Categories: Energy
Topics: General Energy

Global Battery Metals (TSX-V: GBML)(OTC: REZZF) CEO Michael Murphy on Exploration at Leinster Lithium Project, Ireland & Future Drilling in Utah

 

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the CEO of Global Battery Metals, Mr. Michael Murphy. Michael, how are you this morning?

Michael Murphy: Hey Gerardo, I'm doing just great. How are you?

Gerardo Del Real: I am well. Let's get right into it. You had some news here last week. You got some assay results back from your lithium project in Ireland. The market right now we have tax loss selling season. We have a market that is really, really, really hesitant to speculate on anything that's not a sure thing, and there's just not a lot of sure things out there. The market reaction wasn't the most positive. However, I wanted to get you on just to talk about the approach and to talk about how the company was feeling as it relates to the results.

Michael Murphy: Sure. Obviously, extremely disappointed with the share price performance. Our goal was to test the theory that there was a pegmatite dike system under that southern license. We put nine holes in the ground, every hole hit mineralization. We hit 24 mineralized dikes in total, albeit fairly narrow ones. The analogy I use is, we found the fingers of the system, now we need to find the hand, the arm and the body. We've got a structural geologist helping us do that.

We've got some follow-up work we're doing in the field starting I think tomorrow, but I was happy. We hit mineralization in the first hole of the first 30 meters. I don't know too many inaugural drill programs of any kind that have that kind of success. But again, as you say, the market at the moment's not feeling pretty good about itself, I guess.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. What comes next? I know when we chatted last time, we talked about the approach the company was taking and how it was going to be a pretty busy couple of quarters, a pretty important couple of quarters for the company. What comes next, Michael?

Michael Murphy: Yeah, sure. As I said, we'll do some follow-up work in Ireland and we'll have some more details on that in the next couple of weeks. The expectation is that we'll be drilling in Utah by the end of the year. We're working on some final bits and pieces of that, and hopefully we get something exciting there as well. But as I said, I was pretty happy with the results. I was kind of disappointed and surprised by how the market took it.

Gerardo Del Real: Is there any conversation or conversations being had around potential partnerships or maybe even acquisitions, being that the lithium space right now is soft and a lot of the experts that I follow and the people that I pay attention to believe that the market is bottoming right now. Any potential on the M&A front?

Michael Murphy: I can't really comment about that specifically, but we talk to a lot of the bigger companies. There's been a lot of interest in the property, particularly in Ireland, given the size of it and some of the results we've had to date. We've talked to a whole bunch of groups and there's more and more companies starting to work in the area. I can't really comment on this stuff, but there's dialogue for sure.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent, excellent. Listen, you are heavily invested, you and the insiders are heavily invested in Global. Obviously it behooves everybody to have a much higher share price and it behooves everyone to get that higher share price on the back of some success here.

Can we talk about just how much you and the insiders own, because I think that's an important point to highlight. It's easy to throw rocks when the share price is down, but again, I think it's worth reminding people that you and the insiders that own the bulk of these shares suffer right alongside shareholders and are aligned in shareholder interests as far as getting the share price up.

Michael Murphy: In terms of specific insiders, I don't have an exact number off the top of my head. I can tell you I've got economic exposure to about 7 million shares, including a million warrants at 37 cents. I've got a pretty invested interest in seeing the share price higher. The rest of the directors probably have, I don't have the number off the top of my head. I'm going to say another six or seven million plus shares. Then we've got a pretty good core group of existing shareholders that between them, I don't know, own 30%. There's a good group of us working and who want to see this higher for sure.

Gerardo Del Real: I'm looking forward to you finding, you talked about the fingers and trying to find the hand, right? Getting broader widths of mineralization, understanding the system. I'm looking forward to that. Looking forward to Utah. I'm looking forward to seeing what comes out of the conversations that are being had around M&A and potential partnerships there. Anything to add to that, Michael?

Michael Murphy: No, that's it. I mean, we're patiently, diligently working ahead. We had a plan, we're sticking to it and we're executing on it. As I said, of nine inaugural drill holes, you hit mineralization in every one. That's something.

Gerardo Del Real: I like it. Appreciate the time. Thank you so much. We'll chat again soon.

Michael Murphy: Okay, cheers. Thanks.

Gerardo Del Real: Cheers. All right, bye now.

Michael Murphy: Bye.