Let’s start off with a bit of back story to Fission Uranium and its journey to date.
We made our discovery at the PLS project back in 2012 on the western edge of the Athabasca Basin in Saskatchewan, Canada. The discovery was the first one on the Patterson Lake Corridor and we won multiple industry awards. Within a few years, we had delineated the largest mineralized trend in the region and announced our maiden resource estimate. We continued to grow the deposit and then, in 2020, there was a change of senior management and directors, in which I took the helm as CEO and the company transitioned from explorer to developer.
Over the last 3.5 years, Fission and the PLS project have transformed, hitting multiple milestones, and advancing towards production in 2029 on schedule and on budget – which is not an easy thing to do in the mining industry.
We have attracted the sector’s top talent — our in-house engineering, environmental, and permitting team is by far the most experienced of any development stage uranium company in Canada. It’s a team that has designed, permitted, and operated uranium mines – none of our peers can make that same boast.
In terms of the project, we announced our feasibility study in early 2023, which outlined a shallow, decline access underground mine and confirmed the potential for PLS to become one of the lowest cost uranium operations in the world. Most recently, we submitted our draft environmental impact statement to the province of Saskatchewan and we’re about to transition from front end engineering design to detailed engineering design. We are also continuing to work closely with our rights holders and stakeholders, and we have strong community support.
The company is about to commence two concurrent drill programmes at its PLS Uranium project next month. What are you hoping to find?
We have a resource growth programme and a regional exploration programme starting. The first will focus entirely on our R1515W high-grade zone which sits outside of our current mine plan. We have already outlined a 10 year mine life, but with the deposit open in multiple directions there is obvious room for growth. With this programme, the goal is to upgrade the inferred category resource of the zone to indicated category for potential inclusion into the mine plan.
The regional programme is aimed at making a new discovery. With hundreds of EM conductors grouped into major conductor trends, PLS is the most prospective land package in the western side of the Athabasca Basin. We have a very talented exploration team with a track record of making discoveries, and they are laser focused on uncovering a new high-grade deposit on the project. This programme is actually the follow up to a drill programme we conducted earlier this year, which returned some very interesting results that we knew we needed to follow up on. So, that’s what this programme is all about – drill testing a series of high-priority regional targets.
Historically, uranium projects take a very long time to make it into production. The PLS Uranium project is one of the few high-grade projects globally advanced enough to enter production this cycle. What is the project’s timeline looking like?
We are on schedule and on budget to enter production by 2029. All elements of our development – engineering, environmental, permitting, licencing, and community engagement are proceeding according to our published timeline. Our team’s experience in developing and operating uranium mines has been crucial to our progress so far and will remain absolutely key to our expectations going forward. Saskatchewan is renowned as an attractive mining jurisdiction and has a 70+ year history of uranium production. A lot of this success is down to the clear, strict permitting and licencing path that companies must follow if they want to mine in this province. Uranium mining is not like other mining – you must account for the radioactivity – and that’s why, if you are genuinely intending to reach production, your team needs that wealth of uranium-specific experience.
Uranium mining is not like other mining – you must account for the radioactivity – and that’s why, if you are genuinely intending to reach production, your team needs that wealth of uranium-specific experience.
Uranium is quite the buzz word – with nuclear energy gaining more traction in the midst of the green energy transition. Do you see this trend continuing?
Absolutely. However, it’s not just a question of the environment when it comes to the global energy transition. It’s really the combination of climate change and energy security. When the Ukraine war kicked off, we saw Russia use its fossil fuel exports as an economic weapon. It was a sharp reminder for nations around the world that security of supply needs to be a high priority.
As certain European countries have discovered, renewables alone are not the answer. Putting aside the genuine, non-subsidized cost of renewables, power grids need a large percentage of baseload (constantly available) power to function properly. The nuclear industry has been talking about this for years, but some nations have insisted on learning the hard way – rolling out huge renewable installations and then wondering why the utilities are responding with up to 15-year wait times to actually connect those wind and solar farms to the grid. In contrast, nuclear reactors provide reliable, clean, and constant power and they use uranium – one of the most energy dense resources in existence – as fuel.
Clean reliable power should be something we all strive for and that the responsibility for promoting greater understanding of nuclear power, ranges from governments and utilities to nuclear and uranium companies.
Do you think the narrative around nuclear energy has shifted significantly enough for it to become a commonplace energy source? Whose responsibility is it to educate audiences?
It’s very clear that the narrative has shifted to support nuclear as a commonplace energy source. For me, the moment that Japanese sentiment changed back to favour nuclear energy, was the crucial milestone we were waiting for. That said, I think that sentiment has strengthened further since then and will continue to do so. As for education, I think that clean, reliable power should be something we all strive for and that the responsibility for promoting greater understanding of nuclear power, ranges from governments and utilities to nuclear and uranium companies.
How does the PLS Project compare to other major projects in the Athabasca Basin?
We only have two direct peers in the Athabasca Basin and by that, I mean advanced stage development companies. NexGen Energy’s Rook 1 project is adjacent to our PLS project, and then Denison Mines’ Wheeler River project is on the eastern side of the Basin.
All three projects differ quite significantly. In terms of mine plans, NexGen is planning a deep shaft production mine with an underground tailings facility not previously used in the Basin, and Denison is pursuing an ISL mine – also not seen before in the Basin. In comparison, our own PLS project will be a shallow underground mine accessed by a decline ramp. We have extremely clean ore and we will have a surface tailings management facility and a 1,000tpd capacity mill. We’ll be using mining and processing techniques that are well proven in Saskatchewan’s uranium mines which is a major advantage throughout the life of the project – from permitting, licencing, and construction to operations and eventual decommissioning and reclamation of the property.
It’s important to add here that because of all these reasons, the federal impact assessment agency ruled that we only require provincial approval of our environmental impact assessment rather than the separate provincial and federal approvals that NexGen and Denison have to go through, which is a cost and time saver for us.
With uranium’s supply and demand fundamentals, the world needs all three of these projects and more to get up and running before the end of this decade. The trouble is, from a supply perspective, the sector is still very beaten up after the decade-long, low-price environment. Uranium mines do not go from discovery to production overnight but for those of us with an economically robust, advanced stage project, and the team capable of taking it through to production, the future is looking very bright indeed.
