URANIUM Poised For 'Major Breakout' - Fundamentals 'Never Been Stronger': Jon Bey

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:00]Hello everybody and welcome into commodity culture where our goal is to make you a better investor in the commodities sector. My name is Jesse Day. Today is May 27th, 2026. And before we dive in, standard disclaimer. Nothing here is investment advice. Do your own due diligence. My guest today is the CEO of Standard Uranium, a uranium exploration company and emerging project generator poised for discovery in the world's richest uranium district. It's John Bay. Great to have you on the show.

[00:00:28]Hey Jesse, great to be here. Thanks for inviting me.

[00:00:31]>> Absolutely. I want to start by discussing your current assessment of the uranium market because we've seen a ton of volatility lately which could be caused for concern for some investors and yet the fundamental drivers behind the sector seem stronger than ever. Is that how you're reading things? And what is your overall assessment of the sector right now?

[00:00:50]>> Yeah, I would say you bang on there. The fundamentals have never been stronger.

[00:00:54]Uh we're looking at a market right now that is just poised for a major breakout. And I think we were, you know, we were getting and going in the right direction through the fall and into January. We saw a nice move from the spot price once again moved up from the 85 right up to over $100 again. And then we had the incident where you know the US and Israel invaded Iran and that has really cooled things off to say the least. It's a spot price has come right back down to $85 and it's been sort of treading water for the last two months.

[00:01:21]So we all know that, you know, retail investors, high risk, high high net worth guys, they're looking at this and they're really risk off when these kind of things hit the macro stage. So I don't think it's any implication on what's happening in the global uranium market because I think all the fundamentals are pushing towards a market that is completely uh pushing towards under supply for decades ahead and we really need to address that going forward. Yeah, I think that asymmetric bet to the upside is the strongest perhaps in uranium out of any commodity out there. The supply deficit continues to be glaring and there's simply not enough new projects advancing to production to fill that gap. Do you think this means the price has to go a lot higher to incentivize new production? And ultimately, where do you think all that needed uranium is going to come from?

[00:02:08]>> Yeah, good question. Let's let's step back a little bit because I think investors sometimes get um confused a little bit about the two different markets. So we have the spot market which is a number that investors see on a regular basis daily it's put out there and we have the long-term market and the long-term market is the one that you know most investors don't follow but that's really the critical one. That's the market where we see the contracts from the utilities setting those contracts with the producers and those go out you know years in advance that what we are seeing is that long-term price has gone upwards significantly.

[00:02:38]It's now some say right around that 92 $93 up from you know high 80s just a few months ago. So it is constantly steadily moving upwards to a number is probably the highest it's ever been. So that is great to see and the spot market itself has some volatility bouncing around between you know between 80 to 100 and back around 85 today. Those are the numbers that investors see every day but they really need to keep an eye on what's happening in the long-term market. And you can see those reports come out from um you know certain individuals who who write reports from the uranium space. they'll they'll put those out monthly so you can sort of track the long-term price which is which is a key one. Now I think I I sort of uh wandered off from your question so maybe fire that question back at me again.

[00:03:18]>> Yeah, you answered the first half of it and the the second half was where are the needed pounds going to come from?

[00:03:23]>> Yeah, that is a great question as well.

[00:03:25]And when we look at where are the pounds coming globally right now, there's a number of different regions. So Canada obviously the Atabaska Basin we've got Kamakos Cigar Lake and MacArthur River some great pounds coming to the market.

[00:03:37]Then you look to the US, we've got, you know, four or five companies that have entered into production phase again.

[00:03:42]Small numbers, I think probably less than five million pounds coming out of the US right now across four or five companies. And then you look uh over to Africa, we've got, you know, stuff happening a bit coming out of Nishair.

[00:03:52]And you've got Namibia, which is stepping up now with some production.

[00:03:55]And then you've got over in Australia, you've got the big mine there where uranium is a byproduct. It's not a uranium mine, but it's a byproduct of BHP's mine there. And then you look into other parts of the you know Russia and Kazakhstan of course Kazakhstan being the world's largest producer producing 40% of today's uranium and then we've got you know Beckiststan and a few other nations in that region and then you look to you know where is that demand coming and it's everywhere everyone around the globe outside of a few countries are really pushing towards wanting nuclear as part of their energy mix going forward and that's not just the large reactors which we're accustomed to it's also the the future of the small modular reactors and micro reactors. So, it's a very interesting time and I think the most bullish time in history where we've got uranium really pushing to be a big part of the energy mix, 440 large reactors operational, 70 under construction, another 100 proposed or planned and more even coming into that mix every day.

[00:04:47]>> Yeah, great summary there. And speaking of Kazatam, both themselves and Kamico have had production wos recently. Um, and several projects attempting to ramp into production have also faced issues.

[00:04:59]What are the biggest challenges you see out there in the uranium mining business and how can they be overcome?

[00:05:05]>> Well, let's start off simply. Mining is difficult. It's not just a a simple process. Every project you watch when you see um you know results come out from the companies putting out their news. I can't recall any of them ever saying we're overproducing more than what we anticipated. That's always the other way. We a aim to get to a certain number and we're either just under or or under even further because complications come up. We're seeing bottlenecks with, you know, whether it's sulfuric acid in Kazakhstan or whether it's people can't get the qualified miners trained up to do the work they need in Saskatchewan because it's a real bottleneck. I mean, when you shut down mines and bring them back on, you lose workforce. You've got to train new workforce and it's a complicated skill to get these these workers trained up. So, we're seeing, you know, uh workforce problems. We're seeing um resource problems. You're seeing just the complications of building mines and executing on timelines. And then of course you're coming into the the government regulatory problems that come up and sometimes even face issues with with First Nations in certain parts of the world who've got to put their hand up and they want better deals that that can slow things down. And we're seeing that as some projects try to get from development stage to producing stage. So there's so many different complications that can that can slow things down and really cause issues for for these companies trying to advance.

[00:06:18]>> Now AI data center buildouts have kind of been front and center in the news cycle as of late. And if the US of course really wants to be a leader in this race, they're competing with China who is building out all sorts of energy infrastructure. They've got a goal for, I believe, 150 reactors by 2035, some some incredible number. And they're actually taking action and building so many reactors right now. So with nuclear being front and center is one of the better options, do you think the AI arms race could have an impact on uranium demand moving forward?

[00:06:50]>> Yeah, that's a a really good point. And let me let me back that up a little bit.

[00:06:54]When you said China is planning to build 150 reactors, they made that statement a few years ago. And not only did they make that statement, they are executing it beautifully. They're now they're now building 10 reactors a year and they're building them on time and on budget.

[00:07:08]They're able to build a large nuclear reactor, you know, a gigawatt reactor for, you know, under five or six billion dollars and they're doing it in about five or six years. Those are staggering numbers. Okay. Now, China moving ahead like that. The rest of the world is trying to follow suit. The US has seen themselves, you know, about to fall behind in the in the nuclear buildout phase. For decades, they've been the leader. They have 94 reactors operational right now. And Trump does not like falling behind anyone. So, you know, when the rest of the world said at COP 28, we want to triple the amount of nuclear going forward for the next 25, 30 years. Trump said, you know what, we can do better. We want to quadruple that. So, they want to go from using 50 million pounds to over 200 million pounds by by 2040. Now, those numbers are staggering, Jesse. And to hit those, they've got to start building and building fast. So, we did see them come online last year with with Vogle in Georgia. Two reactors have come online.

[00:07:59]It took them a long time and they were way over budget when they did it. But that's what happens when you build one reactor every 30 years. You know, like the Chinese are doing, and you got to get a get a flow going. You got to build multiple, get your systems down, and prices will come down and timelines will get better. And that's exactly what I think the US are doing. And I think we can watch very closely for what's going to happen in the next few months. I anticipate the US is going to announce the buildout of several more large reactors potentially up to 10 in 2026 they might announce to start construction.

[00:08:27]>> Give us an idea of how standard uranium plays a role in the overall uranium market. Could you start by giving us an overview of the company and letting us know what the game plan is for the long term?

[00:08:37]>> Yeah, for sure. So look, we are pure exploration in the Atabaska basin with the project generator side business. So we started this company back in 2017 with the mindset that the world is going to be heading towards more nuclear and more uranium is going to be needed and there's just not enough projects found yet to get taken of that down that development phase. So our goal is to go out there and make discoveries, take that discovery right up to resource stage or pea stage and sell it off to a mining company. So that's what we did.

[00:09:04]We built the company around our flagship Davidson River project. We started um adding more projects from 2020 when we took the company public. We now have 10 projects in our portfolio. But the key point is Davidson River is really the flagship for a reason. It has got massive potential. It sits in the southwest corner of the Atabaska Basin, right next door to Paladin's trip project and then NextGen's Aerrow Rook One project. That region, the southwest corner, in my opinion, is going to be the most exciting region in the world for decades to come. Uh, as you probably know, NextG got their final approval to start construction to build their mine and their mill. That construction is ongoing right now. It's probably going to take them three to three and a half years to build that out and they'll be into production. Also, we've got Dennis uh advancing their project. They've got their final approval. So, look, in the next three to four years, we're going to have two fully operational mines in Saskatchewan. And don't be surprised to see Canada uh the number one spot in the world for uranium production. So, that's great to see. Now, back to Standard, we are looking to make discoveries. Our goal is to make this discovery on a uranium project, advance that up, and put it in the hands of a mining company.

[00:10:07]So look for us to uh really focus on exploration as well as project generator and that's another topic we can we can touch on as well.

[00:10:14]>> Absolutely. And as I mentioned at the top of the show, today is May 27th and some news hot off the press coming out of Standards uranium. Why don't you fill us in on that?

[00:10:23]>> Yeah, so I mentioned Davidson River as our flagship project. We've been trying to get back there for four years to drill it and we've got some uh really good news. Like we we put news out a few months ago saying we were going back. We were going to drill it again this summer. I've been marketing for the past two months really talking the story to investors around the globe and our current shareholders and new shareholders really look at that project and they think it's so great they want us to really hit this project really hard. So they've asked us to expand the size of that project. So we're taking it from the 5,000 meters which originally was funded and planned to a significant increase. I'm not going to put a number on that but we're pushing to go you know north of 8,000 maybe higher than that even this summer depending on you know how many meters our our two drill drill rigs can go forward. So, it's exciting.

[00:11:05]We've got the drills on site right now.

[00:11:07]Our geologists get up there in the next few days. Drills will be spinning. We'll be drilling all through June, July, and August with the goal of making, you know, a major high-grade discovery like the ones across the street from us at Paladin and NextG. That's what we're trying to do.

[00:11:20]>> Talk to us about the project generator aspect of the business and the strategy there.

[00:11:24]>> Yeah. So, going back in time, you know, we started off as pure exploration. We started acquiring new projects and when we acquire it, we stake it for fairly cheaply. we do it do the work on it ourselves and once we uh got to a point in probably about 2022 23 we had about 12 projects in our portfolio and in Saskatchewan you have to work those projects to keep them in good standing so when sproat came into the market and created their spot fund it really had a really major impact on the uranium market the spot price went from $50 to about $110 in about you know in less than a year and that really caused a lot of interest in uranium and the outaska basin and a lot of companies that may have been precious metals or lithium or whatever else companies wanted to become uranium companies and that wanted to be in the Atabaska basin. So that caused a massive flood of new companies coming into our region, our home where we have projects and wanting to get projects.

[00:12:14]But look, if you're going to do the work in Saskatchewan, you've got to have a number of things going for you. You have to have, you know, relationships with your First Nations partners and they have to be good. You have to have the ability to get permits from the government, which can take time if you don't know how how things operate. You have to have the workers, that is the vendors, the drillers, the helicopters, the camps. If you don't have those things, you're not getting a project off the ground. And then you have to have uranium geologists that actually know how to do the work there. We have all those things going for us. So for us, we saw an opportunity. We had an opportunity to take some of our second tier assets, put them up for a JV opportunity for another company and really move quickly to get those monetized and get those projects advancing. And when we announced we were moving to project generated within three months we had three deals signed and drills were spinning on all three projects rapidly. So a really good opportunity for new companies coming into the basin looking for projects and looking for a team that can operate and run them for them and for us a way to advance those projects that probably would have been not getting the love they needed from our own dime. And our shareholders are happy to see those projects advancing. Multiple drill programs happening this year. Three programs on three different projects by us this year alone. Two of those funded by our JB partners. And it's a it's a beautiful model and I can get you into details of how that um JV model works if you'd like to hear more.

[00:13:25]>> Yeah, definitely dive into the details for us.

[00:13:28]>> Yeah. So, a typical earning project with us, we'll we'll put a project up and when it when it goes up to the market, what we'll have done already is about two years of exploration work on it. We will have it drill ready to go. So, we will have the drill permits in hand. We will have the First Nations agreement signed in place. We'll have all the vendors lined up and our team of geologists ready to run the project. So, a new project coming in, say you ran your own uranium or company and you wanted to get into uranium, Jesse, you would come to us and I would open up our curtain and say, "Here's the projects that are available. Pick the one or the ones you like." And we'll start uh discussing that. Once we pick a project, we'll say, "Here are the typical terms we offer to these companies." And it's a three-year earning. So in 3 years, if you pay us the amount of uh cash and shares and pay for all the exploration work and pay us to operate that project, you can earn 75% of that project and we'll keep 25% with a 2.5% NSR going forward. So it allows these projects to move forward. The companies coming in see a great opportunity to have another talented exploration team run the project for them as long as they are good people, credible people with cash and away we go. Now, this not only moves these projects forward, it also gets the First Nations in those regions uh pretty happy because they're getting paid the royalties on that. They're seeing these projects get advanced. The vendors, they love it because they're getting work across multiple projects. Sometimes when times are tough, it's really good for them to have steady income and steady work going. Uh for us, you know, those non-core assets are getting moved forward as as I mentioned, you know, you have to keep every project moving forward with spend to keep them in good standing or else you could you have to give them up, right? So, that's that's how it works. And so far we've done five of those deals in the last few years and they're working beautifully.

[00:15:06]>> And you mentioned a 2.5% I believe NSR net smelter return for those who are unfamiliar with that term. Could you break down how that works?

[00:15:13]>> Yeah, basically how that works is if this project goes into advanced into production down the road and there's profits to come out of it, we'll take a 2.5% profit of the overall profit on it.

[00:15:24]>> Got it. Now, I'd love you to shed some light on the team behind Standards Uranium, how you plan to use their expertise to advance your projects.

[00:15:32]Maybe let's start with yourself and your own background in the industry.

[00:15:36]>> Yeah, sure. So, I got into the the resource space over two decades ago. I started off uh entering a a group called the Hamilton Resource Group in Vancouver. So, they had an umbrella network with about 10 companies under one hood. So it was pretty interesting because when I entered the space they had, you know, copper, they had gold, they had silver, they had uranium, they had oil and gas and uh a couple other uh companies that were even smaller than that. So for me it allowed me to get my feet wet in multiple sectors there, learned the space and I was with them for three years. Really really cut my teeth in gold, diamonds and and uranium.

[00:16:08]Forum uranium was the group on our in our portfolio. So from there uh I you know we got to that year of about 2008 2009 the markets kind of really got rough and some of those companies really imploded. So I was lucky enough that one of the companies in our portfolio the oil and gas company called Gulf Sands Petroleum really took off. So I sort of headed in that direction for a number of years. We had a big discovery in the Middle East. We had oil projects over there that were doing well and then right up until the Arab Spring the uh you know the macro story got really bad for that area. So we pulled out and I I was brought back into in the mining space and that was around 2016 2017 when we started standing uranium. It was my first role stepping in as the CEO and chairman. So cut my teeth for two years privately and then we took the company public in 2020 and we've been advancing Standard Uranium ever since >> and any light you could shed on other team members in the company too.

[00:16:58]>> Yeah, for sure. So one of the things we did when we when we started standing uranium was try to make sure that we had a good mix of board members that were not only capital markets from the legal side but also people who had a uranium experience. So the first two directors I brought on board were were Neil Macau from the DRE group in Edmonton. Neil's got you know 20 plus years of exploration leading projects in the Atabaska basin as well as in Quebec. A fantastic geologist and we also brought over Garrett Ainsworth from NextGen Energy. Uh the day that Garrett left NextGen, he joined Standard Uranium as one of our original directors. Now Garrett's gone on and started another uranium company called District in Sweden right now, but he's still a close friend and a good supporter of Standard Uranium. On top of that, I added um u Ken Judge and Blair Jordan, both corporate lawyers and uh capital markets experts. So those guys great to have on the team. We also have uh Doug Endall from Saskatoon. He's a CEO of a company called Axiom Exploration. Um they're heavily involved in exploration projects around the world but specifically in Saskatchewan as well. And then we have Mike Young. Mike Young's based in Calgary. Currently runs a coal company but for many years he was the CEO of Vimemy Resources in Australia. Uh very you know people in the uranium space in Australia know that company quite well.

[00:18:09]And then we have uh Vivian Chang who was our CFO in Vancouver. And of course the person I'm getting to is Sean Hillicker who is our president and VP of exploration. Sean also came to us from NextGen Energy. Garrett brought him over from NextGen to sort of lead our exploration team. He's been with us since 2020 since we took the company public. Sean actually, you know, spent years working on the aerody deposit. He wrote his master's degree on it. A lot of the technical information in there in their feasibility study Shawn wrote. So, when we brought Shawn over to work on our Davidson River project, it was essential that we had somebody that actually knew exactly for the type of rocks we were looking for that he saw over at NextGen's Arrow project. So Sean is a great addition, fantastic in the capital markets as well as being a geologist and he's added added another three or four uranium geologists to our team in Saskatoon where our technical office is. So as I mentioned, you know, we have a a small team of uranium specific geologists all based in Saskatoon. We run all our projects and it's great to have that asset because people are really a hard uh you know commodity to get in the in the uranium space.

[00:19:11]>> Absolutely. Now, you you spoke about Davidson River and the plans there.

[00:19:15]There's some other news flow I want to discuss because back in March, you completed an an inaugural drill program at the Corvo project. In May, you also completed an initial drill program at the Rokus project. Why don't you walk us through those results and the plans moving forward for those projects?

[00:19:31]>> Yeah. So, those are two of the the JV deals we signed in 2025. Uh the Corvo one is with a group called Aventus Energy out of Vancouver. uh the Corvville project was the one they really liked and they wanted to get into it. It's got some, you know, high-grade uranium right at surface. So, this is the first ever drill program completed on that uh on that program. So, we went up there, our team ran the project. Uh we had some great results uh getting mineralization in multiple holes of that program. We are still waiting on assays, Jesse. So, assays are pending. They've been sent off to the lab. We had people can go through the news release and get into more details on on the results. But overall, a really good success for the first ever drill program on Corvo. And I can tell you Aventus is itching to push not only into year two of that program but into year three so they can earn their 75%. So watch for news on that coming out. The second project is the Rokus project which we kicked off right after Corvo and that was um with a group called Collective Metals. So both those companies are earning in on those terms I suggested before to earn 75%. ROUS once again was a very first drill program on that project and uh exciting to get the results coming back from the ASA labs as well. So I know the guys at Collective Metals are itching to move into year two of their earning deal. So watch for news on that in the near future as well. Assays are pending. So another great catalyst to see those assays come back from the lab.

[00:20:47]>> And what about the company's cash position at present? Um how much cash on the balance sheet? How much runway does that give you? And what are the plans to raise more capital as needed?

[00:20:56]>> Yeah, so first of all, today is uh you know May 27th. We had news out this morning. We have launched a 4 million capital raise. So, that is going to go on top of the cash we have in the bank right now, which is 3.5 million. Uh, that'll put us at 7.5 million. Maybe we'll take a bit more in on top of that if we over subscribe this raise. But, the goal is to really focus on drilling Davidson River this summer. Uh, that is going to be a program that's probably going to push north of $5 million to drill this summer and could even be higher depending on how the drill program is executed and how what the results we're seeing. So, we anticipate when the drill program is completed, we'll have a few million dollars in the bank to sort of take us through the fall and really analyze uh those drill results and hopefully get into something quite juicy. So, pretty good cast position. We're happy with where we are.

[00:21:40]Our shareholders are happy to support the program we're going into and they want us to expand Davidson River Drilling and hence the CA hence the case for adding more capital to our to our till right now.

[00:21:50]>> And is there anything else you wanted to mention about the company? perhaps something you'd like to emphasize, anything we haven't touched on that you think it's important for shareholders and potential shareholders to be aware of, any other catalyst that that could be upcoming for Standards uranium. Uh the the floor is yours.

[00:22:05]>> Yeah, I think when you look at what this company is trying to do, our big win is a major high-grade discovery, and we're going to push all our chips in to make that happen this summer at Davidson River. We believe this project in the southwest corner is the best project in the hands of our company right now. We think it's a phenomenal project. 31,000 hectares, a 15 million market cap, some companies surrounded by billion-dollar companies. If you look at that map, Jesse, of the southwest corner, you can see where we are, this massive land pack. It's just to our south, we have Orano, you know, a 30 billion company.

[00:22:35]Chemico to our north, 70 billion. You look over, we've got Paladin, 5 billion.

[00:22:39]NextG 12 billion, Dennis, 5 billion. And here we are sitting there with this beautiful land package about to be drilled again. And uh it's pretty exciting times for us. On top of that, we've got, you know, news coming from our JV partners on the assay results coming back and the other portfolio of our project. We've got a few more that are up for JV right now under CA. So, watch for news on new deals getting done on future projects and all those projects drive cash flow into the company as well. So, uh it's exciting times to be a shareholder standard uranium. If you believe in the exploration story and believe in Davidson River, this is a remarkable time to get invested with standard uranium. Well, I'm going to put a link to the standard uranium website as well as social media so people can follow along with the company, those assays pending from from those drill results.

[00:23:20]That'll be very exciting. John, thank you so much for coming on the show.

[00:23:24]>> Uh you're welcome, Jess. And I will add one more thing. Look, our company does a phenomenal job on social media. We've got our in-house team of uh videographers that will be at site Davidson River all summer. So, watch for constant news flow. Watch from our geologist Sean Hiller giving the investors updates of what's going on. He does a great job giving little TED talks explaining what's happening at the drill site, what's happening in the course, what's happening at when you're running an exploration camp. So, pretty good videos for the investors that want to learn about the company, want to learn about what it's like to run a drill program. Follow along at Standard Uranium on Twitter, on any other social feeds, and you'll you'll see our story live.

[00:23:59]>> Commodity Culture is a series on commodities and natural resources. If you would like to see more, be sure to subscribe and hit the bell notification so you're always up todate with the latest episodes.