Chris Frostad , President & CEO of Purepoint Uranium , is anxious to get to work. After a 10-year downcycle in the price of uranium that grinded most mine operations to a halt, he sees the recent spike in the commodity’s price as a signal of prosperous times ahead.
It’s expected that over 150 new and planned nuclear reactors will come online over the next few years, growing the demand for uranium, and putting new discoveries at a premium. That equates to some exciting opportunities for Purepoint. “We’ve spent the last five years preparing for this,” Frostad declared. “We’re probably better positioned than anybody to take full advantage of the upswing. We’re ahead of the game in terms of permitting, and we’re fully funded to support our plans, so we don’t have to start up again from a dead stop. It’s time to crank up the volume.”
Crank up the volume indeed. Purepoint has done more drilling so far this year than in the last five combined and likely more than any other explorer in Saskatchewan’s Athabasca Basin , which is home to the highest-grade uranium deposits in the world and over 20% of the planet’s supply.
Purepoint will continue their aggressive push now that uranium prices are again on the rise and capital is easier to come by. It’s a strategy that will enable them to take advantage of the one thing that differentiates them from other explorers in the region – a large portfolio of promising high-value projects.
“We have a warehouse of projects that we spent millions of dollars on before the downturn so we could identify their most prospective areas. There are 12 projects in all right across the basin,” Frostad confirmed, “most of which are right on trend or adjacent to mines with some of the largest deposits in the world.”
With multiple properties in play, Purepoint won’t be reliant on a single flagship project to score big. If a particular property shows promise, they can easily reprioritize their plans and allocate resources accordingly.
“We’ve got more projects. More active projects. More advanced projects, and better partners,” Frostad boasted. “The odds of us hitting a discovery are greater than anybody else’s.”
Purepoint is ready to ride this bull market following a tough stretch for the industry. Ten years ago, a tsunami hit Japan, resulting in the closure of approximately 10% of the world’s nuclear reactors, uranium’s biggest consumers. It also coincided with an excess supply of uranium that poured out of Kazakhstan, which had just emerged of as a major producer. Together, these events sparked a decade-long downcycle in prices, and suddenly, mining the commodity wasn’t economically feasible.
As other uranium mining companies folded, consolidated, or turned their focus to other commodities, Purepoint was able to dig in for the long haul, thanks to a joint venture they had entered into with Cameco Corp. (TSX: CCO) and Orano Canada Inc. , two of the largest uranium producers in the world. They needed help operating their Hook Lake project and saw Purepoint as the perfect partner.
“It’s been a great project for us because it allowed us to operate during the down market,” Frostad recalls. “And the fact that our partners continue to finance much of the exploration there is validation of the Hook Lake’s potential.”
That potential was made apparent years earlier, when two companies with adjacent properties to Hook Lake, Fission Uranium (TSX: FCU) and NexGen Energy (TSX: NXE), identified deposits totaling over 350 million pounds of uranium, precisely the kind of projects heavy hitters like Cameco and Orano covet.
Hook Lake will continue to be a key asset for Purepoint now that the market has normalized, and uranium has started its explosive revival. It will provide the company a leg up as the industry launches into what promises to be exciting times.
“All told, the company has a lot to feel good about,” Frostad said. “We’ve probably got the most advanced exploration portfolio in the world’s richest uranium region, and we’ve got the best partners on the planet to ensure that we’re the ones that make the next big discovery.”
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