Adam Torres and Jason Barnard discuss Foremost Clean Energy.
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Show Notes:
Uranium has been an incredibly hot commodity as of late. In this episode, Adam Torres and Jason Barnard, President and CEO at Foremost Clean Energy, explore uranium and Foremost Clean Energy.
About Jason Barnard
Jason have over 30 years of capital markets experience, and have been directly involved with raising over $500 million for mining and exploration companies with a focused expertise on Canadian base metal companies. He started my career with McDermid St. Laurence Securities in 1991 as a stockbroker with primary focus in mining exploration companies. He then moved on to work at Canaccord Genuity from 1997 until 2004. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in Economics from Carlton University and obtained The Canadian Securities Course license in 1990. Jason first started working with and financing Foremost Lithium, previously known as Far Resources, with founder, and President Keith Anderson in 2016, and now the President and CEO.
About Foremost Clean Energy
Foremost Clean Energy is a North American clean energy exploration company, focused on uranium properties. With a portfolio spanning over 330,000 acres and 10 properties, Foremost is positioned to capitalize on the rising demand for uranium as a critical component in the global clean energy transition. In addition, Foremost maintains a secondary portfolio of lithium and gold projects, offering long-term development potential. The company is publicly traded on NASDAQ: FMST and CSE: FAT.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to missionmatters. com and click on Be Our Guest to Apply. All right, so today’s guest is Jason Barnard, and he’s President and CEO over at Foremost Clean Energy.
Jason, welcome to the show. Oh, thank you, Adam. Thanks for having me. Well Jason, excited to give you, to have you on the show today. I know we got a lot to talk about today. We’re going to get into your option agreement with Denison mines and talk about, you know, what you’re doing, developing uranium properties.
But before we get into that, we’ll start this episode the way that we start them all with what we call our mission matters minute. So Jason at mission matters, our aim and our goal is to amplify stories for entrepreneurs, executives, and experts. That’s what we do. Jason, what mission matters to you?
Adam, as foremost, clean energy, our mission is to find clean energy fuels to power the clean energy future. So, more specifically, we have lithium assets. Which fuel the electrification of vehicles and we have uranium assets, which fuel nuclear power plants and we build up these assets in order to make profits for our stakeholders and our shareholders.
Hmm. It’s amazing. When, and for sharing that. And I’m, curious where, when did you get into like clean energy and the clean energy space? Like when did that, when did that come in your radar? A lot, of things that, you know, entrepreneurs and executives can do. What, what brought you to clean energy?
So my background is capital markets and I’ve always been a major investor. I worked for 14 years at a brokerage called Canaccord Genuity. So from the capital markets background it’s all about the public markets and I’ve always been interested in, mining and exploration. So that’s my main wheelhouse.
And in, doing so. We have lots of deposits of lithium and uranium in Canada. In the past, I’ve also explored for gold, silver, but the lithium craze happened you know, about five years ago. There’s been a big cycle. You know, commodities go up, commodities go down. We have great assets.
Wonderful assets in the lithium space. We actually have a reserve. So being involved in the capital markets, connected to mining and exploration and, and discoveries, brought me to these clean energy commodities. And that’s sort of, you know, been you know, a profit center for my investors and also the type of companies that I want to manage and run.
Amazing. So how long have you been in this business? Not necessarily this one, this company, but in general, the business overall, you’re going to age me. I’ve been involved for 30 years. I bring that up for one reason. It’s not to age you. I bring it up for you because I feel that you’ve seen cycles.
It’s different. Like, especially when you’re talking about, you know, certain, certain types of investments, properties, things like that. To me, it’s, it’s, Something to have lived them, to seen other cycles and other things like that. Like to me as an investor myself, that gives me confidence. So I just wanted the audience to have a little bit of your background.
That’s why I said it. Yes, yes. I understand. Oh, so let’s get further into the, into what’s going on with the option agreement with Denison Mines. Like, talk to me about that a little bit. Yeah, so very exciting in 1 large transaction that we worked on for quite a while. We have become the exploration arm for Denison Mines, which is a, a, a major we have our uranium developer in the Africa Basin in Saskatchewan, where we are with them.
They were interested in our management, our board and of course, , , our expert technical team in Derouge Geological. That’s who is part of Foremost Clean Energy also. So they Denison are going to focus on developing a mine. That will go into production in late 2026, 2027, very large mine.
And it’s basically the next big mind to come on stream and all of the North America. And so they want us to focus on their exploration property. So in one foul swoop, one transaction, I got to say, Jason, congrats, man. Congrats. That’s a win. Yeah. They be, they became our largest shareholder. Just partner, both technically financially, there are financial backer and all of a sudden we’ve catapulted ourselves into the uranium space.
Remember, we’re exploration in mining company. So, so we know how to do this. And we’ll go and explore on 10 large properties and these properties are, are, you know, some of these are on your, and just to make, just to clarify, these are, these tie into your existing lithium property portfolio. Is that right?
I just wanted to clarify. Well, they’re, they’re in a, they’re in a different location, but they are in the most important location. They’re in the Basin, which is known for the highest. depositories in the world. And we are, we are surrounded by uranium mills, uranium mines, and it’s great infrastructure.
We’ve got roads and, and, and hydro and everything you’ll need to on discovery catapult ourselves into, you know, A possible through uranium discovery, a possible mining. Yeah. What? So, I mean, this may sound like a basic question, Jason, but I feel like I want, I want to know more. Like, what about the other than maybe the possibility?
What about the transaction excites you the most? Like, I know after a big transaction, like, there’s a lot of things, but what excites you most? Would you say about this? Yeah. Yeah, well, what excites me the most is you know, these properties they’re not just drill ready. They’re discovery ready. So, so the headline, the headline is the 2 billion dollar company, Denison Mines does a, a large property transaction with Foremost clean energy.
And, and that’s the big headline, but the, the sort of dark horse headline is that these properties are permitted. We actually just finished a four hole drill program, and those assays will be coming out in the next few weeks. But the, the, the sort of dark horse headline is that these properties are not only drill ready, they’re discovery ready.
Mm-Hmm, . So they’ve had. Millions and millions of dollars already spent on exploration. And what you do is, you go and you, you, you, you drill and you explore and you vector back and you get closer to a discovery. So that’s what excites me the most. And also, it doesn’t hurt that uranium with the nuclear renaissance uranium power and nuclear power has All kinds of excitement out there and it’s a commodity where there is a supply right now.
Am I off on that? I think like it’s real hot right now. Right? Yeah. So it’s an exciting commodity to be in. We feel that it’s just getting started in a long bull market sort of man for this for you. So your overall positioning on this one, it’s like the timing, the size, some of the, like the, like, it’s like, there’s a lot of things lining up on this deal.
Yeah. Yeah, so that’s what excites us, because, you know, a uranium when you have a commodity that’s going higher and higher, and we actually, you know, in my opinion, my humble opinion, I think you’re going to see much higher uranium prices as it’s connected to you know those energy hungry artificial intelligence data centers, the need for electricity is going up and up and, and we’re seeing indications from big tech and just the commodity itself.
There’s about a. 25 percent supply deficit and, you know, when there’s a supply deficit and the demand keeps going, well, you have higher and higher commodity prices. So this makes it really exciting to be involved in this part of clean energy, man, that that is exciting. That’s and, and, and assuming that, you know, You know, it keeps on going in that direction.
Assuming we have some more time than you said, you said in your opinion, again, this is not you giving advice. This is just your opinion. You feel that the market continues having the, you know, having the potential to, you know, continue with some upside. Like, I feel like the stars align on that. Like assuming there’s obvious things that you have to, and now when you start getting in there and seeing what’s produced, that’s going to be what, what’s the timeline on something like this?
Like, what’s the timeline before you kind of know is, is it working? So to speak? Well, well, remember, we’re in the uranium exploration discovery part of the cycle. So for us, and just like, We do in lithium, where we found a discovery and we’re drilling off lifting assets. Lithium isn’t quite as exciting of a commodity.
So this very large transaction with Denison minds sort of in 1, foul swoop. It makes us basically the premier exploration. Company that is looking for discoveries that is discovery ready in the Athabasca Basin, you know, the Athabasca Basin is known as the Saudi Arabia of uranium because of its high, high grades that are about anywhere between From between 5, 10, 20 percent times the grades that you find in the rest of the world.
Also in, in this area, this is where all the recent discoveries have come from. Denison Mine has made Denison has made a lot of money for shareholders and, and found many discoveries and now they’ve partnered with us. So we’re in the exploration. Part of the cycle.
So, so the, the, the action and the joy happens quickly. If you hit a discovery, because you’re near mines and mills, you get, you get re rated at a much higher market cap right away because if you do get a discovery, well, you know, that’s, that’s where you get the jump in, in In value and shareholder value.
So we’re, we’re in the part of the cycle that where a lot of money is made. And so far as the, the development of the uranium mine, that’ll be for Denison. So, once we. H earned in will have 70% of, of anything that we’re exploring and working on. And they will have 30%, so they’ll be the developer.
And that can take anywhere from, you know, five to 10 years to actually Mm-Hmm. be, you know, pulling uranium out of the ground and sending to the mill. But we, we, you know, are 30 kilometers away from the McClain. Lake Mill and we are right in the area of other deposits. So it, you know, it, we’re in the early part of the cycle, but that’s what our job is.
We’re the exploration arm. Yeah. I’m, I’m over here smiling ear to ear. Jason, I, I love to hear when some on a big deal have. Things that can potentially, you know, really take another company and really, really, really add to what they’re doing and add to their mission. So, man, I, I’m just so, I’m so happy for you guys, like, honestly, this is great.
Yeah. Well, Jason, I know that I know that this is a story that many of my audience are gonna wanna continue to follow and then possibly, like some of my audience hasn’t, hasn’t heard of the company. So I guess let’s just, let’s just start with this. If somebody wants to learn more about.
Foremost clean energy. Follow this story, continue to follow the ticker, all that good stuff. Like, like, how do they do that? Well, yes first and foremost, if you want to invest and be part of what, you know, in my opinion is a great growth trajectory so far as shareholder value, you can go and buy on the NASDAQ under the symbol F M R.
On the NASDAQ, you can go purchase shares of Foremost Clean Energy. And then you know, I also would, would say however you go and, and you buy shares in, in growth companies that you know, you follow by going to the website. site and of course there’s always an ability to contact me. So myself, my team is always ready to talk to any potential investors.
Fantastic. And for everybody listening, just so you know, we’ll put, we’ll put the information in the show notes so you can just check it out there and learn more about Foremost Clean Energy. And speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with Mission Matters and you haven’t done it yet, hit that subscribe or follow button.
This is a daily show. Each and every day, we’re bringing you new content, new ideas, new interviews, and hopefully new inspiration. Thanks for coming on the show today, thanks for making some time for us. Thanks, Adam. Thanks for having me.