James Sykes | Successful Exploration Geologist Explains the Discovery Process

Published: April 26, 2017, midnight

Understanding the discovery process is critical for the natural resource investor speculating in pre-revenue exploration companies. In this interview, James Sykes explains the discovery process in a way that retail mining stock investors can understand.

James is the Vice President of Exploration and Development for Appia Energy Corporation, a uranium explorer in the Athabasca Basin in northern Saskatchewan. Over the past decade, James has been directly and indirectly involved with the discovery of over 350 M lbs. of U3O8 in the Athabasca Basin. Most notably, James was the chief geologist leading the exploration program which resulted in NexGen\u2019s Arrow discovery.

0:05 Introducing James Sykes
1:55 James\u2019 past experience with numerous uranium explorers
3:25 James\u2019 was chief geologist for NexGen\u2019s Arrow discovery
4:15 Overview of exploration process
7:44 What if early geophysical results don\u2019t align with original exploration thesis?
8:51 How should an investor interpret preliminary results not aligned with original exploration thesis?
10:16 How James approaches Athabasca uranium exploration
13:54 Geophysics serve to identify drill targets
14:36 Appia\u2019s current Loranger exploration program
19:01 Concluding advice for investors