illinois. McGrath has almost a quarter century’s worth of experience providing financial management and consulting services to publicly-traded companies in the natural resources sector. He is a seasoned financial professional and has been involved in the management of various aspects of a publicly-traded company including accounting and finance, planning and forecasting, treasury, internal and external reporting, internal controls and corporate governance. McGrath is currently a director of several TSX Venture Exchange - and CSE listed companies.

Neil McCallum is the Lead Technical Director of the company. McCallum has over 15 years of experience in the exploration of North American mineral deposits, with a focus on the targeting and discovery of unconformity-related uranium deposits. He is currently a project manager at Dahrouge Geological Consulting Ltd, located in Edmonton, Canada and has managed and conducted uranium exploration projects for various companies in and around the Athabasca Basin.

Blair Jordan, Kenneth Judge, Zoya Shashkova and Mike Young serve as independent directors for the company.

Blair Jordan is a former banker and has extensive experience in the public markets. He previously served as the Managing Director of Investment Banking at Echelon Wealth Partners Inc., and before that spent 10 years with Credit Suisse in London, New York and Tokyo.

Kenneth Judge is the chief executive officer of Hamilton Capital Partners Limited and has been involved as a founder, chairman, CEO or non-executive director of more than 30 companies operating in various countries and sectors.

Zoya Shashkova has more than 20 years of experience in consulting and finance including audits, consulting, tax structuring, risk management, reporting, disclosure and mining finance.  She currently serves as the CFO of EnviroGold Global Ltd., which is a clean technology company engaged in selective reprocessing of mining tailings. 

Mike Young has over 35 years of experience in the mineral sector specifically in building and managing teams throughout a project’s life cycle.  He previously served as the CEO of Vimy Resources and was instrumental in recapitalizing and rebranding the company as well as growing the resource base of the company’s Mulga Rock Project

The team is tasked with advancing the company’s various initiatives, one such being the recently concluded Sun Dog Winter Drill Program.

Sun Dog Drill Program

Standard Uranium Ltd. announced on 12 April 2022, that it had concluded the winter drilling program at its 100%-owned Sun Dog project located at the northwestern edge of the Athabasca Basin, Saskatchewan.

The winter drilling program consisted of 1,243. 3 m of exploration drilling that was executed through four drill holes. The phase one drilling encountered several characteristics of a uranium-bearing mineralisation system. The inaugural drilling at the project was able to test three of the four intended target areas but was unable to complete the exploration of the fourth area due to the anticipated early deterioration of the ice road conditions. Standard Uranium Ltd. was also able to conduct high-resolution ground gravity and UAV magnetics geophysical surveys which were able to identify several new high priority targets.

The four-hole drilling program was able to intercept several hydrothermal quartz-hematite breccia structures as well as limonite hydrothermal breccias and highly deformed graphitic metapelite mineralisation systems.

The company is highly encouraged by the results of the first reconnaissance-scale program at the Sun Dog project. It believes that with the scale and intensity of deformation seen, coupled with the alteration types intersected, it is only a matter of time until it vectors into something even more exciting, Sean Hillacre states:

“That was the very first program that we’ve done on the project. It hasn’t been drilled in about 14-years, so it was a very reconnaissance-scale program, a very short time window to get out there and get some drilling done. We learned a lot. We saw some fantastic rock types, and despite that big discovery… the structures and all the technical success we had and what we’re seeing there, we’re really excited about it. We can’t wait to get back up there.”

The concluded winter exploration drilling program at the Sun Dog Project has been able to identify various targets for the company’s planned 2023 winter drilling program. The upcoming winter exploration program will be conducted in the middle of May 2023 and is envisioned to consist of two drill rigs. John Bey explains the 2023 plans for the Sun Dog project as follows:

“…we wait for that lake to freeze over and the government opens up ice roads, and then we can drive everything in, set up the camp and run that camp for about 5-weeks. It’s a short window. This year (2022), we did a really small program to test everything out. Now we’ve got the logistics figured out, and next year we’ll bring up double the number of drillers and drill equipment and hit it a bit harder, so that’s exciting for our shareholders for next winter season.”

Davidson river drilling program

Standard Uranium Ltd. plans to continue with its exploration initiatives at its flagship Davidson River project. The exploration drilling program at the project is scheduled to commence in the middle of May 2022 and will be conducted by Base Diamond Drilling Ltd., the same company that conducted the recently concluded drilling program at the Sun Dog project. Jon Bey explains the drilling program as well as the need for a competent and trusted drilling company as follows:

“The ground that we’re drilling in this region is extremely technical and difficult to drill, so having competent drillers is crucial. We know we’re very confident with the drillers we have working with us this summer and we’re really excited to get them to site and get them drilling, the way they proved themselves beautifully up at Sun Dog, they’re going to come down to Davidson River and we’re going to drill. We’ll start with 5,000m and we’ll see how things go. If we get into something really exciting, we know the market is going to react to that, and we’ll be able to continue and really push it from there.”

The planned drilling program at the Davidson River project is aimed at following up on the most prospective basement structures and alteration zones intersected to date at the program. The drilling program will also test new target areas along all four major conductors of the project as well as the project’s Thunderbird mineralisation trend.

East Basin projects

Standard Uranium Ltd. further plans on advancing its East Athabasca Basin project’s in 2022, with various geophysical programs planned at the projects with the company having secured key vendor contracts as well.

The company plans on conducting high-resolution ground gravity surveys at the western Atlantic project claim blocks in late winter 2022. The high-resolution ground gravity surveys will be aimed at identifying drill targets for an envisioned 2023 drilling program. The Canary project is scheduled to undergo an induced polarisation/resistivity (IP/resistivity) survey in spring 2022, which the company believes will yield valuable structural, lithological, and/or alteration related information about the project. The Ascent project will undergo an airborne time-domain electromagnetic (TDEM) survey, which is aimed at further defining and modelling the conductive exploration corridors of the project.

The company plans to implement the geophysical data towards a planned drilling program at the East Athabasca Basin projects in 2023, Jon Bey explains the intent of the programs as follows:

“Those projects are ready for us to go up and do geophysics. We have geophysics programs lined up for later this year, and the goal is to have that completed and to have all our permits and applications and First Nations agreements in place to begin a drill program in early 2023.”

Future

Standard Uranium Ltd. believes that its planned 2022 exploration initiatives will highlight the potential of its projects and plans to continue showing the value of its assets through its planned 2023 initiatives. The company will raise funds as and when it is required, with it focused on not diluting its shareholders unnecessarily.

Standard Uranium Ltd. is focused on allocating its funds responsibly and aims to include an institutional shareholder base that is aligned with the company’s vision as time progresses. The company is also investigating various opportunities for joint ventures in Canada as well as in the United States.

To find out more, go to the Standard Uranium website