Anyone who spends a minute talking with a geoscientist learns that almost all of them have a beloved rock collection. In this regular section of The Professional Edge, we learn about geoscientists and their profession through their favourite rocks. In this issue, we talk with Troy Boisjoli, Geoscience Licensee and Vice President of Exploration and Community at NexGen Energy Ltd.
I grew up in the oil and gas area in west central Saskatchewan. The energy industry and resource sector were a part of everyday life, and that’s where the interest in geology first started. Throughout high school, I always favoured the maths and sciences and was particularly interested in the applied sciences. After high school, I had the unique opportunity to attend St. Norbert College in Green Bay, Wisconsin on a hockey scholarship. I had a number of friends who were pursuing degrees in geology, and through conversations with them, along with my interest in the applied sciences and my existing understanding of the resource sector, my path was set from an education perspective.
As a summer student, I had a tremendous opportunity to work at Fort á la Corne with what was at that time, Shore Gold. The role afforded me the opportunity to log a lot of drill-core, and see a lot of rocks. At the time, they were progressing with bulk sampling underground which resulted in the opportunity for me to get exposure underground as a beat geologist — mapping faces, backs and walls underground — and my first industry geology experience beyond camps and field schools.
Once I graduated from college, my first job was with Cameco as an exploration geologist.
Working as an exploration geologist was a foundational experience, particularly since when I entered the exploration industry in 2007/2008, we were in a commodities boom.
It was a busy time, resulting in the opportunity for me to take on progressive responsibility for drill programs early on in my career. They also had a well-developed exploration group with a number of experienced people that valued and focused on professional development and skills training.
I was fortunate to personally benefit from my time in exploration, working with individuals like Dave Thomas, P.Geo., and others who were invested in developing young geologists.
From exploration, I transitioned to one of Cameco’s three operating mines — Eagle Point Mine. Coming though exploration and going into operations was another foundational opportunity where I experienced the progression from exploration through to production. From a technical perspective, working in operations underground forces you as a geologist to think at multiple scales. In exploration, you are thinking regionally. Underground, you are immersed in the geology, because it is surrounding you, and as a result, you get a different sense of scope and scale of the ore bodies you are looking at and exploring for from surface.
Additionally, you gain an understanding of resource evaluation – namely how the quality of geological interpretation and geostatistical estimation translates in a material way to the safety and profitability of an operation.
In 2016, I had a tremendous opportunity to join NexGen Energy. Everyone in the uranium space was following the news and information coming out of the western Athabasca Basin and the Patterson Lake corridor at that time.
There had been a couple of new discoveries by the time I joined including NexGen which discovered the Arrow deposit in 2014. At the time of NexGen’s 2014 discovery, I was working at Cameco’s Eagle Point uranium mine running the geology team, and was keenly interested in the exploration results coming out of the southwestern Athabasca Basin/Patterson Lake corridor. I followed NexGen’s story closely from 2014 to 2016, and was thrilled to eventually join the NexGen team. It was a very exciting time for me.
Today, I have the privilege of working across multiple aspects of a world-class uranium deposit as the Vice President of Exploration and Community at NexGen Energy Ltd.
When I joined NexGen in 2016, there was a clear vision to deliver the clean energy of the future while maximizing value for all our stakeholders and creating as much positivity as possible — economically, environmentally and socially. In 2016, the focus was on resource development, expansion and exploration, which naturally progressed and transitioned into project development and to where the company sits today in the final stages of permitting what will be the world leading uranium mine.
I have been involved in NexGen’s preliminary economic assessment and pre-feasibility and feasibility level work for the Rook I Project, as well as the resource development, operations development and the environmental assessment work done to date. Wrapped around all of that — and foundational to everything we do — are the important local relationships that we’ve built with communities close to the project over many years and, in fact, prior to NexGen drilling the very first holes in the area back in 2013.
NexGen is a special company that is advancing a multigenerational global resource project with an elite environmental and social approach — and being part of the journey to date has been a once-in-a-career experience. Arrow will employ hundreds of local people, be a significant contributor to the Saskatchewan economy and be the primary global producer of clean energy fuel, all while setting new standards of excellence in environmental and social stewardship.
Working on a project as transformational as this brings home that what we are doing as geologists is more than just technical work. Deposits like Arrow and operations like the Rook I Project make a material difference in people’s lives, and benefit communities close to the project for multiple generations. That positive impact extends beyond the local area and the ripples are felt through the entire province and country.
As more of an economic geologist, I’m more interested in geologic process and ore forming processes as opposed to one particular rock. It’s more about what we do as geologists and the value we add to the mining space and to society.
Uranium is such an important commodity because it is an energy metal. Uranium has a high energy density – and as a result a very small amount of uranium can produce an incredible amount of carbon free energy. It is the primary fuel source in nuclear energy which is foundational for our energy future and for achieving national and global objectives related to carbon emissions and climate change.
Progressing to a sustainable energy future that realizes net-zero emissions, in my opinion, comes back to the mineral uraninite – which has the potential to significantly change our energy future globally.
Saskatchewan is extremely well-positioned to be the key player in that energy transition because of the uniqueness of the Athabasca Basin and the geology of northern Saskatchewan where there are multiple mining districts with very high-grade uranium deposits.
When you consider sustainable mining, high-grade deposits have a significant advantage resulting in effective and efficient use of capital resources and highly efficient land use. This means you can mine a significant amount of uranium from a small and localized development area, resulting in these deposits hitting the mark from a triple bottom line perspective: social, environmental and financial.
Because of all of those factors, uranium sets Saskatchewan up to be a key source of energy fuel that powers the global economy for the foreseeable future.
Outside of my employment with NexGen, I have had the opportunity to represent the Saskatchewan mining industry on the Saskatchewan Mining Association Board through the exploration section.
I live about 50 km south of Kindersley on the north shore of the Saskatchewan River at my family’s ranch, where we have black Angus cows and quarter-horses.
I have a wonderful wife and four daughters ranging from ages 3 to 9. Having my kids grow up being able to ride, rope and ranch is something that I value.
Outside of that, I like to volunteer my time with kids’ sport given the opportunity I had to play sports growing up, in particular, hockey and rodeo.
My favourite “rock” is actually a primary ore-bearing mineral of uranium deposits called uraninite. It’s a uranium oxide mineral and I have spent the majority of my career as a geologist thinking about fertile uranium systems, mineralized systems with the ability to localize and accumulate economic concentrations of uranium.