Categories: Base Metals
Topics: General Base Metals

Gladiator Metals (TSX-V: GLAD)(OTC: GDTRF) CEO Jason Bontempo on Drilling a District Scale Copper Opportunity

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the president and CEO of Gladiator Metals, Mr. Jason Bontempo. Jason, it's great to have you back on. How are you?

Jason Bontempo: I'm well. Thank you, Gerardo. Good to be back in positive territory.

Gerardo Del Real: Listen, it's great to have you on. The last time that you and I spoke publicly or interacted publicly, we talked about how Gladiator Metals is a copper bull's dream, and then I explained how bullish I am on copper here in the mid to long term. We've had a slight pullback in the copper price and despite that, Gladiator Metals has surged here recently. I still think, and we spoke off-air, it's a phenomenal entry point. I still believe there's a whole heck of a lot of re-rating coming along, and I want to touch on a few of the reasons why.

You just announced assays of 32.92 meters of 2.08% copper. So that's 32.92 meters of 2.08% copper from historical drill core at Cowley Park. And so that in itself would be fantastic, but when I look at the release and I see that there's 10,000 meters of historic drill core, which has never been systematically logged or assayed, and then I see the grades and then I see the widths. And then I see that you're also simultaneously drilling, so the drill's turning and we're waiting on assays there. And then I look at the amount of targets and the potential scale of this. And I look at your market cap, I can't help but be excited as a copper bull. So I want to make sure that you provide the context on the most recent release, and then let's talk about everything you have going on because it's quite a bit.

    Jason Bontempo: Yeah. Yeah, sure. Certainly, that release on Monday was really interesting. Great result. You'll see when we talk about working through this 10,000 meters of historical core, yes, it's historical, but it's not that old, right? This is drilling from 2018, 2019, 2020 that was drilled by a prior operator. So you'll see, when we've reported this fantastic intercept on Monday, it's the 19-CP-01, so 19, it's for 2019. So yeah, 33 meters at almost 2.1% from 73 meters is a wonderful result. But let's not forget that in addition, in the same hole, there's another 35 meters at also 1%. That's a lot of copper there, Gerardo. And look, this particular hole is really interesting because it wasn't into a hole in a big gap in the drilling that we could see. That's why we went for it. And it's actually really impressed us.

It's better than we expected in terms of infilling between the gaps. They're much wider zones. So it really is quite impressive from our perspective when we look at it globally amongst the other drill results in Cowley, which as you know, there's a good 25,000 meters of drilling that have been done at Cowley Park. And of course it's never been mined. So really interesting; obviously within that there was a very high-grade component again of 8 meters at over 5%.

And yes, you are right. We've only just started. The first time we reported some assays from this 10,000 meters was the 12 and a half meters at 8%. So it's very early days and we're working through it and we hope to deliver many more impressive intercepts from that 10,000 meters.

But the other thing you should notice is that in this recent release, we showed some moly grade at 0.23% in hole at 19-CP-05. What that's telling you is that what we're seeing is we're seeing a lot of moly, molybdenum, associated with the copper and quite high grades. 0.2, that's really good. And when you think about the fact that Hudbay, the previous operator, did not assay multi-elements. What we can see now on some of the assays that we have multi-elements is the moly is high, the silver credits are good and it looks like there's a really significant boost to the copper equivalent. But we're going to be working through that over these 10,000 meters and of course our own drilling, our own 3,000 meters.

And you'll notice that we did mention that we're soon to finish our initial 3,000 meters of our own drilling and we no doubt look to increase that now by another 2,000 meters, which is within our existing drilling permit allowance. And we're obviously working on getting the next drilling permit for a lot more drilling, a lot more drilling than 5,000 meters. We've been very encouraged so far, across the project in general, as you know.

So excellent release, got a lot of attention. We had a lot of inbound calls on this one. I thought maybe the first release of 12.5 meters at 8% was going to generate a lot of inbound, but it happens to be the second one. And I think that's because we're starting to just continuously put out some pretty impressive results that cannot be ignored. So yeah, wonderful release on Monday. I think that's why we've been put on the map by it, despite that copper price coming off as you quite say, Gerardo. And to me that's a wonderful opportunity because if the copper price was moving the other way, I seriously doubt we'd be valued at where we are now. So great opportunity.

Look, a little bit earlier, last week we put out a release on some of the historical drilling from Hudbay. So not the 10,000 meters of core, but the historical drilling from Hudbay, which we've been digitizing and compiling. And this is an excellent exploration tool that we're using. And you you'll see that what we've done is we've highlighted an area that's just three kilometers west of Cowley Park. And again, you'll see three areas closely space drilled, where in the day, Hudbay just looked to drill what they could see, outcropping skarns, and didn't go much further than that. No systematic exploration between the three prospect areas within the Cub Trend. We call it the Cub Trend, okay? And at Gem, Keewenaw and Black Cub, some fantastic results. 16 meters at 2.6%, at Gem. Almost 40 meters at one and a half at Keewenaw. And the list goes on, to be fair. There's another 20 meters at 2.8 and then at Keewenaw, you had 75 meters at one and a half from surface.

So what this tells us, although it's historical, we don't have the core anymore, but we have the logs, it shows us that these three prospect areas, with some systematic exploration look like it could be a single target area, very similar to Cowley, and it's never been tested. And so down the track, this is where we want to show that there are a number of, maybe another three or four areas like Cowley Park along the 10 to 15 kilometer trend that is adding up to potentially significant tonnage at this high grade. Very, very interesting.

And the other thing to note about this release on the Cub Trend is that there's never been any systematic exploration between Cowley Park and the Cub Trend, which is around three kilometers. And there's no reason why mineralization does not continue along the geological contact between those two areas. And so we're going to get into that probably second half of the year with some mapping and geophysics and see if there's continuity there. So really, really exciting.

This project, Gerardo, it's been in the cupboard for almost 40 years, and we've pulled it out and there's lots of work to do, and it's really exciting. And at first, the stock market was like, whoa, where did this come from? We haven't seen this before. But we're certainly revealing it now and it's lots of fun.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, let me just say one last thing here, Jason. I believe that you're getting a valuation that is more properly suited for an exploration company. You have a sub-20 million market cap. You're most definitely not getting credit for the 10,000 meters of historic core that you are now logging and assaying. You are most definitely not getting credit for the historic resource that was in place. And I have to say one last thing. As far as the potential scale of this, you definitely are not getting credit for more than 30 drill-ready, high grade regional targets that you have. I think all of that will happen in due time. But I think all of that validates my point that the entry point here is quite compelling, given the macro backdrop for a copper in the mid to long term. Anything to add to that, Jason?

Jason Bontempo: No. No. That's an excellent summary, Gerardo. I think you're exactly right. I think, buy good assets for the mid to long term when prices are good. Don't look the same way as everyone else. Look the other way. And this is a perfect opportunity to get a position in a excellent project in copper if you're a copper bull.

Gerardo Del Real: Couldn't have said it better myself. Words of wisdom. Look both ways before you cross the street though, folks. Jason, thank you so much for your time.

Jason Bontempo: Thanks, Gerardo. Good on you.

Gerardo Del Real: All right, chat soon.