$80 Million in Partner Funding, But How Much Upside Do Shareholders Keep? | Latin Metals Interview

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This video is sponsored by Tero Hutton, who makes the invisible investable on CEO barbecue, a prospect generator focused on Latin America or South America under the name Latin Metals. But if you're short on time, subscribe to our free newsletter and once a week, we'll send you a 5-minut summary of all interviews we put out resource.com for a free weekly newsletter. Now, although this company has paid us for the production of this video, you should still understand that we are not financial adviserss and this is not intended as financial advice. It is a broad, general, and impersonal piece of information intended only for those who know and understand the risks of junior mining, of which there are many. Before moving on, read the company's official filings on sitterplus.ca and do your own due diligence. Pause the screen and read all the disclaimers I've shown you because your capital is at risk. If this isn't clear, go to the last section of this video for a longer explanation of the risks and biases, and do not consume this content if you don't agree with everything said therein. Moving on, this is not Latin Metals's first time on the CEO barbecue. I interviewed Keith a couple of months ago, so if if it's your first time hearing about the company, I'm going to post a link to a playlist that's going to contain all the previous interviews and all the future interviews that are still yet to come. Um, please watch those first or well, the previous ones. Watch those first if you haven't heard about the company, then come back to this one. In a nutshell, though, Latin Metals has recently narrowed its focus since the Peruvian copper spinout closed earlier this year, which of course we'll discuss later on in the conversation. But now the flagship seems to be the serero bio project in the Santa Cruz province in Argentina where right now the the work is entirely partner funded by Dora Gold which uh just wrapped up the first 1850 meters of diamond drilling in 18 holes uh that just happened here in May and they released assays that confirmed a system with some narrow high-grade gold and silver shoots which of course we'll discuss later on in the conversation as well. beyond Sarabio. The rest of the portfolio is somewhat quieter right now though we'll be asking about it of course. Uh but Organulo so the the former Anglo gold option in Salta used to be also the the flagship for Lat Metals but that's now reverted to 100% um ownership by Lat Metals themselves. That happened last October right after the interview that Keith and I did. Um and and and Anglo had spent $3.3 million on it. Uh so and now also has fresh drill permit. So definitely a couple of questions around timing and whatnot are in order there as well. On the copper side, they've got the Zaha project in San Juan which is under uh an option agreement as well already to Moxico Resources with a potential 15,000 meter drill program targeted for 2021 2026 once the permits are clear. Of course, a couple of questions about the size of the program and and uh the data and whatnot later on as well. And then there's also another project um that caught my eye, Ventana North. It's a it's a different project that they have in the north west Argentina copper belt which only saw its very first systematic surface geocam and mapping kick off in March after sitting idle for a little while. So why now? What's going on? And um are they looking for a partner? Is it going to get drilled? A couple of questions about that later on. There's much more really in their portfolio, but it's either early stage or under kind of minor royalty. So maybe a bit of an update on the broader portfolio later on as well. Now for some of the numbers and a bit of the details. Latin Metals is listed as LMS on the TSXV where the 3-month average daily volume is about 55,000 units. The stock's 52- week high is 34 cents and the stock's 52- week low is 12. With a $32 million market cap and 139 million shares outstanding, this is now a 23 cent stock with a 50 and a 200 day moving average at respectively 21 12 and 22.2 cents which means the stock is now trading uh just above those two. There about 24.4 million warrants and 9 million options collectively representing about 19.5% of the fully diluted 172 million shares. How much money do they have left right now? Will they spend some of it on their own ground this year? And uh will they be back to the market again later this year? A lot of other questions are in order as well later on in the conversation, but for this to actually become a conversation though, I'm going to have to shut up already and uh turn the monologue into an actual conversation. Keith, I'll leave it over to you. But thank you so much for being here today. >> I know it's a pleasure. Uh I'm kind of surprised it was October we last did this. It seems like it was more recently, but yeah, it might might have been that long. I'm sure you're right. Uh but yeah, happy to get back on. It's nice to What I enjoyed about the conversation the first time was that it was long, which uh is really great. So many of the things that we do these days are kind of snippets and little blah blah blas and I just I don't find it very informative. So uh pleasure to talk to you as usual. >> Well, thanks for joining Keith. And to set the stage here a bit, uh walk us through what Latin Metals has done uh since October for shareholders. for shareholders. Everything we do is for shareholders. Uh it's been kind of busy. It's been uh we kind of got ourselves to the point where where so many companies are coming to talk to us now. And that's really been the continuing change and the thing that we continue to see in Argentina. Argentina contrasting with Peru has not always been a fantastic place or not always been a particularly desirable place for people to invest and that changed a couple of years ago with the change in government. Uh it probably changed further in October last year when we got to the midterms. And now we see that just about every company in the world is either in Argentina or seeking to get into Argentina. And that's just such a great great position for us to be in because we have got lots of projects in Argentina. Most of them are advanced enough to be attracting a potential investment and that's really been the big change for us. I I did an interview recently with uh with Rick Rule and he asked me a very pointed question and and the answer basically was this that I think I think that all of our projects that are currently on the books will be optioned out to partners by the end of this year which is pretty big talk. So may hopefully I'm not talking myself into a corner but I really do feel like it's getting to that point. Uh we have a couple of partners in place right now that are going to be drilling this year and this is a very drillfilled catalystri year for us but if we can get everything else to the point where it's in a deal already uh it's going to be astonishing for 2027 as well. So super interesting time for us. >> I do want to know more about that. But people listening should also want to know more about Terara Hutton, who doesn't only make the invisible investable, but they've made this video free of YouTube ads by sponsoring it. Terra Hutton is built for the people who are tired of going through boring PowerPoint decks and geological jargon when they're analyzing mining companies. It's a digital platform where the data, the story, and the context sit together so mining investors can use visuals to understand the why without needing a geology degree or a week off work. And if you're on the company side, it's a great way to present your project like a serious operator with everything investors keep asking for in one place. Contact them at terrauden.io. Well, as as you're mentioning partners here, obviously very important for prospect generator. And last time you and I spoke, a large part was about Anglo, right? And and Organulo and and the focus, which was the focus for you then at the time. You thought they they wouldn't walk away, but they ended up walking away anyways just literally a couple of days after we' done the interview. What was the reason for them backing out or why' that happen? >> Yeah, welcome to major mining companies. It is >> we are so we jump at the opportunity to have a major mining company as a partner. Uh it's such a credibility shot for us because major mining companies have such high hurdle rates. Anglo Gold's hurdle rate is 5 million ounces. means that when they go to their executive committee with the idea that they might invest in a Latin medals project, they have to be able to persuade their management committee in a convincing manner that there's potential for 5 million ounces. >> And we like that credibility. We like that it tells our investors that a property has really got that much potential. Uh it really sets our projects apart from a standard exploration project. and there are thousands of them as we know. So to have a company come in and and to make a deal with us when they've got a hurdle rate like that is really really significant. That's just background. Uh when we spoke in October, I would have been jumping out of my skin with excitement because Anglo Gold at that time had told us they were about to start drilling. We had written a news release on the topic. We had given that news release to Anglo Gold Ashanti. They had approved the news release. It went out and two weeks later we're out. I just couldn't believe it. And it was it was driven by at that moment it was driven by their decision to leave Argentina. So Anglo Shanti is operating a mine called Serero Vanguardia in Santa Cruz province which I'll I'll speak to a bit more about that later when we get to speaking about Serbio which is in the same province. But it's a very long life asset. It's been uh a hugely successful mining operation. and it's been going for 28 years and for reasons that I'm not privy to, Anglo Gold had decided to sell that asset and with that we're exiting the country. So yeah, I guess our project with a lot of potential or not just didn't really register as being relevant within that conversation internally at Anglo Gold. Uh and so they gave us notice. It's a 90 days notice. So at the end of January they were actually out and we were able to get back on the project and and kind of start talking to other partners. Interestingly and frustratingly Anglo Shanti didn't sell zero Vanguardia and they're not leaving Argentina now. So they're still in the country but they had actually completed the exit from our project. So So what does that leave us with? Well, it left us with a massively disappointing situation and you can imagine the kind of day I was having when we got that news uh from Anglo Gold. It was pretty disappointing to go from we were about to start drilling to we are leaving the project is is exactly the kind of news that we don't want to get. But, you know, within within a few hours having picked ourselves up off the floor, we're thinking about it and going, "Okay, well, this is not terrible." Like, we we signed a deal with Anglo Golden quite a few years ago, almost four years ago now. And at that time the organo project itself was not anything like what it is today. We had basically a bulk tonnage lowgrade gold target there. It had been drilled already by multiple companies. Uh interesting enough but not nearly as interesting as what Anglo Gold came up with. Anglo Gold using their very significant experience from South America and in particular from Colombia looked at this project looked at the rocks they were seeing on surface and said yeah this is got a potential for a high sulfidation discovery what that means for the non-technical listeners is is big ounces and high grade so they use Anglo gold pointed to Salaris Norte in Chile as an example which is 3 1/2 million ounces at 5 1/2 g per ton just to give you a flavor of what these deposits look like. >> And so to the extent that they thought there was this potential for a similar deposit at Organo and assuming that they were going to be successful, it changes the project completely. What has done for us is it's given us an opportunity to get a better deal. So, we did a deal with them when gold was, let's say, uh, $1,500 or $1,800, and we know that it's now and has been for significant length of time above $4,000 per ounce. Uh, when so the gold price has improved, the target has materially changed to be something much, much more significant, and they spent three years getting a drill permit as well as doing work. Uh so the project's massively upgraded. It's way way better. Other companies know what the pedigree of the exploration team at Anglo Gold Shanty is and they're they're a terrific pe group of people. They're very very skilled. And so as we look for a new partner, we've got a lot of different companies who have signed CAS and are going to be looking at this project. All of those companies obviously want to visit the site and all of those site visits happen separately. So this is taking us some time to kind of cycle through the companies that want to take a look at it. Uh so if anyone's watching this performance and thinking why is it taking so long, this is why it's taking so long. There's a huge amount of interest in the project. It's going to take us time to get everybody on the property. Uh we also have some work to do with communities. Uh so with with the departure of Anglo Gold, we have to go re-engage with the communities as the original owner of the license, speak to those communities about what we're going to do in terms of bringing new investors in. and we have to get an agreement signed with community. So there are some steps here but to make the forward-looking statement I would imagine and I think it's fair to say that let's say by September October this year we'll have a new partner in place and when we get a new partner in place I would expect drilling to commence reasonably quickly. uh we're in speaking with communities or sorry in speaking with with companies uh we really need to get drill commitments from companies like I I'm not interested in speaking to a company that wants to spend two years on the ground doing geochemistry and mapping geoysics. That's not really of interest to me at this point because Anglo Gold have done such an excellent job in establishing the targets. They've done an excellent job in establishing the drill permit. There's not a ton of work to do. There may be a couple of months of work that companies want to do before they start drilling. That will be their preference, and that's fine by me. But I want to see drilling starting really quickly, and that's going to be a huge driver in in which company we select to be the next company investing in this project. >> And leave it at that. >> Well, it looks to me like you're you're wearing two watches. So now I know you're definitely going to be on time this time. Uh or maybe I'm seeing it wrong. >> Um >> not quite two watches. One of them. >> What's the other one? >> One of these. Uh, >> oh, it's like a whoop. Like, >> tell you how. >> Got it. Got it. It did look like a watch. I thought Well, it would have made for a better joke, but I'll still still keep it in. What? So, Anglo though, could they come back? I mean, they're not leaving the country after all. I mean, if they like the prize there, is there a way for them to come back and discuss or, you know, renegotiate with you? >> No. No. People don't get a second chance. It's time for us to move on. We've got some wonderful partners talking to us and and we don't need to be taking any steps backwards. We'll just move forward and and get >> So you get like what 3 point something million bucks of data for free. Like you get all that data or are they keeping it? >> No, no, we get everything. Yeah. You got the data. They And actually they did some really good stuff for us. So they they gave us a really nice report uh outlining their thinking on the project. their thinking related to the target that they established, but also their thinking related to the copper gold porefree potential on the project as well, which was not something they were focused on, but it was certainly something they would have looked at had their original target not worked out. They would have moved on to test subsequent targets as well. And they gave us that data as well. So, they were generous with their with their technical handover of data. And so I yeah I have nothing but good things to say about Anglo Gold Shanty but but they've had their shot at the project and we move on. >> Mhm. >> So you you're aiming for a new partner in September, October. Um are you doing any work in the meantime on the project? >> No. >> No. >> No. There's nothing for us to do. Like it's it's ready to go. It's just a matter of cycling through site visits and getting people on the ground to take a look and and negotiating, which is the fun part. >> And then I know you're a prospect generator here, but um given the current state of the market and your enthusiasm about the project, wouldn't it be an idea to like just raise a bunch of money and drill it yourself or what's what's your take on that? >> No, I think that would be a terrible idea. Uh we don't do any drilling. We never have and we never will. we are a prospect generator like once you once you as a prospect generator you decide to go and drill your own project you're not a prospect generator anymore and companies can make that decision and some of them continue they they come up with names like we're a hybrid company or whatever the case that's fine but you know I've got a lot of very large shareholders within the company all of them have invested money based on what I've told them I'm going to do and that's what we're going to continue to do >> it's just really as simple as that. So it's never crossed my mind even once to think we're going to drill these things. >> So organ organ as you pronounce it. How is that? So that I mean it's a simple story. You're just going to find someone else. Uh seems like you're talking to someone right now or it sounds to me like you might be talking to to different groups or what do you have? >> Many companies. >> Okay. >> 15 in total if you want the number. >> 15. So how are you going to pick? What would you be looking for? what are criteria there uh for what you going to pick? >> Yeah, really good question. So the the there's the overall criteria of the commercial terms. They must be excellent and I must be happy with them. But let's assume that multiple of those companies will be able to come up with commercial terms. So then the decision really for me is down to who's going to be a good operator and and probably most importantly who's going to deal well with the communities and and that really speaks more than anything to to a partner who's already operating in Argentina and preferably a partner that's already operating in northwest Argentina for example where you know people will be familiar with the lay of the land in terms of communities. There are indigenous communities here uh Antonio. So it's this is not like it's not simple anywhere in the world and it's certainly not simple here. Like it's got to be done really well and it's got to be done right and and the wrong partner could blow up a project for the remainder of his life and and and mean that we can no longer even access our project. So it's got to be the right partner. And that's really probably the most important thing that I think about and it it trumps the the commercial terms. Uh the right partner with with decent commercial terms will get it and we'll go forward and see what they find. >> What what work needs to be done with the communities here Keith? >> The signing agreements impact benefit agreements. So Fanglo Gold had had drafted and were very close to signing impact benefit agreements, but they hadn't actually signed them before they left. But but that interaction created a certain expectation about what those agreements were going to look like. And so the simplest thing for us to do is to basically pick those up and and move forward with the community. And we're in process of talking to them. And and so that's doable by by Q4 essentially this year then. >> Yeah, I'm kind of building that into my September timeline. So we have a partner and and everything's in place. >> Okay. Okay. Yeah. Well, it would make sense obviously to see organ back on, you know, back on track and and and you talking back about it again. Um switching gears maybe here to the spino or the spin out really that you did. Why why that happen? I mean, why why' you spin those out instead of optioning? Because you said, I mean, you're a prospect generator. So, so typically you would option them out or get a royalty, whatever. So, why option it out instead of why why spin it out instead of optioning it? >> Yeah. So, that in a way actually circles back to Christian's question about drilling and >> and the types of things that a prospect generator can and cannot do. We are following this model. I love the model and everyone that invested in it likes what we're doing and we continue to do it but it does have some limitations. Of course, you're not uh and the biggest limitation really is apart from drilling the biggest limitation is our ability to to acquire more advanced projects or perhaps projects that have already got resources on them. Uh projects with with resources and upside that might be interesting to us. It's if it's something that we would have to raise55 or $10 million to acquire, it's therefore something that we couldn't do because to raise that money, we'd have to go and issue shares and it's just loss of dilution that was not part of the plan. So, we had definitely found ourselves in a situation over the last couple of years where we'd been looking at a couple of really interesting potential acquisitions, but we didn't really have a way to to react to it or or to react to it in a way that we could actually win the bid. So uh the primary thought with the spin out was let's create another vehicle uh and let's have a vehicle where we can go and and compete and try to acquire some of these more advanced projects and then go and drill them. A vehicle where if we need to go and raise 5 10 $15 million to acquire and drill an asset, we can do that. And and so we're not going to be so limited by not being able to do those things. Uh it's really good for for Latin medal share. Well, it's good for Latin medals because Latin medals as a company owns 6% of the spin out at this moment in time. The Latin medal shareholders got 25% of the spin out for free. So you're you are creating value out of nothing. And you're we saw no decrease in the value of Latin medals and we now see the uplift and the increase in the value of Latin explorer. So people are getting free shares. They've got value and if they want to keep those shares they'll hopefully have more value. So now you're you're creating value in both companies simultaneously. We raised a small amount of money as part of the process of creating the spin out and basically seed capital to see us through the first drill program. So that was a $3 million raise at 10 cents. As it happened, a lot of the existing shareholders in Latin Metals were pretty insistent that they wanted to participate in that as well. So Latin Metal shareholders really are a very very large proportion of the shareholder base in Latin Explorer and that will change over time as we raise more money and and go out to other sources to look for money but uh yeah it's it has an awful lot of shareholders in common with Latin medals at this moment and and so people have two companies working very hard with a management team that's got some crossover but two separate CEOs and both working hard to create value for shareholders. So, it's it's a pretty positive icon from everybody, I think. >> So, you spun out two two Peruvian projects. Um, what was the reason for that instead of like spinning out the full Peruvian portfolio Latin Metals has had? Uh well, when you do the spin out, you have to there's combinations of uh the resulting issuer has to have let's say a minimum value per share based on the asset value of what you're bringing in. So the ideal situation and what we actually planned to do was to spin out just one project which was going to be parah uh and that's the project that we acquired a lot of data from valley uh that shot us in the foot a little bit because the data that we acquired from valley for free basically uh or rather issuing only what we issued to to valet was a right of first offer and it's a time limited offer. as well. So, we didn't exchange any cash for for the data, but the data was worth like a million dollars. So, uh that million dollars doesn't appear on the balance sheet. So, when we went to do the spin, it didn't actually work. Uh and so we had to come up with a second project to get the asset value up high enough so that the value asset value per share was meeting the minimum requirements of TSX. Sorry, that's a very long answer to a very simple question. But, uh, but yeah, I guess maybe a simpler way to answer your question, Christian, is we we wanted to spin out enough so that we could create the spin out, but we didn't want to take too many projects out of Latin Metals cuz all of the projects sitting in Latin Metals have the have the the opportunity to to be part of the prospect generator model and to have partners coming in. So, it was really just spinning out the minimum amount that we could to create the entity itself. And that turned out to be two projects. >> Gotcha. Gotcha. Fair. You're hoping to have all the projects in in Latin Metals portfolio optioned out by the end of the year. >> Yeah. >> Um and you said there was a lot of interest in in Argentina. Um so do you also think the Peruvian project will will get optioned out before the end of the year? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Yeah, for sure. There's a there's a lot of like we've got a project in Peru that's drill permitted and it's it's a honestly from my perspective it's a bit overdue. It should have been out to a partner a couple of years ago. It's taken us a bit longer but we do have people looking at it now and I think it's going to get done. So and that would another project that would move directly to drilling essentially. So yeah. Yeah. You see where this happens? Like we've we've been through 5 years of creating what we've got in front of us with the projects that are currently optioned out. We've got 18,000 meters going to be drilled this year. But you add some more partnerships and some of those are moving relatively quickly to drilling. That that's going to become even more significant in terms of drill meters. And that's really what people care about. And if you're if you're familiar with what we're doing, we don't unlike a lot of companies where we typically will go for an expenditure commitment. Uh we don't do that. We go for drill meters. And I really don't care how much a company spends drilling those meters. I just want to know that I'm going to have a certain amount of meters drilled. And so that's why rather than having x million to be spent, I've got 18,000 meters coming to me. And I've got more meters coming in new deals. And and it's just going to keep ramping up. So, it's going to be pretty interesting. The total amount of money being spent by our partners, while it's not necessarily specified in the deal, it is of interest to me and it's of interest to shareholders, too, because it's how much money is being how much risk money is being spent by other companies and and how much are we going to benefit from that? My estimate on the deals that we have in hand right now is 80 million uh US dollars, which would be invested under the option agreements that exist. And then you add in the deals that I'm working on and where I hope to get to by the end of the year, that should be $150 to $180 million cumulatively uh sitting for investment under those option agreements. And it's a huge huge amount of money like an average exploration company as you know might spend $5 million in a year and that would be a pretty significant spend. If over the coming years we can get $180 million invested in our projects, uh the chances of success go up exponentially, I think, and uh and with the quality of projects that we have, the chances of one of them really turning out to be something very significant is is becomes much more likely. >> I I we'll talk about spending, Keith. I I want to go back to the Spin Co itself for a second and and and I I'll do a separate interview with your new CEO there. Um Oh, just on the topic of the CEO, you went through a CEO change pretty quickly on the Spinco, but is this the final CEO? Like, is is this is this the person to run the company now or you or are you going to be looking for someone else eventually? >> No, no, this is the guy. >> Okay. Yeah. Yeah, fair enough. I'll do an interview with him as well. Um really what what I want to ask here though is is kind of the strategy there and why I'm asking you is because again it matters for you as well but how are you going to make this a successful spinko? Like most spinos they kind of end up as a second thought for a lot of people who just got free shares liquidity dries up stock price kind of dwindles. How are you going to run this differently from the perspective of of not letting that happen? Yeah, there is a significant risk when you do something like this and you're giving free shares to someone. There's a significant risk that they turn around and say, "Oh, thanks." and sell them. >> Yeah. >> Uh and I'm maybe I was a little naive. I'm seeing a little more of that in the first few weeks than I was hoping to see, I have to say. So yeah, we're definitely getting pretty active in in reaching out to shareholders and trying to make sure they understand what we're for sure doing this year and what we hope to do in terms of acquisitions as well. Uh the power project is pretty amazing. It's it's just a beautiful target. Uh, and I I won't get into technical things, but but just geochemically and geohysically, it's a really really clear-cut target. And it's exactly what you look for in an exploration target that's ready for drilling because the three holes or four holes that we're going to drill will tell us for sure whether we've got something or not. And it's exactly the kind of thing I want to see. It's a quick turnaround. We drill it this year. We'll have the drill permit in hand by end of June. And within 3 months, we have to notify the Peruvian government that we're starting the drill program. And that that can take two or three months. So by September, October, we're drilling. By Christmas, we're going to know what we've got cuz it's copper bore. So this is not something that we have to sit around waiting for assay results with. It'll be pretty clear after we drill these holes whether we're into something significant or not. But we've got high grade surface. We think we're at the top of a system. We think if there's a higher grade portion at depth and it's preserved, we're going to hit it and we're going to find out what this project really looks like. And I think the interesting thing I I really framed this this company and this spin out as being an opportunity for acquisitions, but as I've continued to think about it and as we've looked at this project and and looked and get closer to drilling, this project itself could be the company maker. So, it's kind of an interesting idea. Maybe we don't even get to an acquisition. I don't know. But, uh, obviously, it's it's something we're we're spending most of our time right now looking at acquisitions, looking at potential acquisitions, uh, getting into data rooms, getting on the ground, and negotiating with companies. But, uh, but people shouldn't forget that there's a drill program in the near term, and there's a very good chance of being successful as well. So yeah, uh in one sense, if someone wants to sell for a 15 cent profit on their free shares, then goodbye and good riddens. But hopefully most people will not do that. And I don't think I don't think people that know me and people who have invested in what we're doing are really here to play for a few cents. I think we're here to play for a big win. And and that's what we hope to deliver. >> We we've covered organo here, the spin out. Uh so let's switch gears here a bit to your partners. Starting with Moxyo. Um it's a private company, so there's not a whole lot of uh public uh information available, but they recently brought in Richard Silito. What else are they up to? >> Yeah, private company. It's a tricky one. Nobody, you know, nobody's really heard of them over here. Over here being North America, sorry. But uh you know we were in London a couple of weeks ago and everybody's heard of them and they are they are top of the conversation for a lot of investors. People have invested a lot of money. They've just raised a bunch of money. Uh and from what I understand a significant portion of that money is directed towards our project. So the company in a nutshell is they have a copper operation in Zambia from which they're producing. They're obviously benefiting from really excellent copper prices right now and they're since I met them a couple of years ago, they've been in expansion mode. So, they're investing pretty heavily in Argentina. They're also invested in Saudi Arabia. But from what I understand, and again, like private company, none of this is really public information, but it's just what I've been able to discern by talking to the company itself and talking to some of their shareholders and investors. It seems like they're very very focused on our Zaha project. Uh and this is outside of Zambia. This is their focus. They see it as a project that's got a very high chance of success and a project that they can move towards production quite quickly. Uh the earning requirements that we have negotiated with them are are significant. uh they pay us cash. I'm remembering this from the top of my head, so I may be slightly inaccurate, but I think they pay us $2.7 million US over the course of the option agreement. Uh they pay about $4.5 million to the underlying vendor, securing 100% interest in the project. I've got a two-stage earning with them. The first is a 75% earn in which uh in addition to those cash amounts, they have to drill 65,000 mters, which is a huge undertaking. and they have to produce a range of 43101 reports up to and including a feasibility study. So over the course of the next five or six years, uh that's what they have to do. If they're if they're really looking at this as their next project after Zambia, I would imagine that they're going to try to accelerate that and I don't expect them to take five or six years to do it. Uh so yeah, it's very very exciting and I just cannot wait. They're working on drill permits right now. Uh, from what I understand, that's going very well, but I don't have a ton of information about it. Uh, but they're supposed to be drilling 15,000 meters by October this year, according to the agreement, and that's going to be massive news for us. Like, we're we're dealing with a poor free deposit that's exposed at surface. We're dealing at a poor free with a poor free deposit that we drilled in 2018 before switching to our model. And so you know that drill hole that we drilled I'm sorry if people are aware of this and is boring but it's not it can it see it never ceases to be amazing to me. It was 387 m from surface. So ins intersecting mineralization in the first meter. The mineralization continued all the way to the bottom of the hole at 387 m. The drill hole finished in mineralization. It stopped because of the limitation of the drill rig. So we had been using very small manportable rigs to drill within the canyon where the poor free is exposed and that really just had a had a practical depth limitation. So if you look at the project more or less every single hole finishes around 400 m and that's just as deep as I could go. >> But yeah.57% copper and 27 g gold. uh taking consideration only of the copper grade that was the third best copper intersection in the world in quarter 1 2018 and if you start to think about the gold kicker as well you pretty depending on how you actually calculate your copper equivalent but just to be very simple about it it's around 1% copper equivalent taking into account the copper and the gold from surface 400 m open at depth open in every direction so these guys when they come in to drill like they're just >> I'd be pretty surprised if they're not hitting significant mineralization. Like you can never say never. And >> but it just it just looks like a project that's going to deliver multiple intersections over time as they step out and try to expand this resource and yeah, it's going to be something. I'm pretty excited. >> What Christian said earlier was actually interesting or caught my eye as well though is that they brought in Dick Silito, right? So that's kind of a big deal. I I I would guess or it sounds like a big deal to me. Uh is is what is what is his job coming in? Do you know like is he going to change something like pick different targets or what is he going to do? >> Uh so for anyone not familiar with Dick, he's uh he's a British geologist. He's the world's the world's bore free expert basically. Like there's lots of free experts, but I mean uh Dick Silo has seen everything in the world. uh he's traveling all the time. He's a pretty expensive consultant and he's expensive for a reason because he's pretty fantastic and and having the experience of seeing these deposits all over the world, he adds a huge amount of value. So for for Moxico, uh it's a it's just a rubber stamp really. Like it's having someone with so much experience come in and look at your rocks and look at your drill core and give you their opinion is absolutely invaluable. In the case of this company, they've got a pretty close personal relationship with Dixilto as well uh just from working with him over the years. So he wrote a small report on departure from the project having spent a few days there. Uh and I've seen that report and it's positive and yeah it was it was really exciting to have him visit the project uh otherwise he possibly would not be we wouldn't have been able to attract his attention uh but for the fact that they brought him there. So it was really really special to have him come and take a look at it. >> Have you seen the targets though? Is that something they would communicate with you beforehand or or Yeah. >> Yeah, we get data from them every quarter. Uh just kind of a a big download of all of the data that they generated during each quarter and that comes to us as part of the option agreement that we have. So yeah, we see that. >> So where are they going to drill? >> Uh stepping to the west, stepping to the north primarily in the first program. >> Okay. Any any idea of depth or how far they're going to chase what they what they know so far? I think most of the holes are 800 mters, which again speaks to the fact that all of the intersections are open at depth. So, they're going to go deeper with bigger rigs and and see what they find. >> And is everything fully permitted for drilling or >> No, >> they need to do some some additional work. >> It's not permitted at all at all. So the permitting process is longish the value of and and speaking to our earlier part of the conversation where I said at organo we look for the right partner macho are the right partner they've done a tremendous amount of work here over the last 12 to 13 months they've been dealing with the provincial government they've been dealing with the mayor and the municipality of the neighboring town they've been dealing with local residents They've done hydrogeeological studies looking at groundwater. They've done hy hydraology studies looking at surface water and they've done those studies using uh some of the local universities as consultants. Uh they've also done an extensive social survey where they basically took they went doortodoor with 400 households in the area and asked them a series of questions about the project just to get people's opinions about the project and what do people want to see? Why do people want to see this being operated? You know, it's the same as the rest of the world. Everywhere you go, the people that live there care a lot about what you're doing, especially when it comes to exploration and mining and and they've just done such an amazing job of engaging with the company and or with the communities. And what that tells me is that they care they care more about having a long-term social license than just getting enough level of approval to get a drill permit. and and that speaks to their long-term vision for the project. It speaks to where they think the project's going and uh yeah, they're absolutely the right company. They've just done such a good job and they spent a lot of time and a lot of money on this uh to get it right. So, the permit will come that uh I'm 100% confident on that and it'll come pretty soon. But uh you know as soon as as soon as there's a permit uh I will be letting people know because I will I will start at the drill program. So >> is the 15,000 meter is that number going to depend on permits and all the other stuff together or is are they like committed? They're definitely drilling 15 because I believe the minimum is five or something like that. >> Oh yes, you're right. Yeah. So there's a there's a committed minimum of five. >> Mhm. And all that means is that no matter what happens, even if they drilled the first hole and decided they hated the project, they would be committed to drilling 5,000 mters. It's just something I put into my uh option agreements to make sure that I get a certain amount of work because there's a certain amount of work involved in negotiating and writing up an agreement. So, you want it to be worth your while. But in this case, it's not really that relevant. Like I I know that they're going to drill. There's a lot bunch of targets here, lots of deep pools. So, for sure they'll get 15,000 meters done. I'd be pretty surprised if they didn't and then they'll they'll move from there and keep going, I'm sure. >> So, we're looking at a PFY target here. So, we're looking for size and scale. Um, what is MXO looking for and what would they and you consider success here in terms of size? >> Uh, I don't know. like a couple hundred million tons would be a great outcome. I I don't know specifically what they're looking for. Like I would imagine what they're looking for is a is an oxide based resource that surface that they can get into production quickly and then and then a larger a larger deposit that they can work on into the future. But I'm I'm sure that they'll be thinking about early production and so I would imagine that we'll see something smaller initially and then see it grow over time >> and then then um looking at timing here uh and if permitting goes well and and drilling starts on time when when could we expect the first assays to come out? Yeah, probably as early as October because they'll have completed most of their drilling by then and I'm assuming and I just say that because I get data quarterly. So I'm sure they'll be getting data before that but that's the next kind of quarterly milestone that I would expect to get data on. Switching gears here maybe um from Moxico to Dora Gold. You you found a partner or you you signed them up as partner for Sero Bio and Lafllora. What's um what's in it for shareholders on that deal? What are they what what are people getting? >> This is another example of of major companies not necessarily doing what we expect all the time. So this is a this is a high potential project that was optioned originally by Barrick and then again we were kind of subjected to a corporate change of direction in that regard. So, so Barrick had quite a lot of projects, exploration projects throughout South America and they made a decision at some point that they wanted to get that down to about 10 projects. And so, you know, they they had a kind of one of these geological loveins where they looked at all their projects and and thought about them. And our project at the time was not drill permitted. It had never been drilled. It didn't have a resource. And so, it just didn't stack up. like it was never going to stack up to be at that time one of the top 10 projects they had in the country in South America. So they walked u but again and similar to Anglo Gold Shanti while while their walking was disappointing their their approach to us as a partner was very satisfactory. They they knew that their departure was disappointing to us, but they spent a significant amount of time handing over the data and not just like here's a data room and download the data. Like they sat down and had meetings with us and they brought their geological team in and they talked about what they'd seen on the project, why they liked it, where they thought the potential was. And that's hugely valuable to us to have those kind of nuances and have that kind of conversation. Uh so we realized that even though they were departing it was a very significant project and that we should proceed with it. So we went ahead and got a drill permit and then we went ahead and got a partner with Dora. Dora is a bit of a departure for us. Like this is a door is a pretty small company. They're similar market cap to us and that's unusual for us to go for a project a company like that. Uh we did it for several reasons. Firstly we like the CEO Mark Sumner. Uh I met him quite a few times over the last couple of years and just thought he was a really really great guy. Uh I knew that they were well financed and I knew some of the people behind the company so I knew that they would continue to be well financed. Uh they needed to upgrade their technical team a little bit and so and I was involved in helping them to do that. So, a good friend of mine, Stuart Mills, is a a geologist with a ton of global experience and and who I've worked with in the past quite a bit, and he was sort of retired to semi-retired, but but I think he was finding that a little boring, and he was wanting to get back into the industry a bit. So, so it was just perfect timing. And I I put Stuart Mills and Mark Sumner together, and they got along really well. So, so I've got a junior company with a good CEO who I can rely upon. and they're well financed and they've got an absolutely exceptional technical team and so it looks like an odd choice but it's a superb choice and the the real kicker is they can move fast like it's you're not looking at making a deal and taking 12 14 months to sign up an agreement these guys we made an we made a deal in October we signed an agreement like 3 4 weeks later in November they started work in December and they started drilling at the beginning of February so we could not wish for any for it was just superb. >> Are you doing anything different in your in the deal like in the contract itself though? Like are you keeping backend rights or royalty or anything else like that? >> Uh we always keep a royalty. Uh this deal is similar to most of our deals. There's a 75% earning. Uh they have to deliver cash to us, cash to an underlying vendor. They have to drill 28,000 m uh of which they have drilled 1,800 so far. So there's a lot still to come. Uh and then after 75% they've got an opportunity to top up to 80%. And that's one of the things if you're familiar with my deals, I usually put this in and I put in something where they can get an additional 5% but by paying me quite a lot of cash. So in that case they have to deliver a resource estimate as part of their 75. If they want to go to 80, they have to pay me uh between five and $7 per ounce of defined resources depending on the category. So, we would expect that to be a significant uh amount of money coming into the company. We don't spend a lot of money as you know, but it is nice to get injections of non-dilutive cash from time to time because it it 100% secures the future of the company and it 100% secures the fact that we don't want to raise money again and so we don't have to. And so we hope that at some point some of these bigger non-dilutive cash events actually happen for us. the I should if you don't mind I'll just speak a little bit about the desiat mifie which is the area that we're working in with Dora in Santa Cruz province >> it's in Argentina it's the province and the area that's seen the most mine development so far uh I think there's seven operations uh but there's more projects than that if you count up the operations advanced projects things that are moving toward production. There's about 30 projects uh in the district. Over the last probably 20 odd years, they've discovered 20 million ounces of gold and 600 million ounces of silver. And the deposits that we see there, they're they all have a lot of things in common. One of the things is that if you have like a reasonably sized project like you might it's very drill intensive like these are tend to be fairly narrow vein deposits so they require a lot of drilling. So companies that have worked there have put together 2 3 million ounces and then they make a decision to go into production. But what we tend to see after that is that these are very long life deposits. So as they're getting into production, they're continuing to explore. They're finding more resources and so the life of these projects is huge. So the sero Vanguardia, the Anglo gold one I think I mentioned earlier is 28 years and still going. Serenegro, which is the closest deposit to us. It's about 70 kilometers north. That's a Newmont deposit. And that's if you count up what's been produced versus what's on the books right now for resources, it's a 9 million ounce deposit and still growing. And Newand are investing hundreds of millions of dollars to extend that nine life out to 2035. That's their next milestone. So these things are amazing and it takes a hell of a long time to get there and we are at the earliest possible stages. But what we've done with this original with this first 18,800 m is we've gone in and tested quite a few of the targets that we established and we've intersected significant copper. We've sorry intersected significant silver and significant gold and and that's just a really good outcome because I'm telling you if you you go into these kind of grassroots areas with 1,800 m you're just as likely to hit nothing because it takes time for drilling to transpire and and to become discoveries and and to have hit on so many of these holes was pretty astonishing and made us very very happy. So now we've got a ton of stuff to follow up on for the next uh phase. >> When when is the next um batch of assays going to come from them? >> All the assays are out for what they've done so far in the next phase of drilling is slated for September. So between now and September, they've got a bunch of work they want to do. Uh and we're still pinning down exactly what that's going to look like. We actually have a weekly uh technical call with Doran. So it's a very cooperative environment. So we're not sitting around for three months waiting for data to arrive. Like we're actually involved uh day to day and week to week. So as they get that program pinned down, we'll be able to put a news release out pretty soon saying well this is what they're planning to do between now and the drilling and then off we go. The other interesting thing what we're doing is we're all of the drilling was on the serio project. Uh but we are in the middle of permitting drilling for LA flora which is the second project that they're optioning into. And that's that's going to be pretty cool. And we've got uh the little the very small amount of work we've done there. We find visible gold uh in multiple samples. So we've got gold grades up to 82 g per ton gold over kind of limited strike length, but it then disappears. And so it's all ready for drill follow-up. And so yeah, that I love going to drill visible gold. It's uh hopefully we get some more of that. That'll be some pretty spectacular results, but we'll see how it goes. talking about assays here because it seemed the market was was a bit disappointed with with the first results. Um what are the odds that they'll walk away from this option agreement given given the fact that they have other projects? What what's the feedback been after the first essays? >> Uh I well the feedback has been that they are continuing and they are doing a second phase of drilling. So the I guess the answer is they're not walking away. Uh, I did see the I saw the market reaction with Dora with their shareholders. I can't speak to it. I was surprised, very surprised because I've seen similar I've seen similar results coming out of other companies where the reaction has been quite the opposite. Uh, but maybe we're dealing with specific market conditions right now. And I don't know. I I just can't I can't really speak to it. I don't know why they would have seen so much selling and with so much volume it was really shocking but uh the results are clearly very good and I think once people start to understand what this means uh and with another phase of drilling and hopefully some more intersections hopefully it'll pick up some some love in the market they certainly deserve it they've done a really good job >> so you you would consider these first essays a success/technical success >> well yeah I more than a technical success like as I said like you take you take a limited amount of drilling at 1,800 m into a large property like this and you come up with intersections right away in your first phase of drilling that's pretty good >> what's this would have been very distressing but it would have been possible because it takes time sometimes and typically it would take a bit more meters to put something together so yeah I think this has been a huge success >> what's the size potential they're chasing here. What are we looking at? >> You're looking at potentially a very large deposit, but I I hate to be that promotional because it's such an early stage of drilling. But but our property is big. Our property is a similar size to the property within which Newand put together 9 million ounces. And that's not to say that we're going to find 9 million ounces, but it's to say that we're on a similar scale. We've got the same structures in at the Newman property. There's basically two structures that are about six kilometers apart that streak off to the northwest. And within that structural framework is all of the individual deposits that make up their 9 million ounces. We have a very similar structural reg regime. Uh in our case, the faults are 8 km apart. There's many many kilometers of strike length and many many targets. And we haven't even stuck one drill hole into most of those targets. So there's just so such a long long way to go. But but we should have targets in mind and it's the right kind of question. Like it's it's what are we playing for here? I guess is the question. And where we're playing for a big discovery. >> When when Gold Corp purchased Serenegro originally from Andian Resources, they paid $3.4 $4 billion for 3 million ounces of resource, which makes no sense. Like they paid well over $1,000 per ounce. But they did that because they saw the district and they saw the potential to grow that. And that has come true. They've grown it to 9 million so far and they continue to grow it. Not just the size potential, but it's near surface. It's high grade. It's in Santa Cruz. Let's not discount the fact that we're in Santa Cruz. So you can go and drill anywhere in South America, but we are in the primary precious metals belt in South America. We've got roads, we've got power, we've got ports on the Atlantic, we've got a willing workforce. We've essentially got a social license that applies to the entire district. Like you go to develop something in the desi massie in Santa Cruz, it's going to get permitted. It's going to be mined. >> It's such a deserted place. I don't know if you're familiar with it. It's kind of like it's what we know as Patagonia really. And it's it's deserted. Like our entire property is covered by three land owners. So, it's just massive ranches with very little surface value and very little people. So, it's a good place to work. And when you've got a workforce and you've got people who are willing like you've got the ability to put things into production using the resources that currently exist within within Santa Cruz, it's a pretty positive thing. And guess what? The uh government are pretty supportive too. If I can criticize the government in Santa Cruz for anything, and I really shouldn't, but if I if I want to, it's going to be there as some of the longer life assets like Sero Vanguardia inevitably will get to the end of their mine life. Santa Cruz really needs to be focusing on having more deposits actually constructing and getting into into development. And if that's something that the province hasn't focused on in the last four or five years, it's certainly something that they're thinking about now. And so I expect that we have an incredible amount of support for the discovery. >> So okay, so you're chasing something big. Um and then stepping back here a bit, what would be the minimum threshold for something like this to work in that part of the world uh grade and tonnage wise? Oh, that is a good question and I hope I can give you a reasonable answer. Uh I would like to think that even if we don't have one of these giant deposits that we could put one to two million houses together. Uh you'll notice from our results that some of them are silver dominated and others are gold dominated. That just speaks to different parts of our project where the the primary commodity might be different. But uh just thinking about gold and gold equivalent. Yeah. Like I would expect you would expect a resource in this region to be of the order of 3 to 5 g. It's it tends to be higher grade. I'm not I can't say that we we've we've seen up to eight gs per ton in our initial program, but you know, it's such an early stage program. It's we've seen lots of lesser grades as well. So it's just far too early to say what this is going to look like. But but looking at the rest of the belt, that's kind of what we would be hoping to find. H when when are they planning on I understand it's early stage and before looking but I think the contract says they got to have a resource by 2029 if I'm not mistaken but do you think they might want to have it earlier or would they want to kind of keep growing it without a resource and then put a resource on it just to um just to work with you with the contract that says 2029. >> I don't really know. Uh it depends. It'll depends on what else the company's going on like they do have other projects and they've got other very good projects in Peru. So as they move forward with this project and assuming that they get permits in the other projects in Peru as well uh they'll be having multiple programs going forward like that's a lot of expenditure and >> they may appreciate being able to take the full time in those circumstances but it always depends what a company finds. I can't really speak to what they do, but but yeah, if it was me and I find something significant, I'd want to move it forward as quickly as possible, particularly within this kind of really positive uh commodity pricing cycle. Yeah, >> I think we covered door here pretty well because you recently did some work there. Like why now all of a sudden? >> I'm sorry you just broke up there and I didn't catch your question. >> Uh I'm talking about Fantana. you recently did some work at Fantana. Um why now? What what's been going on there? >> Good question. Uh so just to just to cover off the concept here, the the concept of Ventana and of the other projects in that region, we basically tied up 500,000 hectares that we think is perspective for sediment hosted copper. And when I say sediments of copper, I'm thinking about things analogous to the Zambian copper belt, things analogous to the Cooper shifer that comes through Germany and Poland. Uh, you know, if you speak to geologists in South America, they'll quite accurately be happy to tell you that there's no sediment hosted deposits of significance in South America. And they're absolutely correct. But essentially, nobody's really looked. So you look at the pory belts that come through Chile, Peru, there hasn't been a ton of need to go and look for anything else because everybody was obviously going to focus on what was there and and what was going to be mined. But but as these very large assets through Chile and Peru become mined out, a lot of the flagship assets are getting to the end of their life. The things that companies are finding are becoming necessarily deeper and certainly more difficult on the capital side. So as the porfree world becomes depleted, I think we're going to have to see people looking for other sources of copper. And if you look at sediment dosed copper, it forms about 20 22% of world production. So it's certainly an interesting place and we're we are not unique in looking at this. There's quite a few companies are looking at at these types of projects both in South America and elsewhere particularly in Africa. But uh thinking about Hanan Mining in Peru who've got an interesting sediment hosted project in the jungle. uh thinking about Max Resources who've got an interesting project in Colombia and now we're kind of the third of those very significantly sized projects. So that's the background. Uh the value the value in having 500,000 hectares is that to the extent that bigger companies believe that in fact you have got a viable exploration target here, uh they have to come and talk to you because you've got all the property. And that's that's kind of what we're playing at. And we're we are speaking to a few different companies about potentially taking on the entirety of this 500,000 hectares and and earning into it. If uh if we were to secure an earning agreement of that type, we would expect it to be an earning of the order of $35 million US for 75%. which is a very specific number for me to give you, but I'm giving it to you for a reason because I've in researching what other companies are doing. This is basically what all of these deals have gone for uh with BHP, with Jog Meg, with Freeport, they've all been earning into these projects around the world where there's a significant land position like this and they're all earning in for exactly the same number, 35, 36 million. And I don't know how that came about. I guess people just started looking at previous deals and coming up with the same deal over and over again. So, that's what we hope to put together. To finally answer your question, uh, and I apologize. It takes me a while to get to it, but why on earth are we spending money on this project when we're trying to partner it out? Well, I'm I'm giving myself some insurance, I guess, if if I can't get it optioned out this year. I'd rather be providing good results to the market and to the shareholders and in part providing good results to potential partners as well because sometimes even when you've got a really good concept, you need to have a little bit of meat on the bones to try and actually get somebody over the line to sign up to a deal. So, we we've picked what we think is the best part of the entire build. We have set aside about $250,000 and we're going in there to basically do a really extensive and detailed program of stream sediment sampling over that portion of our belt. And that's a valuable undertaking because to take stream sediment samples you have to walk and you have to walk far. So you get to rivers and streams and drainages and you have to walk up them. When you walk up the drainages, that tends to be where you see the rocks outcropping. And so to the extent that there's mineralization at surface, the process of walking to the site where you're going to take your sample, you will pick up bits and pieces of mineralization. So the outcome at the end of all of this will be a whole series of of mineralized o crops that we've located, rock samples from those o crops and of course the stream sediment samples which will give us a really good feeling for where the the hottest spots within this belt are. And and with that in hand, if at that point we have not got a partner, I think that will be enough to make sure that we do get a partner. So that's the insurance policy. But it hasn't been worked before, right? Fontana. >> No. >> So, no. No. Like, okay. How come? Why not? >> Well, there's two possibilities. Either nobody ever considered this to be a potential deposit type in this region, which is possible, but unlikely, or more likely, people have considered it but never acted upon it. And so when we went to stake this property, all of it was available basically and and it's never been worked by anyone. >> But there's no I mean is is there like is there a catch? I mean is it like super rugged or remote or like what what's the catch is what I'm looking at. >> No, there's no catch. So the where you see most exploration in Salta and Huhoui provinces is on the high Puna where like above 4,200 m. This is much much lower elevation. It's in an agricultural area and there are areas here that are, you know, beautiful agricultural fields like uh growing crops and and cattle ranches. We obviously didn't stake those. It doesn't really make sense. It tends to be a difficult place to work. But fortunately, most of the belt that we identified was kind of in these small foothills. It's really, it's rugged, but not high. It's just like small hills, rocky, crappy grass, no real agriculture going on. And what that means is that when you go to speak to land owners about getting access, they're like, "Sure, why you want to go up there? Go for it." So, it's it's easy access. It's low elevation, nice climate. There's a certain amount of roads in the area that help you get into the area, but but there is it's not welldeveloped and there's a lot of walking. So, so doing this kind of work is is the most fundamental geological work that you can come across. It's it's a backpack with a tent and food and you go away for a week and you come back later and and you're camping in the field and you're walking like crazy every day to get your samples. It's it's exciting. If if the stream sediment sampling isn't enough for you to get a partner in, would you consider to do more work uh to get some more data? >> We're assuming that we're being successful, Christian. Like it there's always a possibility that we're flat wrong about this. So if we're wrong, we're wrong and and we say goodbye. But yeah, I think we're going to be successful. Like we've we've done a certain amount of work in in some other portions of the belt. Uh we did a few we did a a a somewhat limited stream sediment survey just to kind of get a feel for for how that technique was going to work and to get a feel for whether we were going to see any mineralized out crops and and and we did see mineralized out crops and we did get good results from the stream. So, uh, I'm sure that will continue to be be the case and I'm sure we'll be successful and and that being the case. Yeah, for sure. If we haven't got a partner by the end of the year, that those results should be enough to get us get us over the line, I think. >> And if if you do manage to to get a partner here, what would the timeline for drilling look like in an ideal world world? >> 3 years. >> Yeah, there's a lot of work to do. like this is really really grassroots and that's not negative but it but it's certainly not drill ready and it's not going to be drill ready quickly. a partner coming in, I'd expect them to have a very very sizable budget to do some geohysics, to do some satellite work, multisspectral work, basin analysis, structural consultants. There's a whole lot of really conceptual stuff to be done here and and it would take a couple of years to have it done. So year three would be a drill program, I think. What else do you have in in the portfolio that that is kind of like uh Ventana like or maybe maybe better than Ventana something that you know because there's a lot in a portfolio right you have you have a lot of a lot of assets there that you don't or you're not really able to talk about so is there anything like that would be a priority or what's another asset that you like >> uh staying in Salta the the organo project that we optioned out to Anglo Anglo Gold. We actually there was three projects there, Organo, Anamaria, and Trial. And so we mostly talked about Organo, but actually Anglo Gold had all three of those projects. uh I probably made a tactical error in the sense that I put those three projects into one option agreement and it was structured so that the expenditure commitments could be met on any of the three projects and so they just spend money on organo and the other two projects uh didn't move forward in the way that I would have liked. So obviously I'm going to change that. Uh so these Anamaria and Trigal projects which are also very interesting are going to have separate option agreements and potentially actually separate partners as well. And so that's pretty interesting. So Organo sits there as a as a really nice project and that block of land that's got the permit and it's got this wonderful target that uh Anglo Gold set up. But you move south into Anamaria and you've got completely completely Greenfield's property that nobody's ever looked at that's sitting directly along strike from what Angrar we're doing. And so it's definitely another potential win. It's just that we haven't done any work on it. So yeah, I'm looking to find a partner for that one too. But you're right, we have lots of projects like the the thing that gets lost on people a little bit is that really any of our projects would be sufficient in scale and concept to support a junior mining company in their own right. So we have 16 projects. You could easily see those 16 projects sitting in 16 different companies. But what that means for our shareholders is that it's just a ton of shots on gold and lots of opportunities for success. And as you see, like I hope you're getting the idea that these are not necessarily average projects like Organo, a 5 million ounce gold potential project, albeit not yet drilled, but super interesting. Espiranza or Zaha as is now called. It's a discovery. It's a significant intersection. It's already a poor free and we're going to have a company drilling many many thousands of meters and stepping out. You go down to Santa Cruz, you're in that district with Serene Negro and with Ser Vanguard and other deposits and yeah early stage but tons of potential as well. So all of our projects are have got this kind of potential and that's why we're able to attract decent partners and and big companies. Looking at your presentation here, it seems like you might want even more projects though because you talk about um growth through acquisitions. Is what what else do you need? Like what what are you looking to add to the portfolio here? >> I want to bring in about five projects this year. And that's that's based on my belief that all of the projects we currently have will be art with partners. So that being the case, we've got capacity, money, and time to take five more projects and move them up. uh what we're generally doing is we we acquire a project and we are we're not telling people that we've acquired it and that's just because it's like we come up with an idea and a concept. We stake some ground and it's it's completely nonmaterial to us until we get on the ground and see that there's something there. So we we make these we do the staking we go and have a look at the project and it's only at the point where we see that there is some potential and that we see that doing some work will potentially build up a project to be good enough to be partnered out. That's when we start to talk about it. But yeah five projects for sure will come in this year and we we pretty much know where those are going to be. We're in process of staking right now and and if all the projects are out to partners that will be the focus of our work next year. >> Yeah. You mentioned earlier that there's going to be quite a lot of partner spending. What about this year? What's the total partner spending that you think is going to happen this year? >> Uh see a little over 10 million probably. >> How's that going to be split? Like which project gets how much? Uh, I just multiplied the drilling by about $600 per meter as an alling cost. So that's based on 15,000 mters at Esparanza or at Zaha rather. Sorry, we changed the name of the project. I keep forgetting. Uh, and the 3,000 m minimum at Sario, >> right? >> Uh, but you know, obviously anything drilled in addition to those minimums will be more and uh and anything drilled on a project that's not currently optioned out would be more as well. So yeah, it's a lot of money. >> And then talking about cash here, Keith, what's what's the current uh cash status for Latin Metals? How much cash do you have currently? >> Uh I don't have a precise number for you right now, but I'm working to so we have a cash flow and a working capital model for the year. And we're planning to finish the year with about $2 million in the bank. And then so we don't need to raise money this year. That also means we don't need to raise money in 2027 because we've got more money scheduled to be coming in from partners uh next year. So we've got enough money for 2027 as well. And then when you start to think about new partners coming in and projects that are not currently partnered, all of those have got money coming in as well. So yeah, probably 2028 we also don't need to go back to market. Like to be clear, my plan is never to go back to the market. But you it's a difficult thing to give people 100% asurances on because >> maybe it doesn't work right. But >> your aspiration is to never go back to the market. That might be a better way of saying it. >> Yeah, that's a much better way. But but that's just on on things I expect to happen. And then you start to think about some of these things I built into projects and continue to build into projects where people are giving me large non-dilutive amounts of money to top up on projects or whatever the case. So like moving into the future that's like real money. >> Okay. So ending the year with like 2 million bucks. Um what what are you going to spend the cash on? >> Excuse me. uh running this company is a $3 million per year exercise basically. So, and that's split between Vancouver office management team, Lima office, uh we have an office in Salta as well and then the work that we do on the projects themselves. So, for example, the Ventana project is $250,000. So, I don't have a an accurate split in my mind, so I don't want to give it to you, but but it's it's always the same. They the years don't vary from each other very much. It's just that's what we do and that's what we spend. >> Gotcha. >> When are you when do you think you might start selling some of the marketable securities that you have instead of Yeah, because you just talked about raising capital. said your your aspirations is to not to go back to the market, but um yeah, when are you going to start using some of the paper that you have to turn it into money? >> Uh yeah, I well I hope not to in the short term and the medium term. I want those investments to become valuable. Uh but but it's an interesting point. So so thinking about a couple of those in particular, Dora, I mentioned earlier that they've got excellent projects in Peru. I really like the projects in Peru. I was already a shareholder of Dora before we made the deal uh on Sarah Bio and I'm and I'm long on that stock and I like it. So I would hate to have to sell it anytime soon before they've drilled some of those other projects. Uh the position in Latin Explorer is also pretty significant like it's 6% of the company but again uh since we know what we're hoping to do with the company uh there's not a chance I want to sell those either but to your point uh that was primarily the reason for structuring it in that way. So, you know, you're if you're creating a spin out, there's a couple of ways you can do it. And one of the things that you might expect a company to do is is to create a royalty. Uh, and I decided not to because a royalty is a 10 to 15 year proposition in a lot of cases, whereas having the marketable securities gave me the flexibility. So, in terms of the compensation that I got, having the securities was better. I can wait and see the uplift in the securities or if I really really have to and I for some reason need to uh there's always the option to sell the marketable securities or a portion of them. So that's why I prefer to have marketable securities rather than a royalty but uh but really it would be something of a last resort and I would say if I end up selling marketable securities I would say it's bad planning on my part. marking the top of the market maybe there. Um, what keeps you up at night, Keith? What is uh what's the biggest risk for Latin Metals here? >> Uh, putting deals together, you're always fundamentally at the mercy of the companies you want to partner with and whether they are in fact willing to partner with you. Uh people might be surprised at how many companies we have to speak to to get a deal done, but that's just the reality of our lives. But uh I mentioned 15 companies have looked or are looking at organo. Uh that's pretty exceptional. But but it's not uncommon for us to have four or five companies looking and we need to convert that into a deal. I need to convert that into a deal and that definitely keeps me up at night. But like we we've done it many times. We've been successful in doing it but uh it is a bit of a stress point. Uh communities keep me up, permits keep me up. Like anything is out of my control. Like I I don't ultimately control what a community ultimately decides about a permit. uh and I certainly don't control the government. So that to the extent that I need the help from the government, I don't control how quickly they provide that help. So for example, our our project in in Peru that's permitted that I'm hoping to partner at the point where drilling is going to start, you have to inform the Peruvian government that you're starting. And that notification translated into permission to go within a couple of weeks until very recently and now it's taking up to three months. So that means when we get uh our drill for thinking about Latin explorer when we get our drill permit for parah at the end of June potentially we can't start drilling till October and it's out of my control and I hate things that are out of my control so that definitely keeps me up but you know 3 months is kind of an outside date. I would hope we can get that done in a month or 6 weeks but but you never know right and you're just completely at the mercy of the government and you don't know when it's going to happen. And I I think another thing out of your control is unfortunately partners walking away. Um and that's always a risk I guess. But is there any way to manage that as a prospect generator? How how do how do you deal with that? >> Not really. But every time it happens I'm usually disappointed and a little bit panicstricken. But but that passes quickly because you quickly calm down. You think well I've just had two three four million spent on my project. I've got a better target than I had before. It's moved on in this respect, in that respect. Every time you get it back, it's more valuable than when you handed it out in the first place. And and it's I I've sort of learned to look at partners leaving more as an inconvenience than a disaster cuz it really is just a bit of an inconvenience. And it takes time to to get somebody else in. But ultimately, just as it takes sometimes five, 10, even more companies to make a discovery on a project, all of these discoveries have got a huge history of exploration with multiple companies. And and I guess it's the same for prospect generators. It's it's not always going to be the first partner that comes along that that gets the project to the end, and you have to cycle through a few partners, but it's kind of part of it. And uh we just have to live with it. But you're quite right. It it is out of my control and and a bit frustrating. >> I can imagine. Uh let's let's slowly wrap it up here, Keith. Um I believe you just got back from Europe marketing trip. Um what else is planned marketing wise the rest of the year? And what is that going to cost you? Uh we're going to the Quebec show next week uh in Quebec City. Uh, we're going to Rick Rule's show in July in Miami, >> which in my opinion is the best show of the year. Uh, we're also going to New Orleans uh, in late October. I also like that one a lot. I like both of those shows because people investors pay to be there and u and in the case of Rick's show uh I think he does a very good job of of selecting companies as you probably know it's it's only companies that he's a shareholder of and so that to some extent is a bit of a pre-screening for the investors that are there and I think they appreciate that and and so it's always surprising you go to Rick show Rick's show and somebody walks over to your booth um you don't really need to introduce the company. They already know quite a lot about the company. Like Rick does these videos before and people actually sit down and watch them and they come to you with questions as they do in Europe as well. It's it's quite interesting. So yeah, those are the main things that we're doing. We're considering also going back to London uh later in November and potentially through to Dubai uh but we're not quite fully decided on that yet. that onetoone conference for us in London this year was really great. Uh not just the conference but also the we set up uh some individual lunches and shareholder meetings as well. So it was really really something and it was really it was very good for us on the back of Moxico Mashiko because people knew the company and and knew the significance of the project to them and so they were very excited to hear about us and we've we've got quite a few new shareholders on the back of being in Europe a couple of weeks ago and a lot more shareholders who are looking for positions and crosses uh which frankly I don't have any and not able to get any but but there was certainly a lot of interest in the company. So yeah, Europe Europe was superb for us this time. Really enjoyed it. >> So all all these marketing expenses are included in the $2 million um figure you just mentioned to run the company for the year. >> Yeah. 3 million. >> Yeah. >> Three, sorry. Yeah. >> Um Keith, we we we've discussed a lot today. Walk us through the catalyst calendar here. What can what what can what can we expect uh on a month-to-month basis over the next couple of months? >> Uh an outline of what Sarah Bio is what Dora are going to be doing at Sarah Bio over the next couple of months. An announcement that they have started drilling again and then the results of that program all before the end of the year. uh an announcement that the drill permit is in place at Zaha with Moxico and subsequently announcement that they started drilling and results of that program before the end of the year as well and a significant program. Uh and then you know getting into the realms of more speculative things. Uh, I'm hoping to have multiple news releases on projects going out to partners, lots of different partners, and those will just be the the general kind of announcements that say, "We've made a deal with this company, here's the commercial terms, here's what they plan to do, and and if we get very lucky, uh, some of those projects actually translating into work starting before the end of this year as well." So, we got a lot I do I have I make this exercise at the start of the year. It's a it's an exercise that sits solely on my computer, but I I have a wall planner thing and I I plan what all my news releases are going to be and and when approximately I'm going to be delivering them through the year and then we work towards that. We're basically trying to trying to visualize what the year looks like, how we'd like things to turn out and and then go out and get it done. So So yeah, I look at that every week on a Monday morning and we get our heads down and try to get there. Keith, when you go to these uh conferences and you talk to investors, what's the most fair criticism you get from them? What's the what's the main push back they've got for you? You know, the only push back I ever really get is is where in a situation where we've really picked the wrong guy to talk to or the guy has picked the wrong company to talk to where someone's just literally not that interested in the prospect generator idea or where you meet people who are really only interested in financings and and you tell them you don't plan to do a financing. These meetings tend to get get cut short a little bit. But but for people that are are engaged with what we're doing, who've already met us, who who know what we're trying to do, we don't get a ton of criticism. Uh these these prospect generator ideas tend to address they tend to attract people who are quite patient and and they need to be. But but yeah, uh I I think the need for patience has is diminishing as the weeks go on here. And I think like we've literally had no drill programs in this company until this year >> and suddenly we're going to have 18,000 meters and maybe more. So it is a big change. It's a real shift in where the company's at from planning and putting together to actually getting stuff done and getting things drilled and uh so to the extent that anyone's been impatient with that, they can they can sit back and wait for results now. The wonders of junior mining. Uh, we've come full circle here. What's your most favorite criticism of us, Keith? What did you come here hoping to talk about that we failed to bring up? >> Nothing. Actually, uh, we covered it all. Like, we didn't cover every single project, but that would be ridiculous. So, uh, just >> we'll book a 12-hour interview next time to do that. >> Yeah. We just like to give people a flavor for what we're doing and and touch on some of the projects. I want people to understand that the projects are as as exploration projects. We believe that our projects are quite exceptional. We think lots of them have got very very high potential for significant discoveries albeit that they are at this point fairly grassroots but but we think we've got great projects that can really deliver and and as we keep saying multiple shots on goal. I think this company is a fantastic investment for people who are who are interested and who understand what we're doing and and Latin Explorer hopefully ultimately generates a kind of parallel if slightly different track towards success in a different way and yeah >> yeah well good Keith I'll be looking forward to um having an updated conversation with you in sometime in the summer hopefully uh when you have you have more to talk about and you know more about the drilling and whatnot that's happening at Moxico and whatnot but be a pleasure for people watching, listening, whatever we are forgetting to ask now, let us know and we'll definitely ask it in our next conversation. For now though, Keith, thank you so much for your time. >> Yeah, thanks very much. Cheers. >> Thanks, guys. >> And before everyone leaves though, I still have a couple of more things to say. The fact that this company was interviewed here today doesn't mean they're necessarily a good nor a bad company. We're not here to endorse or attack anyone. We're simply here to ask a few questions. If you find that we have failed in asking a question that you would have liked to hear an answer to, please let us know by emailing Antonios.com and we will try to correct that mistake in a future conversation. If you made it that far, you probably know this, but I will remind you nonetheless. Mining is a risky business. Losing money is the norm and should be the expectation as mineral exploration, development and extraction is an extremely risky industry where the performance of individual companies typically depends on many different moving parts including company specific factors like geology, financing ability, hiring methods and many others as well as other things that are outside of the company's control like geopolitics, macroeconomics, commodity prices and many more. Too many to list here really. Moreover, these companies are typically in the pre-revenue stage, which means they rely on the public markets for the financing of their operations, which often results in shareholder dilution. They raise money by issuing new shares. Even if the CEO promised they won't have to raise capital anymore, I've seen it over and over again. It still can, and it does happen, which is why you need to stop and think. You need to do more research and not rely solely on what the company tells you. Furthermore, as a general rule of thumb, you'd be better off understanding that all company communications, albeit this interview or their website, their presentation, their news releases even, and of course their social media and everything else, all of that is intended as marketing. And although we at Resource Talks do not make buy or sell recommendations, even if you ask us, we just don't do that because there is a clear conflict of interest given the nature of our business which sells content producing services to these companies. Even though we don't do that, many accounts and channels out there do do that. Exactly. They do give out direct recommendations even though they are often paid for opinions and they're worth just as much as you paid for them, which is to say nothing. And you should be aware of that in bias. You should not blindly trust people on the internet. That bias is not always going to be clearly disclosed with everyone out there. So it's just safer for you anytime you're watching any type of company specific content to approach it with a dose of skept a big dose of skepticism and just assume that the party telling you about it is biased oftentimes in multiple ways. They might own shares, they might be paid by the companies or I should say they often are and that bias is not always going to be clearly disclosed with everyone. So, always ask yourself what the incentive of your counterparty is and never rely on them regardless of their incentive, but instead double check if what they're saying is true by using setter plus.ca. Unfortunately, at least to my understanding, nobody out there has any special predicting abilities. The CEOs don't possess any superior knowledge and they cannot know about what's going to go up, what's going to go down, or what's going to go in circles. And none of us know whether any of the company's activities that we discussed today will result in a success. Again, given that we're talking about very high-risisk activities where most of the times it ends in failure. The vast majority of the times it ends in failure. Also, unfortunately, try I mean, we won't always catch all red flags or all challenges with the company. So, even if we did ask a few tough questions in in this conversation, don't rely on this being all of the important and tough questions. Again, these are complicated startups with many moving parts. They require rigorous rigorous I'll try that again, but they require rigorous due diligence. Resource talks and its hosts cannot guarantee the quality of anything presented in this video. And you cannot hold the company, the channel, or its host responsible for any losses or damages stemming from the way you decide to use the information you're just presented with. Viewers, listeners, and readers acknowledge and agree that the information presented herein does not constitute a solicitation or an offer to buy or sell any security or instrument or to participate in any trading strategy. Resource talks and all parties involved in the management of this business strictly disclaim any and all liability for losses and or damages whether direct, indirect, special or consequential or other consequences howsoever caused arising out of any use or reproduction of the content published and distributed by resource talks or any decision made or action taken in reliance upon it. By consuming this content, all viewers vowed to release resource talks and all parties involved in the management of the business from all claims, proceedings or consequences. You know, this is all to say it's a lot of lawyer talk just saying you should not blindly trust us or anybody else on the internet and you should always do your own research as cliche as that may sound. Once again, social media is meant for entertainment. Setterplus.ca is where you do your research. That's an official government website. That's where you find the company's official filings. And I encourage you to read and analyze the management information circular, the financial statement, the management discussion and analysis, and whenever available, the NI43101 technical documents at the very least. If you don't understand everything in those documents, the chances of you losing money are even higher than they normally are in this space. As mentioned earlier, the chances of even the best analysts in this sector losing money are very high since this is venture capital and it is not for everybody. I'll leave you with one of Charlie Mer's quotes which I wish I'd listened to more often earlier on in my career which says, quote, "If you don't understand it, don't do it." Unquote. Thank you all for listening and I wish you a great day ahead.