IsoEnergy Ltd. (TSXV: ISO; OTCQX: ISENF): Proven Team, Outstanding Backing, Fantastic Uranium Drill Results in Athabasca Basin, Saskatchewan, Canada; Interview with Craig Parry, CEO; PDAC Booth 2421B
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By Dr. Allen Alper, PhD Economic Geology and Petrology, Columbia University, NYC, USA
on 2/21/2020
IsoEnergy Ltd. (TSXV: ISO; OTCQX: ISENF) has just announced fantastic results from their current drill program, at their high-grade, Hurricane Zone uranium discovery, on the Larocque East property, located in the Eastern Athabasca Basin in Saskatchewan, Canada. Two drill holes intersected massive pitchblende areas measuring >65,000CPS (off-scale on the RS-125), which will translate into very high-grade uranium mineralization and the most significant and strongest mineralization drilled to date on the property. We learned from Craig Parry, CEO of IsoEnergy, to which the market responded well, trading big volumes at a higher share price. IsoEnergy expects the full drilling assays back in time for PDAC. According to Mr. Parry, these results really confirm Hurricane to be a serious new discovery that will become a significant new deposit in Eastern Athabasca.
IsoEnergy Ltd.
Dr. Allen Alper: This is Dr. Allen Alper, Editor-in-Chief of Metals News, interviewing Craig Parry, who is President & CEO of IsoEnergy. Craig, could you refresh the memory of our readers\investors and give our newer ones an overview of IsoEnergy?
Craig Parry: Yeah, sure Al. Great to be talking with you again and thank you for having us back. IsoEnergy is a uranium exploration company listed on the Toronto Venture Stock Exchange, under the symbol I-S-O. We also have an OTCQX listing and our ticker there is ISENF.
We've been exploring the Athabasca Basin for four years. We're a spin out of NexGen Energy, our major shareholder and most supportive shareholder. We've been exploring the Eastern half of the Athabasca Basin, whilst also putting our foot on more of that very prospective Eastern Athabasca Basin.
We're very well-funded. We've had great support from the market and from NexGen, our major shareholder. NexGen has contributed three million dollars in our last raise. We raised $7 million dollars back in December, so we have over six million in the bank at the moment, which sets us up very well for the next couple of years of work. Very importantly, there is some very big news out of the Company. We just made the second announcement from our current drill program. It's our third drill program at Hurricane. We've now completed 34 drill holes there on that Larocque East property in our hurricane discovery. And we put out some really spectacular results today. We couldn't be more excited about what we've put to the market.
The market certainly responded well, trading big volumes and up solidly in share price, but the key to that was that our drill holes ... I'll start with the most important of those, drill hole LE2034. We drilled there two meters of semi massive pitch blend, measuring over 65,000 counts per second. Now, that will translate to very high-grade uranium mineralization. Some of that spectacular grade of mineralization, the market is used to seeing from major discoveries in the Athabasca Basin. And that is included within a section of eight and a half meters of mineralization that's created over 500 counts per second.
What we would expect that to translate to, is eight and a half meters of intercept of very strong mineralization, high-grade mineralization. And then hole LE2032A intercepted another eight and half meters of greater than 500 counts per second, including one and a half meters of massive to semi massive pitch blend mineralization. And that one and a half meters is greater than 65,000 counts per second.
True off scale! Within that, the bulk of those intercepts was greater than 10,000 counts per second. Now, 10,000 counts per second is what explorers, until recent times, have called “off scale mineralization”. We don't have the assays yet. We'll have the assays back from these holes in about three to four weeks, hopefully in time for PDAC. Those intercepts will translate to really serious percentages of uranium mineralization.
We couldn't be more excited! These results confirm Hurricane to be a serious new discovery. I think it will translate into becoming a significant new deposit in that Eastern Athabasca. We have two rigs on the ground there at the moment, so your readers\investors can expect a lot more good results over the next couple of months as we drill. We tested some of the strike extent of that deposit, and of course it is open in all directions. We're very excited to get in and do that.
Dr. Allen Alper: Fantastic results! It's an exciting time for IsoEnergy, your stake holders and investors. That's really fantastic.
Craig Parry: Yeah. It is no rare thing in the uranium market at the moment, Al, to have such a positive story. We heard Cameco's quarterly call last Friday and Cameco is turning very bullish on the market. They say that the market is in fundamental under-supply and they can see a time coming soon, where we'll see stronger uranium process. IsoEnergy is in a unique position, whereby we're the only company, with a new high-grade discovery and we'll be putting out good results into that positive and rising market.
Dr. Allen Alper: Well, that sounds fantastic. Could you tell our readers/investors some of the highlights of what you're planning for 2020?
Craig Parry: Yeah, absolutely. Our focus now, with the discovery of this very high- grade section of that hurricane deposit, turns to that area. We'll continue to drill in and around those holes. The deposit's open to the West, a long strike to the West up until our property boundary. Then it's open to the North and South in that area as well. We'll be drilling to test the extent of the deposit over there. We haven't closed off the deposit to the East either yet, so we have some step out drilling and drilling to confirm the strike extent and the North and South extent of the deposit on that side. We'll have one rig there doing that. We're drilling 20 holes as part of this program. Although, based on the results today, I suspect that we'll be looking to continue that program significantly for the coming months. We need to do more work before we confirm that, but I would expect that we would extend the drill program.
The other rig we have out on the Eastern side, where we have a very important anomaly sitting on the conductive trend out there, a large resistivity anomaly that we're looking to test as well. We think it has great merit. We're out there doing some holes as we speak and getting some interesting alteration in those holes as we reported in a recent news release. Lots of work going on. I think globally, we're probably in the top five uranium explorers in terms of spending and working rate at the moment. For a junior uranium company, we're incredibly active and news flow on that basis is very strong.
Dr. Allen Alper: Well, that's outstanding. Could you tell our readers/investors about your background, your Team and your Board?
Craig Parry: Sure. I'm an exploration geologist, as are all of our full time employees here at Iso. We're all very much exploration geologists and geology and exploration focused guys. I spent nine years with Rio Tinto exploration, before going out on my own and starting a number of companies. One of those companies I helped start with our Chairman at Iso, Leigh Curyer. Leigh's the CEO of NexGen Energy. I helped him kick that Company off and that's been a tremendous success.
The original Board Members of NexGen Energy are also the original and current Board Members of IsoEnergy. Chris McFadden is the Chairman of NexGen, Leigh Curyer is CEO of NexGen and our Chairman at Iso. We have Trevor Thiele and Richard Patricio, guys with a tremendous track record in uranium exploration. On the team front, we are very, very happy to have a man called Steven Blower as part of the team. Steve was the head of exploration for Denison before he joined us at NexGen briefly and then came across to head up exploration at IsoEnergy. Steve has an outstanding track record in exploration. I think hurricane will be recognized as a major new discovery, but Steve also led the team at Denison to discover the Gryphon deposit. Steve now has two significant uranium deposit discoveries under his belt.
We have a great team there. Andy Carmichael leads our team in the field. Justin Rodko is out there in the field. These guys, again, Andy worked at Denison with Steve, involved in that Gryphon discovery. Andy's been crucial to the discovery we have here.
If you look at us as a broader group, Board and Management Team, I think in the last 10 or 15 years we've had an unprecedented track record in uranium exploration success, leading the team, having discovered the Arrow deposit, which now I think is a giant uranium deposit, an ultra-high grade deposit. And now, this hurricane deposit in addition to Steve's discovery and Andy's discovery of that Gryphon deposit. We've found, as a group, over three significant uranium deposits and counting. The track record continues to build and I'm very, very proud to lead such a tremendous team.
Dr. Allen Alper: Well, it's excellent to have such an outstanding team that has accomplished so much in the past and is so knowledgeable about the region and uranium exploration. That's great! And to have such strong support by NexGen and others. That's really fantastic! Could you tell our readers/investors a little bit about your share structure and your investors?
Craig Parry: Yeah, absolutely Al. We haven't been around too long of course. We're a relatively new company. I think, your readers/investors might like to go to our website (www.isoenergy.ca) and check out our corporate presentation. We have some of the detail there on the projects and also the capital structure. We haven't been around long, we've only got 84 million shares out. We're currently trading at about 43 cents or so. We're up about 5 cents off the back of that news release.
In about 2 weeks and before PDAC, all going well, we'll have those assay results out. I think that's when people will really recognize what we've discovered here and the high grade nature of this deposit. Look for that.
On a fully diluted basis, we have about 98 million shares out. Very importantly, if people look at slide 22 on our presentation, you'll see that NexGen sits there with 52% of the Company. Cameco owns about 4% of the Company. Orano has 2% of the Company. They're the big guys in the space. Our share registry is a bit of a who's who of the uranium mining and exploration business. We have a number of important and supportive institutional shareholders. Our free flow's really only 23, 25% of the Company. What that means is, whenever we put out good results or the market starts to rise, we usually get good traction from that news.
Lastly and very importantly of course, we raised $7 million back in December, which sets us up very well for the next couple of years of exploration, albeit that is based on today's results. We'll be doing a lot more drilling than we may have otherwise planned, so look out for news on that front.
Dr. Allen Alper: Oh, that's excellent! That's great to have such strong shareholder support by experienced people and that Management and the Board and NexGen are invested and have such confidence in IsoEnergy and justified confidence too.
Craig Parry: Yes. Yeah.
Dr. Allen Alper: Craig, Could you tell our readers/investors the primary reasons they should consider investing in IsoEnergy?
Craig Parry: Absolutely Al. Of course there is the macro picture, a prolonged downturn in the uranium space for the past 10 years. That's meant that the market is dramatically under-supplied and the uranium market has a 180 million pound per annum market. Primary production today of mine supply is only about 90 million pounds. We're under supplied by 50%. Prices have started to rise, but they must rise much higher if those customers are to get the amount of product that they require. That process has started of course, with a massive shutdown globally, in uranium production, including the closure of the world's biggest mine, McArthur River, owned by Cameco in the Athabasca Basin.
The market is in transition and transformation right at this moment and we'll see higher prices over the next year, two years, much higher prices we think. Now's the right time to be looking. It's pretty straightforward to work through and find out who to invest in. There are some great companies out there like NexGen Energy, building the world's biggest and best uranium mine.
At the other end of the spectrum you have IsoEnergy and we're the rarest of things. We're the only uranium company with a new high-grade discovery, recently made and aggressively drilling that now, and putting out some really good results into that market. If you like exploration upside and you like really explosive share price growth, off the back of exploration success and an improving market, then IsoEnergy is the best place to look. Certainly we're all personally heavily invested and continue to buy stock at any opportunity. We think the choice is obvious, when it comes to capturing value from this next pending uranium bull market.
Dr. Allen Alper: Oh, that sounds like outstanding reasons for our readers/investors to consider investing in IsoEnergy. You're funded, you have great properties and great support and a great team, exploring in a fantastic area. That all sounds like excellent reasons. And it looks like uranium is poised to increase in value as the supply gap and demand widens.
Craig Parry: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. No, it's a great way to get exposure to both great exploration results and an improving market.
Dr. Allen Alper: That's great. Is there anything else you'd like to add, Craig?
Craig Parry: Just to thank you for interviewing IsoEnergy Ltd. for Metals News.
Dr. Allen Alper: Well, that's an excellent story, very interesting, and the timing seems to be great. We’ll publish your press releases as they come out so our readers/investors can follow your progress.
http://www.isoenergy.ca/
Craig Parry
Chief Executive Officer
IsoEnergy Ltd.
+1 778 379 3211
cparry@isoenergy.ca
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