Categories: Base Metals
Topics: General Base Metals

Kutcho Copper (TSX-V: KC)(OTC: KCCFF) CEO Vince Sorace on C$4.1M Financing & Feasibility Study Progress at Flagship Kutcho Copper-Zinc Project, British Columbia, Canada

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the president & CEO of Kutcho Copper — Mr. Vince Sorace. Vince, how are you today?

Vince Sorace: Great, Gerardo. How are you? Thank you again for having me.

Gerardo Del Real: I am well; thank you for asking. It's great to have you back on. I reached out because you kind of very quietly announced the closing of a C$4.1 million private placement a couple of days ago. 

And I wasn't expecting a C$4.1 million private placement. But it was interesting to me that in the release you referenced that the financing was led with a strategic investor with proceeds targeting continued advancement of the Kutcho copper-zinc project. 

Despite the pullback in copper, it's still at a very healthy US$4.20 a pound. Obviously, institutional money is coming into the market and looking for quality assets. I don't think it's a coincidence that — despite the market sell-off here recently — you had a 52-week low of C$0.11 and here you are at C$0.60, right? 

Tell me a bit more about the financing. And can you talk a bit about, if not the strategic investor, the approach there behind bringing in a strategic investor?

Vince Sorace: Sure, I'll say — unlike a few years ago when it was hard to scrape together money especially in the base metals space to do things — it's out there for us right now. And I've got to say, over the last number of three or four months, I've turned down a lot of capital. 

And I've done that because I've always been very careful about maintaining a cap table and dilution as best I can. But we still do need to operate on some money. And at times, I think there's good money to take and to take a little dilution. And this was one of them. This is a very good investor who, I will say, will be alongside us every step of the way moving forward as required and in the future. And so I'm excited to have him on board.

And again, it puts some money in the treasury for other things we are working on. I can't get into detail but hopefully those conclude and we'll put that out to market. We are working on a lot of exciting things that I think will continue to add value to this project alongside what I believe will be the biggest re-rate on this: Completion of the Feasibility Study — which we're very excited about. 

We'll have some updates coming out on that soon as well over the next couple of weeks on where we're at, what we've been doing, what we've been seeing to the extent that I can. But as again, we're excited about that and I think it's going to be well received by the market.

Gerardo Del Real: You updated the market back in February with a resource estimate of 18.6 million tonnes of Measured & Indicated at 2.58% copper equivalent and 13.2 million tonnes of Inferred at 1.59% copper equivalent. Obviously excellent, excellent grades. 

But in that update, you also highlighted the near resource expansion drill targets. And I want to ask you about the exploration potential and the upside there because it's pretty significant. And I don't think it's appreciated, in part, because of how robust and how attractive the resource that exists is, right? 

I think the exploration upside really is overlooked. Can you speak to that a bit, Vince?

Vince Sorace: It's definitely overlooked. And you're going to see us putting a lot more emphasis on that aspect of this project moving forward. I think the fundamentals with what we have in-hand are fantastic. But you're right, I think the upside is overlooked. 

For example, everything that we're doing right now in the Feasibility Study is contemplating mining the Main Lens and the Esso Lens. As you know, there's three lenses that comprise this project. 

Well, 10 million tonnes of that Inferred resource in the Sumac Lens — which is grading about 1.5% copper equivalent which is quite significant — is not included in what we're doing in the Feasibility Study. It just didn't get the attention. We didn't have the capital to continue to drill that out so it's sitting in Inferred. And there's another 10 million tonnes of 1.5% copper sitting there that won't be included in what I think will already be a nice, robust project. And that's there already. 

The exploration upside is in two fronts. Brownfields exploration, we call it; our lenses, everything is still open to depth, open along strike. There's some significant targets there like low-hanging fruit that we want to get to. Again, over the years, it was all about cost of capital and our share price, and it didn't make sense to do that. But things have changed. So you're going to see us addressing some of this in the near future. 

And then to the greenfields side of things, I mean, we've got a massive land position where the same rocks, if you will, that host the mineralization in Kutcho fold into many occurrences. And those areas haven't seen modern day exploration; the last exploration was actually done in the 1990s. 

So an important thing to note is that one of the well-known things about VMS deposits and VMS districts are that, most of the time, there's a lot more there than what you go into it with.

Gerardo Del Real: They definitely do not happen or tend to happen in isolation.

Vince Sorace: Correct.

Gerardo Del Real: I'm excited for the exploration upside. I'm excited for you to get back out there. Topping off the treasury at these levels, I think, is very, very shareholder-friendly and savvy. And I'm looking forward to the Feasibility Study. How is that coming along, Vince?

Vince Sorace: It's coming along well. So I can't say too much about it yet. That's a very sensitive topic. But I'm excited. It's coming well, and in the next couple of weeks, I will be putting out some news to market updating everybody about what's going on.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent! I'm looking forward to having you back on. Thank you for the update today, Vince. Anything else you want to add to that?

Vince Sorace: Perfect! No, thanks, Gerardo. I'm sure we'll be talking soon.

Gerardo Del Real: Alright, take care now.

Vince Sorace: You too.

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