Categories: Energy
Topics: General Energy

Atco Mining (CSE: ATCM)(OTC: ATMGF) CEO Etienne Moshevich & Director Neil McCallum Building a Clean Energy Metals Company

 

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the CEO of Atco Mining, Mr. Etienne Moshevich, and the Director at Atco Mining, Mr. Neil McCallum.

Gentlemen, thank you so much for taking time today. I appreciate you all coming on. How is everybody today? I'll start with you, Etienne. How are you, sir?

Etienne Moshevich: I'm doing great, my man. Thank you for taking the time today. Appreciate it.

Gerardo Del Real: Neil, how are things your way? You and I have had several conversations. I am obviously a biased shareholder of both Atco and several companies that you are involved with, so it's great to have you back on. How are you?

Neil McCallum: Oh, really good. Thanks. Good to have you as a partner on these projects.

Gerardo Del Real: No. Well, listen, I'll use your wording, as a partner on these projects, we all write checks and we all get involved because we want a discovery. Me not being a geologist, I read through the latest release and it was really technical in nature, which is why I'm thrilled to have you on here. I interpreted it to subscribers and shareholders as smoke, but not fire yet. Got to find the fire, but the smoke looks to be telling. And so I'll get to you here in just a second, Neil, because I want you to give a more nuanced explanation on why we believe that is to be the case, if that is indeed the case.

But first and foremost, Etienne, I want to start with you. Can you please provide a brief overview of what you are hoping to accomplish? And then, of course, the million-dollar question, what comes next, right?

Etienne Moshevich: A hundred percent. So like I said, thank you for taking the time and thank you for being a partner with us, for everyone that... for all your new subscribers. I mean, I can say you've been an incredible partner to us with Atco. You've been involved not only in the market, but also in every financing as a subscriber, as an investor. So we appreciate your support.

With Atco, this is exactly what we were hoping to achieve. This was phase one drilling and we completed five holes and I mean all the results, they all hit uranium mineralization and this is exactly what we had hoped to get. But as you know, with all exploration, we have to continue and that's really the only way, but the only way you can really hit a massive discovery is to continue, and so you never get the massive hole that everybody was hoping for. It's very seldom you actually get it from the first drilling, but we got a lot of incredible information that we're going to be using while we plan for our next phase of drilling, because this definitely merits the next phase, which is exactly what we wanted.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent, excellent. Neil, I want to get to some of the technical details. I know when I had a conversation with Sean, there were a lot of technical successes that the market did not appreciate or doesn't yet appreciate. But from my understanding in these kinds of systems you all saw, as far as the mineralogy goes, a lot of the stuff that you want to see when you're vectoring in. Is that an accurate way to describe it?

Neil McCallum: Yep, definitely. To put it in simple terms, I think most uranium projects that see success later on have a certain number of key ingredients to start out with. That's obviously the conductive graphitic, brittle reactivated zone. That's kind of the hallmark of any sizable uranium project in the Athabasca Basin. You're going to want geochemistry that tells you that you're kind of in the right area. And then that subtle piece, which is a little bit nuanced, is the alteration, and that is one of those key ingredients that is present on most uranium projects. So when we have those ingredients, we know we're onto something. We have those on this project.

So what we need to do is vector in with the data we collected. We can always collect more geophysics to get our pencils sharpened on the next attack of the project.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent, excellent. Can you speak to me about the analogs? Because I know the geological model in this part of the basin is somewhat different from other parts of the basin. Is that accurate?

Neil McCallum: It's pretty similar to most Eastern Athabasca projects. This one as we get sort of to that… without getting too technical, like the western part of the eastern side of the Athabasca Basin, it tends to be more basement-hosted, unconformity-related deposits. So that's kind of our working model right now. So we're making sure to test the basement as well as the sandstone basement unconformity.

The nearest analog to us would likely be IsoEnergy's Hurricane Zone and, of course, all the disclaimers that we're not going to necessarily hit the same thing as them, but we're pretty close to the trend that hits them. We're on more of an east-west trend. They're on a northeast-southwest trend, not far away. So broadly speaking, we're kind of in that nice Eastern Athabasca zone, which seems to be the place to be. The geophysics is a little bit more simple than what we're seeing at the western side of the Athabasca Basin, closer to that Alberta border.

So it's not really reinventing the model or anything like that. It's just using the same model that's been successful over the last 20, 30 years and applying that to a project that just hasn't seen that much work so we like our chances with that.

Gerardo Del Real: Got it. Got it. As far as the processing of the data, it's got to be pretty intense. I mean, you have a project that's six and a half kilometers of an 18 kilometer long east-west trending conductive trend is how it's described in the press release. How intense is that process?

Neil McCallum: Oh, it's good fun. It's using the 3D models. It's adding all the layers of geophysics, geochemistry, structural data. It gets kind of complicated, but that's the fun part, really.

Gerardo Del Real: Spoken like a true exploration expert.

Etienne, obviously when a lot of us wrote a check for Atco, and I think I'm on my third one now, it wasn't just for the uranium, which, of course, listen, Atlantic is a great project. Obviously the potential is there. You have the right to earn into up to 75% over time if you meet certain expenditure milestones.

But there's also another part of the portfolio that is heavily focused and in a similar sector to the clean energy sector with your projects in Newfoundland. How are things coming along on that front?

Etienne Moshevich: I mean, you hit the nail on the head right there. We're in the clean energy space, and so we have the right to acquire up to 75% of this project, of the Atlantic project. And we love it and we're going to continue working on it so nothing changes there. Like I said, we are extremely happy with the results that we got and we're planning. I'm actually meeting with Artemis at Standard on Friday to go through phase two exploration plans and our plans going forward. So please stay tuned for that. That's going to be exciting.

And then all the stuff that we have in Newfoundland with the hydrogen storage space, that's all there. And the good thing is, is that we own them 100%. And so we're still waiting on a lot more. The government of Newfoundland is not on our timeframe, unfortunately, but they did say that they're going to be spending $66 billion in the area to build clean energy infrastructure projects and they're all going to have to store their hydrogen somewhere.

And as of right now, there's only three players in the area, which is Salt, Vortex and us. And so that is still there. So I thought while we wait for that, because that will happen, we just don't know when, and so while we wait for that, we start focusing on and continue to drill our Atlantic project. And at a $2 million market cap, I mean, I think we're extremely undervalued comparatively. I thought we were undervalued at 5 million. I thought we were undervalued at 10 million. Unfortunately, it is where it is where we're at.

But I'm the largest shareholder. I'm going to continue working on this. And I think what I want to do is build a clean energy portfolio because we have it in Southwestern Newfoundland, we have it in the Athabasca Basin. I want to continue building this and building out our current projects because that's how I think. I really do believe that we're going to have a re-rating on this company, and I think it's going to be to the upside. And I think it's because we have incredible assets and it's just the market and the overall clean energy space hasn't quite caught up to what I think it's worth. But I think that will happen. And when it does happen, hopefully we're going to get the valuation that we deserve, which I believe is a lot higher.

Gerardo Del Real: Yeah, and look, let me be very transparent. For frustrated shareholders that haven’t benefited share price-wise from the market appreciating the story, I remember a time and that time is coming again where having the network that Etienne and Neil McCallum and Dahrouge Geological Consulting, just having a shell with that network would get you a valuation of 15, $20 million without any assets in the portfolio, just knowing that these are the people that are going to be involved in the company vending projects, vetting projects, and advancing them.

So I know that there's a momentary lull in the uranium space, and obviously we're kind of stuck in the mud for now in Newfoundland, but I can't overemphasize enough how important it is to have a network of people that you're working with when you're a company as small as Atco, a $2 million company that has the potential to bring in projects that can provide a quick and drastic re-rating. Anything to add to that, Etienne?

Etienne Moshevich: I mean, I completely agree, and Neil's not going to talk about his successes as much as he's too humble. And I mean, everybody knows Neil and his involvement with Q2 and Patriot Battery Metals. I mean it's having him on the board and as part of our team from the get-go has been incredible. The deal flow that he's able to bring to our team and he's able to vet is second to none and it really is. And his expertise, like he cut his teeth in the uranium sector and he absolutely loves the Atlantic project, but the real reason he got involved in the first place was because he wanted to be a part of a clean energy story. And so that's what we're trying to build here.

So like you said, some of these shells Atco's trading like it has no money in the bank and no projects and no team. And we have money in the bank. We have two incredible projects in Newfoundland and in Saskatchewan, and this is where we want to be. And we have an incredible team, and I really do believe we will have a re-rating on this company because we have to. We have to have it.

Yes, uranium isn't as hot as it was six months ago, but it's not dead and it's going to come back. And when it does, people are going to notice the asset that we have and our drill results. Because I was really expecting the market to have a much better reaction to our drill results. But I think a lot of people, if you don't see some massive, like you hit a discovery hole, nobody cares. But this is not a one-hit wonder. We're trying to build an asset here in advance. Atlantic has had millions of dollars spent on it already to get it to this stage. Plus we just spent over $1.2 million on our drill program and we're doing all the right things. And when the overall commodity turns, which I believe it will, I think people are going to notice us.

Gerardo Del Real: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. Again, I'm biased in my assessment because I've written several checks at higher prices and obviously believe in the team company and the assets and the commodities that the companies are operating, looking for, exploring and developing. So gentlemen, thank you so much for your time. Looking forward to having you back on soon as we get more news about the second half of the year.

Etienne Moshevich: Really appreciate your time, Gerardo. Thank you. And thank you so much for coming on, Neil.

Neil McCallum: Yep. Thanks, guys.

Gerardo Del Real: Cheers, y'all.