Skyharbour and partner Orano planning exploration at Preston Uranium Project, Saskatchewan

Skyharbour Resources Ltd. [TSXV: SYH; OTCQX: SYHBF; FSE: SC1P] reported that joint-venture partner, Orano Canada Inc. is planning a substantial 2025 exploration and drilling program at the 49,635-hectare Preston Uranium Project in the western Athabasca Basin, Saskatchewan, Canada.

The drilling program will consist of approximately 6,000 to 7,000 metres of drilling during the summer of 2025. Orano is the majority owner and operator at the project with Skyharbour owning a minority interest of approximately 25.6%.

The proposed exploration program for the Preston project will consist of a planned 6,000 to 7,000-metre, helicopter-supported diamond drill program in approximately 26 holes at an average depth of 250 metres during the summer of 2025. Primary drill target areas include the previously untested Johnson Lake grid as well as the Canoe Lake grid; with the possibility of testing the recently surveyed FSAN-North and the West Preston Grids. Target areas are separated throughout the claim to ensure assessment credits are met across all claims, while also testing perspective trends.

The Johnson Lake Area has a ML-TEM grid (28.4 km across 7 lines) with no drill testing to date. A DC resistivity survey was also performed over four lines within the grid to better define and prioritize drill targets. A drill program was planned for the grid in the winter of 2019; however, limited ice thickness prevented access of the heavy equipment to reach the area. With the 2025 program being helicopter-supported, access to the area will not be an issue.

Multiple conductors within the grid show moderate to strong conductive responses, concurring with the elevated conductivity seen on the airborne GEOTEM. To thoroughly test these new conductive trends (predominantly the JL-North and JL-South Conductors), seven to 12 drill holes with an average depth of 250 metres are planned totalling 1,750 to 3,000 metres, contingent on results.

The Canoe Lake Area remains perspective and is a planned target area for the 2025 diamond drilling program. The Canoe Lake grid area has nine conductive trends with each conductor having one to three historic holes leaving large portions of strike length untested.

Cross-cutting structures interpreted from the airborne EM and magnetics data in the South-West portion of the Canoe Lake grid are of high interest due to their analogous orientation to the PLS and Arrow structural environments. Priority testing will be placed on conductors with confirmed graphitic structured intervals and elevated pathfinder elements from historic drilling. PRE-21 on the CAN-8 conductor intersected a locally fractured 46.6 m interval of intermittently graphitic and generally sulphide-bearing granodioritic gneiss with slightly higher average contents in Pb_partial (10.3 ppm), B_total (29.8 ppm), Co_partial (19.1 ppm), Cu_partial (73.4 ppm), Ni_partial (42.8 ppm) and Mo_partial (6.1 ppm). Aside from PRE-21 the remainder of the CAN-8 conductive trend is untested. After initial review, CAN-8 will see the majority of the testing with the possibility of testing of CAN-1, CAN-3 and CAN-7 depending on ground conditions for a total of 4 to 8 holes totalling 1,000 to 2,000 metres.

The final areas for proposed work are the FSAN Grid and West Grid, both of which recently had work completed in 2024. The FSAN Grid had a ground gravity survey completed, alongside a Spatiotemporal Geochemical Hydrocarbon (SGH) sampling program. Targeting on the FSAN grid will be contingent on the recently acquired data, focusing on areas with low gravity, anomalous SGH results, coinciding with favourable airborne EM and magnetic responses.

The West grid had recently completed ML-TEM coverage over 6 lines for a total of 18.8 line-km. After the completion of the conductor modeling, targets will be derived, possibly extending the PL-1 conductive trend that was drill tested in 2017, which confirmed the presence of graphitic structural packages. About 10 to 12 holes totalling 2,500 to 3,000 metres have been set aside for both the FSAN and West Grid areas. Drill holes will be allocated contingent on the final 2024 geophysical and geochemical results.

The 2024 field program marked the first exploration programs carried out by Orano at Preston since 2020. The completed geophysics covered 35.6 km of ground Moving-Loop Transient ElectroMagnetic (ML-TEM), covering the Preston West target where there is a known conductor, along with the Preston Far West target where a reconnaissance survey was conducted. The ground gravity survey consisted of 2,295 stations and covered an area along the FSAN and FSANE trends.

An SGH soil sampling program with over 1,100 samples commenced in the summer of 2024. The SGH program covered a large area and was a cost-effective, innovative exploration technique used in the Athabasca Basin to vector in on uranium showings associated with certain hydrocarbons.

In March 2017, Skyharbour signed an option agreement with Orano (formerly AREVA Resources Inc.) that provided Orano an earn-in option to acquire a majority working interest in the Preston Uranium Project.

Exploration at the project consisted of ground gravity, airborne and ground electromagnetics, radon, soil, silt, biogeochem, lake sediment, and geological mapping surveys, as well as exploratory drill programs. Over a dozen high-priority drill target areas associated with multiple prospective exploration corridors have been successfully delineated through these methodical, multi-phased exploration initiatives, which have culminated in an extensive, proprietary geological database for the project area.

In early 2021, Orano fulfilled their earn-in option interest in the project through funding exploration expenditures and making cash payments. After a total of CAD $4.8 million in exploration expenditures having been spent on the Project, Orano formed a joint venture with Skyharbour and Dixie Gold Inc. [TSXV: DG] for the future advancement and development of the project. Orano now holds a 53.3% interest in the joint venture, with the remaining interest split between Skyharbour (25.6%) and Dixie Gold (21.1%) interest in the joint venture.

Orano Canada is a leading producer of uranium, accounting for the processing of more than 15 million pounds of uranium concentrate in Canada in 2023. Orano Canada Inc. is a subsidiary of the multinational Orano group.

Skyharbour holds an extensive portfolio of uranium exploration projects in the Athabasca Basin and has interests in 36 projects covering over 614,000 hectares (over 1.5 million acres) of land.