Looking for a Giant Copper Deposit in Peru | Coppernico Metals CEO Interview

Summary

• Investment Focus: The podcast centers on Coppernico Metals' exploration for copper deposits in Peru, particularly the Sombrero project, which is seen as analogous to the Las Bombas mine.
• Company Structure: Coppernico Metals is listed on the TSX with a market cap of just under CAD 35 million, and has significant institutional ownership, including stakes by Tech and Newmont.
• Financial Overview: The company has CAD 6 million in current assets and no long-term debt, but faces potential dilution due to warrants and options.
• Exploration Strategy: The company has completed 8,200 meters of drilling in 20 holes at the Sombrero project, with plans to expand drilling permits and potentially explore additional jurisdictions to mitigate seasonal exploration challenges.
• Management Insight: CEO Ivan Bebek emphasizes his long-term commitment and financial investment in the company, highlighting his past successes and focus on large-scale discoveries.
• Community and Permitting: Coppernico has invested in community relations and infrastructure in Peru, which are crucial for obtaining necessary permits for further exploration.
• Market Conditions: The podcast discusses the favorable market conditions for copper and gold, driven by technological demand and declining grades, positioning Coppernico for potential future success.
• Risks and Challenges: The primary risks include permitting delays and geopolitical factors in Peru, which the company aims to mitigate through strategic asset acquisition and community engagement.

Transcript

Today on the CEO barbecue, we're looking for copper in Peru and potentially other jurisdictions as well together with Capernico Metals. If you want a bullet point summary of this and all the other CEO barbecues in your inbox once a week, go to resource.com and subscribe to our free newsletter. Now, although the company you're about to hear from has not paid us for the production of this interview, you should still not treat this video as research. Research is conducted by reading the company's official filings, which you can find on zedplus.ca. In any case, please only watch this if you absolutely know what you're doing. This interview is intended only for experienced junior mining speculators because mineral exploration, development, and mining is an extremely tough business where failure is the norm and should be the expectation. This is going to be a conversation that is general and impersonal in nature and it is also going to contain forwardlooking statements. I am not a licensed financial adviser and my business sells content producing services which also makes me biased. Although this company has not paid for the production of this interview, it doesn't mean they won't become a client in the future. They might. So before continuing on, please talk to an independent investment advisor with a good long-term track record because your capital might be at risk. If you're not 100% sure you understand 100% of the disclaimers I just showed you, please go to the last section of this video and do not consume this content unless you fully understand and agree with everything said therein. That all said, Capernico is listed as COPR on the TSX main board where the average three-month volume is about 150,000 shares. The stock's 52- week high is 54 cents and its 52- week low is 11.5 with a market cap of just under 35 million Canadians and 177 million shares outstanding today. This is a 19 cent stock with a 50 and a 200 day moving average, both at about 19. Moving on to the share structure, management and directors are estimated to own about a percent and a half of the company while the CEO himself owns just under 4%. Close associates own over a third of the company and there's over 20% of institutional ownership and that is on top of the 9.9% being owned by tech and about 3 and a half% owned by Newmont which means that about a quarter of the company is in the hands of retail. I do see 36 million warrants here and 8 million options where the latter expires in August of 29 strikes at 50 cents. That's for the options and then the former. So the warrants over half of them expire in May of next year with a 75 cent strike and almost half of those 36 million um strike at 30 cents but they don't expire until August of 2029. All in all, the number of fully diluted shares is just over 221 million, meaning an increase of about 25% in shares on standing could happen if all the dilutive securities get exercised, which would then result in about a 20% ownership dilution if, and that is always a big if, but if all dilutive securities actually get exercised. And of course, none of this accounts for potential dilution down the road, which is not unlikely given that this is a pre-revenue company that operates in what is a very capital intensive industry. Talking about capital, I'll now go through their latest financial statement which shows me the numbers as of June 30, 2025. So about four months ago now and at the time the company had in total, it's actually about 3 months ago now, maybe I need basic math uh lessons there, but the company at the time had about 6 million Canadian dollars in current assets mostly in the form of cash to the tune of $5.5 million as well as expenses and account receivables. On top of that, in terms of the liabilities, the current liability side of the balance sheet shows about a half a million dollars in it in the form of account payables, and that's mostly relating to concession fees for the Sombrero project, which of course we'll talk about in depth later on. There isn't any long-term debt on the balance sheet here, though. And um there is just a a small $226,000 provision for site reclamation uh closure, but that is not that's not long-term debt. Moving on to the P&L for the 6 months that ended on June 30. The total amount recorded as expenses shows up as $4.7 million. About 66% of that money went toward exploration and evaluation, which means that the administrative cost sat at just over a million half dollars for the period, which to be more specific is an average of about $260,000 a month. About half of that money goes toward fees and salaries and benefits while about 33% goes toward marketing and investor relations with office and administration, legal and regulatory um combined making up the rest of that expense. As to the $3.1 million that was spent on exploration, it is note 10 that shows us the breakdown of that where drilling is the largest chunk representing about 55% of the total expend expense with community and environmental sitting at about 22% and surface exploration at about 15%. All in all, that means that again in terms of exploration to administration, one of my favorite ratios for the last reported 6 months, that number was about 66 to 34 in favor of exploration. And then another one of my favorite ratios is drilling to marketing ratio shows again um there's about 1.7 toward drilling and then about half a million toward marketing, which means roughly three and a half times as much money went toward drilling as it did toward marketing. As always though, I would like to remind you be cautious. Your capital is at risk and please visit sitterplus.ca to view the company's full financials for yourself. Enough accounting for now though because we got a brief overview of the company here and ultimately the story of Capernico is one of well as the name suggests copper and it's copper in Peru specifically and although that may be changing soon which again Ivan and I will discuss later on the focus still remains Peru and particularly the sombrero project which capernico has they have a big claim for it really because they believe it's an analogy to las bombas which as you can imagine I will be questioning later on. Sombrero is in the Aakucha department of southern Peru and there's over 8,200 meters in 20 holes that have been completed on the project to date confirming widespread widespread scarring alteration and sulfites but no major discovery yet and the current permits allow for up to 49 holes from 38 PS although the plan as far as I understand it is to expand the permitted footprint here shortly and that will hopefully be part of the conversation as well. I've also again heard Ivan refer to them currently evaluating additional assets in what they call complimentary jurisdictions to combat I suppose that seasonal nature of uh exploration that in that part of Peru. So whether that is or isn't in North America or in South America is hopefully something that we can touch upon later on in the conversation. And of course permitting risks, community relations, infrastructure, financing, u partnerships, new projects and everything else in between hopefully later on in the conversation as well. But for this to actually become a conversation, I might have to shut up already and Ivan, I'll give you the word here. But first of all, thank you for sitting down with me today. Oh, thank you so much for having me. It's great to be here. The pleasure is mine. Um, and and I am looking forward to this this full conversation with this since this is your time first time on the barbecue. We'll have to go through the smell test first. Um, but just before we do that, actually, the focus clearly remains on Sombrero for you right now. And when I look at it or I still think and I and I just listen to you and I know you're very bullish on this project and the question pops up for me, but why given that the there's been over 8,000 mters of drilling hasn't delivered the discovery you might have hoped for on the first go. Why keep going at it? Yeah, because the discovery that is already there, we haven't expanded yet. So there's eight holes that have expanded the start of a big scar system which measures quite large. That was the fundamental third dimension that we were looking for. Where we did our 8,000 mters, it was in predominantly covered areas. They wasn't in the most preferential areas in terms of exposure. And subsequently, we just announced channel samples, you know, a lot of tens of meters of over a percent copper at another target called NEOH, which also is one of the most robust areas. Um, this is a massive system. We knew this early on. The thesis is that we're extending a world-class copper trend, copper gold trend in southern Peru. And some of it's exposed for erosion, other parts are not. Permits are tricky. If we could have drilled where we wanted to first, we would have drilled in these two prolific areas, but we wanted to get on the project and we didn't miss. We actually confirmed the big scar systems present. And if you're familiar with scarm millization, you can be 500 meters away and still be hitting the system geologically from the sweet spots. We have a a better handle on that. We think we're close. But as we resume drilling sometime next year, we'll be following up where these eight holes that hit are. And that'll give us a lot of the keys to how the system twists and turns back to where we were drilling. So money's not lost. Money was spent well. The biggest takeaway from us is the system's real. The biggest challenge we face is actually just timing of permits versus, you know, robust targets that have a lot of incredible grade or some past drill holes in them. Mhm. Well, you're touching upon very interesting stuff there. Permits, uh, drilling timing, the different targets that you have as well as how you rank them. Hopefully, all things that we'll touch upon later on in the conversation, but this sets the stage nicely. We will be back here in a couple of minutes to a lot of that. But I said, as I said, smell test first and uh, I'll be starting off with yourself as a CEO of the company. Who are you and why do you think you're the right man for the job? Yeah, so I've been in this business for 25 years. I started as a stock broker buying mining stocks during the dotcom era because I understood geology, took geology in high school, had a passion for it. I grew up in Vancouver where a lot of junior mining startups are. And when I read a book on Warren Buffett, I learned a lot about being a contrarian. Early days there, I was financing a gentleman by the name of Dr. Roman Schlanka who had found or been part of six major discoveries around the world and I learned a lot from him. I switched over from the brokerage side to the entrepreneurial side because I saw a lot more fun, a lot more focus. You would focus on your company versus 200 for clients and the reward was appealing if you found a gold mine. That was the ultimate dream, you know, to find a 5 million ounce gold mine. I went to Mongolia in my early 20s, 23, 24. I flipped some properties with some former clients, made my first pass financially there, and then uh was able to create Keegan Resources with a partner of mine, Sean Wallace, and we went to Ghana on our seventh project in a company that we started in Nevada with, ended up in Ghana with, and we found a 5.2 million ounce gold mine that's now producing quarter million ounces a year. The share price went from pennies to $9 a share to 920 million market cap at its peak. and now it's producing gold. As that company performed once it got to about $8 per share, it became a feasibility development story. That was not my interest at the time. I prefer finding it because that's the best way to get a return in this sector. So, I'm driven by discovery for the excitement of a of finding something new, but also the share price performance. And you get to get yourself involved socially from the very beginning and impact people even at the modest level before things become a mine. I left to go and spearhead Kaden. Kaden, we drilled a 100 holes in Mexico. We hit 100 holes in a row. This was the third asset of the company that we had. Ended up selling it to Agnico Eagle in 2014 for $25 million. If you had shares at the time, you got 360 per share. If you had shares of today, it's $20 per share, you know, about 10 years later after that transaction. So, we chose shares in that transaction. Agniko is an incredibly well-run company uh by Shawn Boyd leading that charge. Um I learned a lot from him in that transaction about a lot of their successes in everything I do in this business. It always teaches you something new. I I moved on to a Nevada project called Gold Standard where the North Darkhorse Discovery was was made and there was a great discovery Nevada company went from 50 cents to $4 did extremely well during its tenure and then uh formulated or resources with my partners from Kaden and Keegan and we went out raising over $100 million which I believe was one of the top exploration budgets in the world from 2015 through 2020 looking for tier one type of discoveries and that's where Capernicico's main asset saro came from as well as a silver opportunity in Peru in tier 1 silver and fury gold mines which has got committee bay and is the main flagship in Canada. So came to a flection point in co we thought today was yesterday meaning co that the market was starting uh thought it was prudent to split the company into three and segregate the investors to be gold, silver and copper focused. Um, there's a lot of reasons behind this, but ultimately we didn't have our social access in Peru at Sombrero. We kept ourselves private until we got it, which took a bit longer because of the co interruption. And the other two companies, they they traded above the highest value of Orin, which went off the board at 320 per share with 100 million shares out um in the first quarter of the following year. And then they proceeded to be victims of one of the worst commodity sectors for juniors that I've seen in my career of 25 years. And uh now we're we're turning the corner. Um what's really spirited me to persevere through all of that has been the scale and the opportunity for for tier one discoveries across each company. And I've written checks, you know, a lot into Orin. I wrote them into each of these companies. And I've stuck with them. I stuck with them to try and see that that big discovery. And now we have a backdrop that can make up for a bit of the delilution that we've endured. But we have the assets. And the one thing I've learned that's a massive takeaway from this sector, it's not about money and share price and performance as much as it's about the asset. Assets first, people are second, and then the rest falls into place. Um, I'm not looking for a 3 or 4 million ounce gold discovery equivalent. I'm looking for a 30 million ounce gold discovery equivalent. And I've learned that journey is a lot longer and harder. And those challenges are out there for a reason. Those big ones are tough to find. But I've seen other companies such as Felo Mining, which was year 23 before they hit that big hole and took off to $35, $40 per share, got bought by BHP. You know, a lot of the big discoveries seem like they happen overnight, but there's decades behind them. So, I don't feel special for how much time I've I've waited. Um, the first stock I ever bought was in 1995. Got a car accident in high school, and my dad was pretty close with Robert Freedelland at the time. There was a company called African Minerals, which is the Ivanho today. It took 17.5 years to go public and become where it is, you know, to to get to market. And when it went public, you know, it gone from as high as $4 privately. It opened and went to 50. I bought more shares right there right away. I sold early, unfortunately, to do other business. But I've seen what time takes on on great assets and what it can achieve in the long term. Um, my passion is exploration. My goal is scale and the teams I've had the luxury of working with have made me better at what I do and they're a massive part of of the successes I have going forward. But I've had a chance to work with some incredibly smart people along the way. Do you currently spend any time running any of the other companies like Tier One or or Torque or or any of the other names that you're you're also you know they're your sister companies. Are you involved in them? Do you spend any time running those? Yeah. So, well, tier one, I'm the the chair of the company. Uh, Peter Debbiki is the CEO. Um, he's been short of a market, but he's been a great CEO. Has a lot of energy, a lot of capability, extremely marketable, and is a great asset. Um, I've helped with support him in terms of the finances needed and navigate some tough times, but I don't overstep there much. My day job is Capernico full-time on Torque. Um, they were in a flection point, needed help with a raise. I helped them there. I am a major shareholder of that company and I love the asset. I love the deal with Goldfields that they've done. I think there's a lot of value to come out of that. So, I help but I don't run the day-to-day there either. So, I've I've taken a big step back on other companies I'm involved in. I come in as needed when needed, but my focus is 100% Capernico is my main focus. At Capernico, you're noted as 3.7% of the company. What's the average cost that you've paid for those shares? You said you've been you've been essentially bank roll crawling the company financings as well and so on. So yeah, what's uh what's your average cost? Yeah. So it's it's a little difficult to tell because I put over 5 million into Orin and I bought it from a dollar to $4 per share, just under $4 per share. That's where my cost base came for the majority of my position. My average cost on Orin was over a$16 per share. And when we split the companies, I bought another million dollars worth of Fury Tier One and of uh Capernico. I've um I believe I put another two to 300,000 into Capernico since we spawn it out. Somewhere in that range. I don't have the exact number. And so I don't really have a set cost base. I know it's high because of where things are at. I mean, if tier one takes off, then my cost is zero. If Fury takes off, my cost is zero. So it's it's a it's a split process in terms of how that works. I could give it 3040 cents per company and divide it equally. But as far as I go, I'm motivated more by how much it could be worth and the size of my current position of what it is. Um, the money is there enough that it it certainly matters to me of what I put in. Um, you know, the more money I make in this industry, the more money I tend to put back into it. And I'm I've got a unhealthy ambition for discovery. So, I'm always going to keep writing checks. If I do get liquidity on any other ventures, I'll become a much larger Capernico shareholder going forward. that's based off of the geology, the opportunity, and some strategy we have uh potentially in the near term. That's more or less exactly what I'm looking for asking here because especially with people who have had pre previous successes as yourself have done well financially. How do I know you're you're incentivized enough? Because I mean, you're saying five to six million bucks a year you've put into into into these these companies essentially. That's a whole lot of money for me. Um is it financially important to yourself is kind of what I'm wondering here. Yeah, after the last 3 years, it's tremendously more important because my portfolio has done what everyone else has done. Um, you know, money's worth more the longer you wait for something to work out. And, you know, I don't measure it differently, but it's it's top of list for me. It it's life-changing if it works out. Um, I have a large position and I have a goal to get into multi-billion dollar double digits with the company, and that would be significant. Um, there's a lot of luck and risk behind these swings that I take and the bigger the swing, the bigger reward you can get. And we're in a perfect backdrop for a market. But hypothetically, if I did have a big win in one of the other companies I'm involved in, I would double, triple, quadruple my position into Capernico, I would buy every share I could underneath the 50 cent price or beyond if the market is if that geology is working with it. Um, no shortage of passion and desire to own more, just shortage of liquidity, full disclosure, at the moment. But to put things in context, you know, a lot of people trade the space. I don't I'm in long-term vision, long-term investor. But if I do have more wins right now, I' i'd rather buy more Capernico than buying other fixed assets that wouldn't return because I believe it's really going to give here in the end. The rest of the insider ownership is is on the lower end. I think it's one and a half 1.6% though. Is that something you you have the ability to incentivize for? and and and you know are other insiders planning to be supporting the stock in the open market or how do you how do you grow the skin in the game essentially here is what I'm asking. Yeah. So so some of the the board members come from major mining companies as you know they don't pay huge rewards like a discovery would offer. Um other people you know lawyers CFOs different backgrounds. Um I'm not too worried about it. There is definitely a lot of support. We've been in a few tough spots where we were short cash where we were raising money and directors have stepped up to put up the money for it. There's no shortage of dedication and commitment to the company. But, um, as far as that, I'm I'm more interested to pick the brains of some of the people I work with to strategize, deliver the best results. In in my view, marketwide, the CEO should have the most skin in the game. Your board can change from time to time. Your management team can change from time to time, but the CEO is the one that's got to pull it all together and make it work. So, in terms of me, I mean, if they had the big financial windfalls or the cap extra capital, would they step into it? I wouldn't doubt that they would. I've seen them invest before, but that's that's the perspective there. Well, talking about other insiders, um, and incentives here is essentially where I want to go with this. I I I believe that's one of the most important concepts in finance. Uh, do you personally or any of of the other insiders again personally own a royalty on any of the projects? No. No. The projects are all fully owned by the company independent of any conflicting ownership with the insiders. Got it. No royalties at all on the projects, previous owners or anything? Small royalty to Asetakipa who owns the Furaso and Neo concessions. Um, that's an 8020 joint venture after if they don't participate, it would scale back natural dilution to a typical royalty there. That's the only one that could occur if we did not collaborate and merge at some point down the road which we might consider you know all things are on the table. Still on the same topic still within our smell test here and still talking about incentives um and specifically 2025 incentives maybe how are you going to measure success internally and and why I'm asking that is because I'm I want to better understand how executive and director compensation is going to be determined to reflect that potential success. How do you measure? What are the KPIs? What are you looking for? Sure. So, so I'll start off with myself, then I'll work through my team. Um, I haven't taken a bonus at all with Capernico period. And I'm not looking for any bonus. I've not increased my salary. I've not added asked for any more stock options. And we've been able to solve the communities, bring it online, drill, do a lot of lot of huge milestones and achieve those. I've compensated my team instead. Um, not because I don't deserve it. and know at some point if the company's successful via share price then I would look to get some renumeration from that but what I've done is I put my team first I believe I'm the four third or fourth highest paid person in my company I put a lot of value on both my geologist my Peruvian counterpart Christian Rios and my CFO before I put it on myself um I need the best team I can possibly have the day-to-day toughest parts of the job and they deserve to get the respect from that I have had some good financial potential windfalls, I don't need it as much and I'll write more checks to the company, buy more shares. But at some point, my biggest return is going to be actually from my share price performance if things work out. And that's where I've measured myself. So, as far as 2025 goes, um, we had a mandate to drill a lot of holes successfully. We've been under budget the entire year. Um, we've made some adjustments along the way that support that, but we have not gone over budget with Capernico as of yet. Um, we are scaling up marketing a bit here in the fourth quarter. That's the one place we might spend a bit more because the market's improving and we have a lot of catalysts and a strategy that we want to go and employ. We are looking to add a couple assets to the company. Um, had a lot of success with the portfolio approach. Each of the companies I've been part of has always had more than one asset. Um, that mitigates permit delays, time delays, commodity risk sometimes, uh, or geopolitical stability, you know, concerns and issues that can come up as well. We've chosen the US. We have reviewed and intently at about 67 projects and we've narrowed down to a few that that are top of top of list. Um, one is pure gold. The other one is gold and copper, copper and gold. And um, they both would measure in comparison to sombrero by scale multicolometer targets tier one kind of look analogs of of of you know major potential systems. and they would have multi-targets, meaning you couldn't kill them with one drill program. Um, we're looking at doing things with favorable timing in those two commodities, as you've seen, Newmont, Bareric, Aguo, I believe, now is venturing a bit into copper. The perfect blend that I've learned and studied and kind of realizing is gold and copper. Gold for sizzle, stock, uh, copper for stake. Sometimes you get both with gold or copper if you have grade on either side. But um you know it's it's it's time to be a bit more aggressive with the plan because the market's there to support it and if we start to create value as you've seen in several companies with dual results lately you can get paid for it. Um again my biggest concern as a CEO is not the marketplace and not never was. It's always the asset. Do I have the right asset? do I have a big enough asset that could pay people for the time and give us that reward that I'm shooting for, which is the double digits, you know, in a multi-billion dollar market cap. And that's what I've been trying to line the company with with our team. So, the KPIs in 2025 was to identify and acquire some of these projects. And we're in the final quarter hoping to get some of these deals done in the next four months. This might actually be a good segue into talking specifically about the business plan here, Ivan. Going back to some of the things you said at the beginning. What's the what are the objectives here? I mean optimize for Peru discovery and then potentially again that transaction um a transaction there if there is a discovery or would you want to build out a portfolio of projects that you'd then be able to either again transact one by one or just option them out or something else entirely? What's the what's your what's your business dream I suppose for Capernico? So there's a lot of optionality when you make a discovery. Should you make the discovery, right? And there's an optionality in value and how big you get and what you do next. Not every discovery, Keegan, we found over five million ounces. That used to be the benchmark for a sale. We had to build it. It was never sold. And Kaden, we drilled a 100 holes and we sold it. There was a flection point in the geology where you make the decision or the project makes the decision for you what's the best path to take. Um, I've learned of when to sell it, how to sell it, and what stage you're being too greedy and you should take the check or what stage you need to get it to and how to do it intelligently so that it's a marketable asset for the next person to buy it. So, transactionability is certainly there and we are transactional on the flip side. Let's, you know, you can't guarantee a sale even if you find it, right? So, then you have to look at what do I do if I get to $12 a share and I am a three or four billion market cap company. um you need to grow and how do you grow? Where do you grow? So, we've been developing the pipeline of growth which you'll see here in the next six months come to fruition which will give us a pipeline of things that could also grow further and create something bigger on the bigger scale that may attract better buyers or may give us the the currency and the ability to transform ourselves into a developer as well as an explorer. the the perfect goal would be if you were not able to sell your Discovery at a at a significant share price return to a major mining company that's going to mine it, it would be to merge or convert into a producing company that's self financable and has one of the best premier exploration pipelines in the world. Either way, how do we create the best value for shareholders? What is the best way to the best share price? Um, my ego is my share price and if it can perform well, then I'm extremely happy. Um, the communities we impact come before that because whether we find it or not, they're going to be affected by our presence for many decades to come. So, we put communities first. The discoveries there, great. But what what gives us the best share price? Um, as far as fuel in the tank, I'm 48 years old and I feel like I'm just at the beginning of my career. I feel like the next 20 years will be my legacy where I get a chance to take massive swings and some massive projects. And if you look back on your career and you ask yourself, why did I have all this success? I've had multiple things that have worked out. It's so I could attract extremely great people and great assets that I could take and monetize going forward. What do I do with them? There's enough buyers out there for highquality copper assets andor gold assets in the world. as a time where discovery is becoming more challenging. No shortage of capital, just a lot of the easy ones have been found. And going forward, I think you're going to see a perpetual performance in the mining sector. Even though it's cyclical, we're going to have a pretty good ride here in the next 5 to 10 years that I don't think ever goes away because technolog is asking for more copper and copper grades are going down. A lot of gold mines, the big ones, have been found. A lot of pits are getting deep across all commodities and and there's more people on the planet. very important there that there very important point there that there's a lot of buyers for good assets. I will get to that point but I do want to talk about sombrero here first and and then I'll ask you about what else uh you can tell me about the the other plans but what would an asset have to look like from a grade and tonnage perspective in that part of Peru in order for it to be of interest to a potential buyer in this again in this setting. Yeah. Well, Sombrero specifically is blessed with exceptional infrastructure. There's mine power arguably over top of the property, high tensil power lines. There's multiple sources of water. You access the property on a road, like a paved road, and it's very moderate terrain at only 3,900 m elevation. I start with infrastructure because that will determine what your grade meets. You can have all the grade in the world. If you're way out there and you don't have any power, water, roads, the cost, economics are not going to work. In this case, it actually is one of the best parts of the project is that second part is it would be multiple pits over time, not one big earth cranial event. So, socially you have a better chance of building something multiple different deposits much like Los Bombas. It's three different pits that make it up. It's not one one will pay for the other two and it's a very very profitable mining environment to get into. Uh number three, the grade is is king and somber has the potential for incredibly good grades. So that's going to reduce the amount of rock you have to move. If we found half a billion tons of 1% copper, that would be an incredible achievement. That is extremely rare anywhere in the world. Right now, no one's finding that. A billion tons of half a percent still a very good number. You know, we like to think we're going to be in the.5 to 1.5% copper based on our targeting and what scars can deliver. That's our range that we're considering. Um, we are barely scratching the edges of this system and we're not even in the sweet parts of it yet. There's a lot to be discovered, a lot to figure out. But one thing that we've gotten for feedback from a lot of geologists that have been to site majors and everything else is the grade endowment is extremely impressive. Um, finding consecutive grade endowment consistently. It's just going to be a very dil drill intensive project to do that. But scars scars which is the big bulk of the first part of our targeting system is predominantly carries that plus 1% grade around the world. They're some of the richest deposits that you can have which is really really encouraging. Porefree we do have pfrey targets. All we know about the porefree target it runs 20 m of 6 on top of it you know and a big big sea of pyite. There's a bit of copper right there. It's an epiothermal telescoping system into to base metal. And so you find a 6% copper head grade of pfio that would be outstanding as well. We are chasing grade is king half a billion to 1% or better. This could deliver multi-billion tons of.5 over time if you were to average it all out. It does run analog to loss bombas and several of the other mines next door. And there's about 12 different targets that exist currently within the land package that we have of about 53,000 hectares. And so it's it's big and everything there is big. The only thing missing is the drill holes in the grade to confirm what I'm saying. But but that's what we're shooting for. We're shooting for multi-billion tons of.5 or better. Uh specifically half a billion tons of 1% if we can in the early early innings of drilling. Um Furaso and Neoch definitely meet that threshold with exposure, but there's going to be a lot of hidden discoveries that we're going to learn more about as we drill some of these more exposed ones here in the next round of drilling. The only thing missing is the drill holes and the grade is actually an important caveat there because you do compare this to the last bombas and and and I promised I'm going to ask about it. So I'm going to ask about it. Where does that where does that comparison come from? I mean where are you seeing that already given that those drill holes have not have not delivered you know the last bombas comparison still. Yeah. So so Las Bombas was a lot of drill holes. It's it's a very large system but it was outcropping. it was not covered predominally by volcanics. We can measure the scale of the intrusions uh from surface through even though there's cover the cover layer that we're dealing with is 5 to 40 m thick in most places which is just enough to be too difficult to dig you know you can't dr dig a 5 m trench down that would be pretty aggressive to get to it. Um as we drilled what we drilled we were vectoring towards those sweeter parts of the system. If you take a section of lost bombas and you look at what they hit in terms of smoke before they got into the actual system, it's identical to what we've drilled so far. So, it's just a matter of where we are in the system. Is it leaning this way? Does it twist this way? Were you drilling over here? You know, there's a lot of variabilities in scarns and they're they're they're known to be difficult to find. So, we have a predominantly buried scar system except for Furasso and Neoch. If we drilled, you take the holes that were drilled over at Furaso. Historically, the eight holes, there's some incredible intercepts that fit well within Lost Bombas. Our our smoke that we drilled in the first 8,000 mters, it fits right into the Lost Bombas drill plan of what you've seen, and what they've done in their highlights. If you look at their plan view and look around the Scarn, one area has all the grade. The other areas are just smoke and sporadic. So, we're seeing so many comparables there. Scale, the same rock formed at the same mineralizing event, which is eosene event. um we're seeing everything that's matching from that perspective. We just don't have the drill holes and the best parts, the sweet spots yet. We don't know under what's buried of if that's eventually going to give, but we can tell that we're we're in the system vectoring towards it. So, this will take this will take a lot of drilling and and going back to our strategy to add an asset or two that could deliver a lot of value in the meantime. share price performance becomes more anti-dilutive gives us access to more capital. If we had it our way and permits were not a factor, we probably would have had five drills going right out the gate and we would have drilled everything at once and we would be Swiss cheesing Furaso and Neoch and a few other areas that we don't have access to yet cuz there is that kind of mineralization sitting there and anyone who's seen it would would would know that well like you can walk across copper for a few kilometers on the property and still be on on it, right? Just we can't drill it yet. Other people ha have looked at somber before if I understand correctly. Why why haven't some of the previous oper I believe a couple of groups have looked at it over the years and then orin resampled the core again in 2019 I think well but before that why didn't anybody move this forward or or discover it was it was it always a permits issue or or the cover a combination of all social challenge in the 80s there was an event that took place here with the shining path and this was a very social nogo area um asos came in there in 2000 and they were able to drill 2013 and they were they were extracting iron from a small area in Faso small pit. They they did then they stopped because they visually saw copper in the drill holes which we later assay those majors had come through the region. Um you have to go back and look at the cycles of the sector. You have to look at the grades or the price of copper at 59 cents in 2000 you know back then and you have to look at this from that perspective. Um there was a perception that this was leakage uh by some of the majors that had been here previously. the 230 m or 0.5% copper at furaso on surface or some of the other channel samples we've done 100 plus meters 1% what have you they're definitely not leakage it's widespread mineralization so we've we've debased or beat that that speculation right um what's happened since we've had numerous CAS we've had a very competitive corporate investing environment into the company you know which tech took at 50 cents last year on the IPO we raised 19 million or the the listing financing And we've met with several other majors since our last results came out. And there's some majors that like Somber better today after the first 8,000 m cuz we've actually confirmed the presence of a real scar system that's mineralized with copper in it. Right. No, we didn't hit the big holes that are going to get the market going obvious factors, but we're definitely the system. Yes or no? It's yes, it's there. So, it's in that point of what's the key magic to unlock the system. We think the drilling that we do at Furaso as we drill down dip and follow that mineralization and expand that discovery as we come down and go in towards the area where we drill it's going to give us a massive amount of information that's going to quantify a lot of our geoysics and and geocchemistry work we've done today and it'll give us a lot of orientation on the geometry which is the hardest part of figuring out a scar system. Well, how are the community and relationships there now though? How does Yeah. How's everything going? I know you've reported some some channel samples recently from a part of from another part of the project essentially. Yeah. Can you go and drill there or do you still have to talk to the guys at site? No, no. So, um we're working on our community access agreement there. It's halfway through and so we're just working to complete that. Um in the last 12 months, we've provided 100 jobs in the area predominantly with the main community Wasenkos where we do have a drill access agreement. Um, we do that plus we're doing agradas, which is where we sponsor programs that are funded by the government and the community to bring in agriculture at that elevation, 3,900 meters. There was a big iron shortage in people's diets. Before we got on this interview, we talked about some of our supplements and things we take to be healthy, but it was it was a notable factor. And so, we brought in French cows, Australian lambs, fish farms, ways to reproduce their meat. and we were able to to be the first people to do this in South America at the scale that we did it at and involve the government. So that collaboration is it's not only really important for for the communities, but it's important for us, it'll exceed well beyond it and it changes the dynamic both with the government and permitting as well as it does with the locals. Um the new areas obviously the communities we're we're not working in yet they have monitored we have sensitized them to what we do what is exploration to us to you and I we might know it's very straightforward but when you go to these communities in the Andes that don't know what anything about exploration geology so we would take these guys to show this is a drill rig this is what we're doing with drilling this is how we reclaim it back to what it was and there's a lot of first-time education there that's going on. So, we've been educating. We've been preparing this this whole region for a lot more expansion and exploration over time. There's been financial benefit from a community access agreement. There's been agricultural benefit for them and there's been jobs. And so, that's what the new communities looking at really want is to see more of what happened in the first one, which will continue. And so our presence has been more valuable to them so far than it has been to our shareholders in terms of share price performance, but it will catch up because we'll be able to get access to these best areas here going forward as we advance our permits. Well, on the topic of supplements, I do take copper and zinc, so I wouldn't mind if you find a big discovery. It's going to lower my cost of my supplements there at least. Um, do how long before you get those permits, though? How long is it going to take you? What's an average thing? I think you did it with what did it take you first time? Six months or something like that? Yeah. So, so six months from filing was roughly what it took. There's a lot of prep work. We just announced that we completed an amended agreement with Aettos, which has Furaso and Neoch. That's our 8020 joint venture that becomes an 8020. Um, they had some reclamation from the iron extraction they did. We took on that reclamation and now we are just filing the paperwork to get the the bigger permit in for 200 pads in the area that includes Furaso. As far as NEOK goes, that's uh it's a different permit we're applying for to try and get through there once we get community access. So, I don't want to put a time frame on it because we've got incredible rapport. This is an expanding permit story in a region where we've got permits. So, there's a lot of optimism that our time threshold could be reasonable, but there's a lot of it that's out of our control. And to be completely honest and maintain all credibility, we're going as fast as we possibly can, but we are at the mercy of the government. We're at the mercy of the permitting agencies and we're at the respect and mercy of the communities. Everyone benefits if we move our port permits forward, especially the communities, and that's what's important to us. So, I think the more the more accurate time frame I'd be able to give would be in about 30 to 60 days from now, I'd be able to give you a better sense of timing. Hoping for sometime in the first half of next year to have a drill in hand drilling on the project. Could that be end of first quarter? That could that be end of second quarter? Either one is possible. There's a lot of variance out of our control. We're not going to stamp the date at this time. We're just going to keep going at as fast as we can. That's respectful to all parties involved. You did initially permit 49 holes if I'm not mistaken. So you've got 29 left that you can go and drill. So So irrespective of whether you get the other targets permitted, are you still going to drill those 29 holes? No. Uh the decision there is we could and we could keep speculating, but if we don't hit and we're still vectoring in what we've learned in the first round is our polygon actually limits us to where we really want to drill. So we're not a big fan to drill because of drilling. We stopped drilling after those 20 holes that we did because we want to preserve cash and be in a position to come back and hit the the most obvious parts of the system so we didn't hurt the project or hurt our abilities to finance. Right? So what we did take away though was a lot of our permitting our polygon where we could drill was right on the edge and we were as we got closer towards it those areas would get more and more prolific with the mineralization was increasing everything was improving we're just we can't drill across that so we're going to wait um I'd rather wait with cash on hand than spend it for the sake of spending it and that's you know kind of how I treat my own finances and how I think you should wait till you can drill the best parts of the system and the first crack was worth it because we needed to know if the system was there and maybe we could hit those parts. Once we saw that they're vectoring out of our polygon or where we're allowed to drill, we paused and now we have cash until uh July of next year. Wait with cash on hand until you spend it is kind of a good lesson. I feel like I should call in my wife so you can tell her that as well. I think she might benefit from hear I will benefit from her hearing that. Um, you have Tippy Kanchcha, uh, Fiato, Corales, Goodlucky, Neo, a couple of other things in between. How do you rank them? What's what's the highest ranked target right now for you? H, well, I don't know which is the best target, but the most pronounced target is Faso and Neo because they have the most exposure. Um, anything can happen. A lot of it's covered, as I mentioned, you can see it in some of our photos in our slide deck. So the big one could be Tippica, could be on to PMPA, it could be uh cello down south south, you know, we don't know. We just know we have indications that these are potentially massive targets. What we kind of categorize them as all we can do right now like to be conscious 3 km long. We know that the scale there is is substantial if it's mineralized and that's all we know with a little bit of mineralization on one part of the system. We do see evidence small little windows but we're more interested in could that be a multicometer long strike length you know length of deposit or is it only 200 m you know on a signature if you look at Neoch which is incredible target it's 1.8 by 14 1.4 4 km. That's a squared kind of look of the target. We've channeled a small part of that. We haven't trenched it there yet. There's a lot of other areas to channel where you can see outcropping mineralization and that sits on top of like a cone of geohysical signals that are coming up and that goes down from surface at least 700 m to what you could read intelligently with the geohysical survey mag and IP that we have on the target. But that gives us depth. It gives us a lot of minimalization on top of a very strong signal. signal doesn't mean you have copper and gold all the way down. It just means you have sulfides and sulfides are generally what carries the root of the grade. Sulfides can be pyite. Sulfides can be other other elements can occur as well. But the fact that we have so much copper and gold on surface, it gives us a lot of confidence that that could be sulfide rich with the mineralization we're looking for. Well, having gone through that permitting process before with the 49 holes, what's the probability we do actually see drilled next year? I think it's very high, extremely high. Um, everything's moving in the right direction to be drilling everything we want to drill next year. It's a general statement because there's 12 months of the year, but um, yeah, everything's going well. There is an election in Peru next year. Uh, Dina Bert's done a an incredible job uh, since Castillo has left and keeping things in good order and a good thing. I I think that Peru follows a lot of the US politics as many countries do, right or left. We've noticed it. I mean, there's been a lot of presidents through Peru since we've been there, about six or seven. And the stability and the desire to expand the mining, ease of permitting, and advancement of mining projects. It generally performs well with commodity prices. More pressure, the higher prices go. everything's working in the favor for things to to potentially get better in my view. Right. And and so if we talk about what's the what's the biggest challenge or the the highest potential risk here for for the project or for Capernica as a whole between now and then then that's just what permits and and potential slowdowns or how do you see that? Yeah. So well on any project in the world it's always going to be your social relationship. We have not had an incident a safety incident since we've been there. We got there late 2015 and we're very proud of that. So we're we're very safe with how we operate there and we're doing exploration which is generally safer. That's number one. Uh number two, we've lived in the communities for almost a decade about 9 years and so we've gotten to know the people very well. They've gotten to know us well. Um we listen before we speak and we try to compliment them in whichever ways make the most sense to be very balanced and fair. um we have every desire to help them in many ways that we can and make things better and they know our intentions are on us because we have almost a decade long track record of doing that. So we've lived to our word. Um we've set a bar for the region which I heard other majors are coming in and they're getting told you got to go do what Somber's done here in terms of how we've worked our way. They got to know us and everything else. We're very proud of that in the sense that they like us enough to want us to be there. And so social is a risk but we mitigate that with history with uh good history with the community with track record. And then the next one would be geopolitics. And for Peru to derail and its mining we've seen extreme left presidents and right we've seen both and we've not seen mining stop in Peru since we've been there for about a decade. So I I I counter that as low. But again, our strategy is to expand ourselves into a more geopolitically favorable environment just in case we need to mitigate. What if something unforeseen went wrong, anything could happen, we want to have a reason to perform for our shareholders at any given time. What is the ownership situation there exactly? Or more specifically, because I I do see that some concession payments are stacking up on your balance sheet as mentioned earlier. What's going on with those payments and what is the what's the what's the ownership situation entail here? Yeah, the only one of consequence would be the Aseros one. We own everything else. There's some small claims that are not that priority arise. They're under force measure at the moment. So, they're stacking, but they're in pause. They're not big enough to intimidate us. Even the Aseros payments are not big enough either. They're all reasonable in the world of what we're going for and what we might be able to achieve. Um we've extended the aseros agreement through 2029. So we've got a lot more time before we need to complete our balance of expenditures. If we don't get access, we can rely on force measure. So it's it's very fair. It's not there's no option underlying options here that are going to be punitive to the company in a delutionary basis. We had 150,000 hectares. We scaled back to 100. Now we're at about 50. We're at or 53. We're adding a few thousand hectares. We did find another very encouraging outcrop in the district that we had not seen before. So, we're staking some smaller claims on some very robust new targets. So, we'll end up with about 60,000 hectares, but that brings down our half million spent to about $450,000 a year. So, we're being very efficient and disciplined with our land position. uh next June, which is the the month that you have to redo your claims each month or you have to pay them each year, renew them. Um we will be likely considering optimizing our position one more time. It's not about how much land you have, it's about having the right land. That's our MO on it. And we're just making sure we have the best that we can in the region and we don't carry a lot of land for the sake of being big land holders because that wouldn't be a good use of our capital. Mhm. You said that infrastructure, you said that there's roads and and power, potentially mining power there. You you mentioned as well. So, so large lines essentially that that you have there. What about water? How's the water infrastructure? How how are the water rights in in in the communities and also just in general in that part of Peru? Yeah, there's multiple water sources nearby. We've had no issue getting water for drilling. um we can pump it to our actual drill or we can truck at a very short distance. So the water accessibility is great. Um in a in a commercial mining scenario, there is water nearby that could accommodate that, but that would become an agreement that we would have to develop with the communities. And as far as the water in this part of Peru and different parts of our our large land position, what we have, we've seen water that's contaminated with natural exposed, you know, sulfides, arsenic, and mercury, other metals. And so in exploration, I had this discussion with someone today was in a lot of areas, even in the US, in Durango, Colorado, there's the Animus River. You can't eat fish out of it because there's runoff from the rocks that are very mineralized. You know, there's a lot of times mining will provide a cleaner discharge water than exists currently from a lot of sulfide rock with arsenic or, you know, other delterious elements in them. So in the case of Peru here, there's multiple sources. We don't think there'd be any issue in a mining scenario and there's plenty for the communities, plenty for the agriculture which we support, we're encouraging, and plenty for a mining scenario. We can we can thumb suck or speculate on at this point that it's not going to be an issue, but as of right now, we're pumping water for the most part when we drill. I have um a magic credit card question here for you. It's something that I often ask, but if I gave you a a credit card and and it had a very specific limit to it, but the only condition is that you have to deliver a discovery of of economic value for that budget. How much bud budget would you ask for on that credit card? Oh, how much to spend to deliver the the market known discovery for it? Um, I would put my drills on Furaso and Neoch where we're going to put them next. And I think we could do it for to be a notable one. I'm not I'm not going to go through feasibility. I'm going to go through market performance awareness. It's an obvious discovery. I'd say probably need about five or six million US. That would be it. How much do you have right now? We have about 4.5 Canadian. So, we don't have money to drill that. Um, we have warrants at 30 cents. There's 4.5 million in warrants. Um, been offered a lot of financings down here. uh not interested, don't have to. Um between now and when we say the f-word again, you'll likely see a couple acquisitions, so a pretty significant buildout to the portfolio. Not because these things are going to be cast cost punitive, but they're going to give a lot more optionality to the investors to participate in this rising commodity market. Um you're going to see me on the road a lot more, which has just started here on the back of Beaver Creek. I'm gone for the next two weeks in Europe, back to the US marketing, back to Europe marketing, and that's going to be talking about various catalysts that are not out there yet, but some that are in motion. A lot more surface sample staging, you know, and and when you cut channels like we did with a rock saw across rock that's sticking out of the ground, that's that's what we did. That's that's pretty significant, you know, versus just taking rock that's floating on top of a target. So this is actually rocksaw cut, but we're going to get a chance to to get a lot more data like that from some of the more targets and stage the company properly. Commodity price copper's I think was 460 spot a pound this morning. It's going in the right direction. So we're going to be in the final countdown of permits likely see an acquisition or two. um modest impact financially but make us much more marketable tick down geopolitical risk permitting risk and put us with a drill in our hands at the latest end of this year early next year whether we're drilling north or south and eventually drilling both um goal would be to become a drill discovery company in this commodity bull run and that's going to take capital but I've been offered a lot more than we need to reveal the discovery at this stage just not ready to do it at this time got to create some value back in the share price and that comes comes from surface work, that comes from permit advancements, and it comes from potential acquisitions. What is modest influence on on your financial position, though? How much money would you be looking to put toward a new project? And and I assume it'd be a combination of of equity and and cash, but yeah, what are you looking to spend on it? I I can't really say right now because I'm in the middle of it, and so I don't want to work against me or for me, but um enough that I wouldn't need to do a financing right now. but but not enough to to put the company where it needs money overnight. Generally, you you gen we generally would need money to go drilling anywhere. There'd be a natural progression to go do that, but we're we're not far off those warrants that are in the money. They're held with some great shareholders. And if the business plan makes sense and we're scaling up and exercising those warrants put us in a position to pull out a drill and start drilling while we wait for permits, that would be I think would be a very marketable event that would be received well from the mark. Outside of that, there is a lot of interest in one one ownership announcement. I just want to clarify Newmont actually owns 6% of the company. Um, we thought they they' sold some, but they they have 6%. I clarified that at Beaver Creek and and they're happy to be be there with it because u they've obviously got the the newest team cuz they took over Newrest, which is quite well familiar with copper and so everyone's paying attention. It's a gold copper system, so it works both sides of the tape. It works for base metal and precious metal explorers. What What do they really want for you though? Because because it's Tech and Pneumont that you have. What did What What did you tell them first to get them over the line? What do they want for you? Tech is at 9.9. So, talk to me about Yeah. sort of the decision for them behind behind doing this in the first place. Yeah. So, so New Pneumont took over Gold Corp, who gave Orin $37 million in a financing that we did with them when we made that mad push up at Committee Bay and try to go make the big gold discovery when Gold Corp was trying to find a big growth growth angle for themselves. And so, they inherited the position and took a while for them to get into it technically and then um they finally did and they now have a copper lens as well as a gold lens. So they can see the potential and it's quite obvious at Sombrero tech was there in 2018 in 2019 and they went to the project back then. So they became very familiar with it early and once it came to communities and permits they were ready to invest and that's what what brought them over the line. But in both cases the project brought them in and it wasn't us. There was no magic meeting. There was no sales pitch that you can do and and this is something important to take away even on my companies I'm involved in. I'm involved in five public companies and four of the companies I'm involved in have corporate investors or corporate partners and that's a real testament to the quality of projects we go for. Right. Um that's not an easy thing to achieve. It's not done by being good at putting together a story and having potential. It's done by having the right assets, quality assets that could move the needle for bigger companies. And that's something I'm extremely proud of in my career. H do they get a any kind of roofer or anything else related to uh yeah the structure I guess yeah straight equity investments I mean pneumont doesn't have rights but they have a position because they inherited one their rights stayed with uh Fury and so they don't and then as far as tech goes if a JV ever gets formed if we bring in a partner they would have a roofer on a JV but it's anyone else can buy they have the right to match equity wise and maintain their 9.9% Um there is interest out there right now from other corporates. It's just we don't need money today and what's the point? We don't like our share price and we think we can create a lot more value between now and we say the the financing word again. Would you though? Would you go for an asset level deal um a JV or anything else of the sorts? No. that that would be not this stage um to raise another 10 or 20 million which would really unlock a lot of value beyond the five that I mentioned. It would um it's it's well within our cards. We would like to drill 60 holes in this project before we even entertain a partnership. That was kind of our speculation based on a handful of our targets that we will get access to in the next 18 months. And so from that basis that will give us the full determination of where we would make that decision. And if things are performing well and our share price and our treasury is really strong then there's no rush. Um we're really happy to take on the expiration risk because we feel it's extremely low in some of our targets and extremely mysterious in our other ones and there's a lot of value that could be achieved here in the next 18 24 months. How much money are you going to spend in the meantime on on GNA? You said you want to ramp up marketing a little bit. I came out at 260 Canadian on average per month as to what you spend on GNA in total. So 260,000 for the last reported 6 months. Where do you want to take it? What's kind of an upper limit for you for GNA? Well, I mean uh first off like the infrastructure in Peru is not cheap. Like to carry that project and to operate in multi-jurisdiction does have a cost to it. Um I don't have a large salary. Like I said, I'm third or fourth paid person in the company and so we don't have a big overhead. We do not have an office in Vancouver, but we do trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange and we're obviously US listed as well. So, there is a certain admin that's quite heavy with the Canadian exchanges that we have to adhere to. That's one part. Um, I'm a big fan of spending money on marketing if it's working and if you're doing things to move the company forward because that will bring down the nominal increase in your marketing budget and give you access to more capital at better prices going forward. Again, I'm a shareholder first and I'm a CEO second. So, whatever will get the share price to the next level. From that perspective, um, nothing egregious. I don't do these egregious marketing campaigns. I don't pay people, you know, huge amounts to flash promote us or do that stuff. I believe in brick and mortar. Shake hands if you can as much in person and just explain to people the the multi levels that you could perform and give them a scope of the scale of what you're really going after. What I think is really been missed by the global investment community and recognized by some but not by all is how rare somber is to have those kind of grades and the scale of these targets. Um to have multi- targets like this, a pipeline of it. A lot of people ask me how I pvered that persevered this long with Sombrero and I'm saying in the back of Beaver Creek and few of these conferences. Every time I sit down with a major that's learned about the project, their reaction is what drives me to keep fighting and keep staying and keep going. And that's really important because that's an unbiased testament from somebody that generally doesn't own any shares and they have a much deeper technical reach to understand your project. Um, so that's something that's really driven me and the team to keep going because we see it that way, but our Kool-Aid can always have vodka in it. You know, as they say, you can spike your own Kool-Aid, you won't taste it. But, um, when you see it on across the table from potential end suitors and you get the amount of activity we've gotten, it makes it worthwhile and it gives you an extra step to go and persevere against all markets, which we've done. my my copper and zinc supplement doesn't go well with vodka, so I just do clean Kool-Aid. That that treats me best when I'm doing interviews late at night like now. But uh what are you what what are you marketing though when you go out there? I mean, you you because you do the essentially the best targets you have, you don't have proof that you're going to be able to drill them next year, even though you want and you assume that you are. So, how do you make sure it's not promotion without proof essentially? What what do you market when you go out there and you talk to these people? negotiate their hands in real life. Well, well, first off, not a lot of people know the scope and scale of these targets. A lot of people aren't aware of some of the best channel samples for copper on surface over a big target that we just put out. A lot of people aren't aware of the holes at Furasso that confirm the third dimension already. A lot of people don't have that context in proper format. And why didn't we do it sooner? because we didn't want to spend a huge amount in marketing until we drilled the first pass and knew whether we should go out and market or not. If the system was not present there and we didn't hit any scar in mineralization, we didn't see it. It would have been a real big head scratch and a different approach. But we also know more of what's coming next. And so we can stage our investors. Um it's really tough to put out a news release of good news or announce your permits when no one knows what you're going to drill and why those are important. So I'm going to go out and educate everybody. This is where we're getting we we believe we'll have permits in a reasonable time frame and this is what the outcomes we think based on the next pass of drilling. What could that $5 million achieve for the company? What kind of value? What kind of growth? It's an educational business, right? And my success taking Keegan to $9 or Keegan to 360 or into $4 has always been about setting the stage. If you're going to host a concert and you're a band, a new band wants to launch their concert, I want to get a stadium that could fill the Pink Floyd or or the Led Zeppelin of the world, the massive massive stadium. If I don't have a stadium that big and it only fits 50 people, House of Blues style, I'm only going to get 50 people showing up to hear the good music, right? So, my theory or my strategy in marketing has always been make sure you have the global audience. um this could be a global significant discovery. Why not pursue a global audience so that if you make that discovery the whole world can react to it when you make it this is shareholder-minded ways of marketing and building it out. um this this sitting down with you today is and I don't know how big your reach is but it's it's an honor and a pleasure to do this because getting a little bit behind the CEO getting a chance to see and understand where when and what at this stage of a 9-year or 9 and a half year wait getting into the project we might have 6 months left maybe 8 months left that's a small amount of time frame and the speculation will build the other reason why I'm going to go marketing is I'm going to acquire one or two more assets and So I set the landscape for that and how that fits into this plan. So I'm moving forward with the company. Never sit still. Always be moving forward. That's that's something I learned from Shawn Boyd at Agniko Eagle. And so as I'm planning to do these things, I want to build an audience ready to participate and perform. 6 months is not a lot of time left to go and build the stage that this project deserves for the next round of drilling. That's how I feel in terms of how big the reach could be going forward. Well, talking about marketing bands, you might want to try and get in touch with the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I recently learned they sell up to 400 million bucks of tickets a year still. And like three of them are in their 60s and and uh the other one is like late 50s or something. So, and they've been playing since what 80 something, right? So, and they still sell $400 million worth of tickets. So, still impressive. Yeah. Yeah. Well, well, that's that's again that's good marketing and big band fills big stadiums. So this project deserves it and couple things we're looking at could could meet similar thresholds. So we just want to be out there to make sure everyone's following it. But big DNA as well. I recently looked in into this uh that that's well that's my favorite band. Doesn't matter. But I looked into how much money they each make essentially and how much they get to keep each year. And they don't get to keep as much. I mean there's there's a big chunk that goes toward their GNA and promotion and everything. So yeah. What would that mean for you? Would it what it did, you know, trying to fill the big stadium? Would that double your DNA from 260 to 520? Is that No, no, no, no. 10% more, maybe 10 or 15. I mean, it's going to be me on the plane a lot. Um, something that I haven't done for some time and in the way that I've done it in the past. And uh so you know I have a lot of followers from around the world that have been shareholders for a long time and a lot of people I haven't seen in a long time that that are extremely great shareholders and just from introducing or reintroducing the story letting them know we're finally there at the threshold we were hoping to be at and we have a few significant things we're working on that could really give upside. Um I've had some of the best bang for your buck in marketing in my career. I've spent next to nil and I've had incredible performances in the past and that's just driven by a lot of brickandmortar in person stuff like that right and so from that perspective um if anything you know I' I'd adhere it with if the market wasn't participating in the commodity cycle if metals were not flying if gold wasn't hitting record highs every day and copper wasn't starting to move I'd be more reluctant to go out on a big marketing spend I'd be more defensive but as the market is picking up. It's going to give us access to a better share price, a better financing. I'll get my better chance for my warrants to come in, which is non-dilutive. It's existing dilutive way to finance the company, and I'll be able to create momentum in the company's share price versus waiting until we drill. Even if I had the cash to drill the $5 million today, if I wait till we drill to drill it, then I'll be like a lot of other companies that don't talk about their companies before and I'd have a boring share price on good holes. And I don't want that. I want the whole world to see it, to feel the tension. I do have a concern that I'm also marketing against is I'm I'm very concerned based on the level of corporate interest that we've seen. I'm do concerned I'm very concerned of going early that that a bid could come earlier than we're ready. And this has been half my career pursuing this. The asset is harder than the share price performance. But if a bid came early to us, we're going to have to address it, right? And so I don't own enough shares to block it. And hopefully I get into a position where I could own more to be in that sense. But I do have that concern. And so to perform well against the competitive environment, if the discovery is there, the more you market, the better defense you have. And again, these are not huge undertakings. These are branding, a lot of networking in person and just reaching more and more people that have not yet heard the story in this new market where commodities are starting to really fly. What's the biggest criticism of Capernic you get once you sit down with these people and talk to them? the time for permits is number one thing that people and it's not a criticism to us, it's a criticism to the fundamentals of working in Peru. And um you know it's one thing I hope the Peruvian government can can improve from where it is considerably. The the challenge is they they like to permit exploration as if it was a mine. You do extensive environmental studies and you know layers and layers and layers. We figure out social and one of the more challenging parts of Peru. But we still have to go through this rigorous process and we're not we're not using any chemicals. We're in moderate terrain. We're not digging canyons. We're not putting safety as a risk. But it's still a long process. And I think that could be streamlined a lot more at the exploration stage. And that's the one thing that people push back on is the permit timelines. That's the only deterrent until you get them. Then it's interesting. Just like we've seen a another company you mentioned here before the call. they finally got them and it'll be exciting. Now, yet you're still confident that you're going to get them and you're gonna see, you know, NY drilled next year. How come? What what is needed really to push back on that criticism? Uh what is needed for you to to get those permits? Um and and why are you confident you'll actually get them? Well, um I I can only say so much here because of the sensitivity of that process and I don't want to speak ahead of certain things and whether it's the community or the government where that's going, but 10 years experience in Peru, having gotten permits last year, it's gives me a lot of confidence that we're on the right path to get these permits. Um you know, I think we're just going to keep being great citizens. We have the jobs waiting for them. you know, there's a lot of capital that goes to the community if we do get them. And uh just experience the last 10 years has has been a really good track record to realize what it's like. And we got permits in 2018 through 2020 to do surface work. We got a community agreement. It expired in CO. We came back. It took us a few years after COVID to get the new social access and get the drill permits. When we applied for those drill permits at Wonkyos, they they happened timely without any issue. We have an incredible team. So, I'd say my team in Peru is is really good and they're very well connected with the government permitting agencies. The relationship with the communities is really good and we've got 10 years of experience being in country. So, we can speculate that we'll get those next year. Um, how fast or how long, we don't know. As I said before, it's just, you know, the quicker we can do it, the quicker everyone gets jobs, the quicker the community gets money, the quicker, you know, things improve a lot in the in the environment we're trying to work in. So, there's a lot of things going on behind the scenes that are very positive towards getting those permits and I'll I'll stay a bit confidential for the time being, but you know, things are going in the right direction for sure. We are over time. I know I'm going over time of what you had promised me here, Ivan, but what am I forgetting to ask you here? What did you come here hoping to talk about that I failed to bring up? Uh, I think you've we've covered all. I mean, you've you've asked some extremely good questions, and I respect them a lot. Um, I like the harder questions even better than the easy ones. Um, you know, I think I think the only question I can't answer for you today that I wish I had the answers to is timing. So, in the case of that, you know, we are just starting to get out and start to to tell the story because we think we're on the home stretch. The next 6 to 8 months, I think, is a reasonable time frame. And there's a lot of other news that's going to come. So, we have a pretty pretty good news news list coming of multiple news releases between now and then. And so, that complemented with the perfect market. You've asked me everything for now and thank you very much. Appreciate you very much. Thank you for your time as well. For people listening, I'm hoping Ivan and I will be back sometime soon. So if whatever I'm forgetting, please let me know in the comments, send me an email, whatever works and then I'll make sure to ask it in our next interview. But Ivan, again, thank you so much for doing this and hopefully speak to you again soon. Thank you so much. And as always, thanks to everyone for watching Resource Talks. I have a couple of more things to say, though. The fact that this company was interviewed here today does not mean that they're necessarily a good or a bad company. I'm not here to endorse nor attack anyone. I am simply here to ask some questions. If you find that I have failed in asking a question that you would have liked to hear an answer to, which will happen as I'm not an experienced interviewer, please let me know and I will try to correct that mistake in a future interview. As mentioned at the beginning, please understand that mineral exploration and development is an extremely risky business. Losing money is the norm and should be the expectation. This is a very complex sector and the performance of individual companies typically depends on many different moving particles including company specific factors like geology, financing ability and many others really as well as particles that are outside of the company's control like geopolitics, macroeconomics, commodity prices and many more. most of which are nearly impossible to fully understand. Moreover, these companies that typically get interviewed on resource talks are in the pre-revenue stage, which means they rely on the public markets for the financing of their operations, which could result in shareholder dilution. Furthermore, as a general rule of thumb, you'll be better off understanding that all company communications online, albeit this interview or their website and their presentation and their social media accounts or even the social media accounts which you thought were your friends and then told you about a stock. Everything really that these companies do is intended as marketing. And although I do not make buy or sell recommendations because there is a clear conflict of interest given the nature of my business, many out there do and you should be aware of that in bias and you should be careful out there. That bias is not always going to be clearly disclosed with everyone out there. So it is safer for you anytime you're watching any type of company specific content to approach it with a dose of skepticism and assume that the party telling you about it is biased in at least some shape or form because there will always be a bias again albeit clear or not. So, always ask yourself what the incentive of your counterparty is and never rely on them regardless of their incentives, but in instead double check if what they're saying is true again by using setterplus.ca. The fact that I have no idea what I'm doing should already be clear to you at this point. I am not saying this to make jokes or or laugh with myself. I just simply do not have a long enough track record of consistent investment profit. So, I should under no circumstances be considered an authority on anything. Again, although this may sound amusing to you, believe me, it is not amusing and it is not intended as a joke. I'm simply pointing out a fact and warning you not to rely on anything I do or say. Unfortunately, at least to my understanding, nobody out there has any special abilities. The CEOs do not possess any superior knowledge and they cannot know about what will go up, what will go down, or what will go in circles. Some people even believe that to be rule number one on Wall Street. Nobody really knows. None of us know whether any of the company's activities will result in a success again given that we're talking about high-risk activities where most of the times it ends in failure. Also, unfortunately, try as I may, I won't always catch all red flags or all challenges with the companies. So, even if I did ask a few tough questions in here, don't rely on this being all of the tough questions. Again, these are complicated startups with many moving parts, and I am conflicted given the nature of this business. Therefore, I cannot guarantee the quality of anything presented in this video, and you cannot hold me responsible for any losses or damages stemming from the way you decide to use this interview. Viewers, listeners, and readers acknowledge and agree that the information presented herein did not constitute a solicitation or an offer to buy or sell any security or investment or to participate in any trading strategy. Resource talks and all parties involved in the management of the business strictly disclaim any and all liability for losses and or damages whether direct, indirect, special or consequential or other consequences however so cost arising out of any use or reproduction of the content published by resource talks or any decision made or action taken in reliance upon it. By consuming this content, all consumers vow to release resource talks and all parties involved in the management of the business from all claims, proceedings, or consequences. This is all to say, I know it's a lot of lawyer talk, but this is all to say that you shouldn't blindly trust me or anybody on the internet, and you should do your own research. Once again, social media is meant for entertainment. It is setplus.ca, where you do your research. That's where you'll find a company's official filings. And I encourage you to read and analyze the management information circular, the financial statements, the management discussion and analysis, and whenever available, the NI43101 technical documents. 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. And as mentioned earlier, the chances of even the best analysts in this sector losing money are extremely high. Since this is venture capital and it is not for everybody, I'll leave you with one of Charlie Munger's quotes which I wish I had listened to more often earlier on which says, quote, "If you don't understand it, don't do it.