David Pescod interviews Mike Gunning (HAT CEO)
posted on
Apr 12, 2011 06:47PM
ATHABASCA BASIN: WHERE GRADE IS KING!
DP: For looking at Hathor, you’ve got some events over
the next while, particularly in May. Maybe you will have
more uranium in the inventory than currently?
MG: Yes, the uranium sector has been roughed up, but
Hathor is in a good position because of some key milestones
ahead of us. We have money in the bank and we
have a project like Roughrider where we’ve got really two
ways to add some uranium, David, and add some value to
the Company. We’ve just finished a big winter program at
Roughrider. On February 24 we announced what looks
like a new discovery of what we are calling Far East. It
could be an extension of the East Zone, but it looks like it
could be building into a separate third, mineral deposit.
Once all of the assays come back in May and June, we will
get a handle on how significant this new discovery at Far
East is.
Further, while that is going on, we have been
working this winter on developing a resource model on
the East Zone itself which was discovered and delineated
last year. We’ve done our internal resource modeling,
utilizing the expertise gained from the original discovery
at West Zone which put about 28 million pounds on the
map.
The model for the East Zone is now in the hands of our
external consultants in Toronto. There is a possibility
that we will be in a position to release to the market a
compliant resource for this new East Zone in the first few
weeks of May. We should know that by the end of April.
When you look at Roughrider as 28 million pounds in the
West Zone, including about 24 million pounds of 12%,
that is already becoming a world-class uranium deposit
in terms of the grade attributes. My view is that the West
Zone deposit alone is already past the threshold of being
mined in the future as a complimentary asset. Add to
that the potential for a similar resource for the East Zone,
and Roughrider will approach the threshold of a standalone
deposit, and that would blow the doors wide open
for Hathor.
With these two thresholds, this new discovery at Far East
and our first pass resource estimate on the East Zone,
you could significantly increase that 28 million pound
resource in the West Zone. I think that when you look at
the area and volume enclosed by drill intersections at
East Zone, the really exciting upside is that the East Zone
and Far East have the potential to contain as much or
more uranium than the West Zone. And if you read the
investment analysts that cover Hathor, that is what they
get excited about.
So if we can execute on those milestones in the next
three or four months, we are really going to change the
potential of the Roughrider project to be a stand-alone,
high grade development project in the Athabasca Basin.
And that would be a very exciting threshold for this Company,
and it’s shareholders, no question.
DP: Time to end with our favorite questions…if you had
to predict uranium prices for year-end this year and yearend
next year, what would they be and if you had to buy
a stock (other than your own, with no conflicts of interest)
what would it be?
MG: Spot price at the end of the year, what I hope is that
we will see a stabilization of spot through the rest of 2011
at a plus $60 level and that sometime next winter you will
see spot price start its climb back to the $70 or $80 range
which we saw pre-Fukushima. I am hoping that by the
end of this year, we start that move back towards $70
and I think we still all feel that within the next 24 to 36
months, we need to see that spot price and term price
back anywhere from $70 to $90 if we expect to increase
global mine production the way the industry needs.
Looking at under-valued uranium stocks, I would have to say that over the last year the Athabasca Basin stocks have
been as under-valued as any, simply because of projects in Africa and the U.S. that were getting so much attention.
So when I look at the pounds at Hathor, it’s hard to see a stock that is more under-valued than ours. But, if I had to
pick another one….Do I think Cameco will be trading at $30 twelve months from now? No I don’t. And do I think Paladin
Energy (PDN) could recover some of its recent loses by making some savvy moves this year? Yes I do. And on
the junior side, look at the technical expertise of management and resource potential of projects and see if you don’t
think U308 Corp. is currently undervalued. I think I would just probably leave it at that.
DP: Thank you very much Michael!