Categories: Base Metals / Precious Metals
Topics: General Base Metals / General Precious Metals

Intrepid Metals (TSX-V: INTR)(OTCQB: IMTCF) CEO Ken Brophy on Drilling High Grade Copper in Arizona

 

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the very happy CEO of Intrepid Metals, Mr. Ken Brophy. Ken, congrats are in order. We talked a bit off-air. There was so much heavy lifting that went into getting to this drill program and to start it off with 105.20 meters of 1.17% copper, 1.42% copper equivalent and 48.85 meters of 2.24% copper or 2.58% copper equivalent within a copper market that is flirting with $4.50, $4.60 and looks prime to head higher. I told you last time I thought your timing was excellent to start rediscovering this project and yeah, well, so far so good. Congrats sir.

Ken Brophy: Thanks Gerardo. It's great catching up with you once again. It seems like you've already laid out everything. I don't know what else to talk about. You hit all the high notes.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, it was nice chatting. Have a great one, sir. No, listen, let's get into it. I want to make sure, I know the stock has a lot of attention from new speculators and investors in this space that are looking for quality copper exposure in a top-notch jurisdiction. So I thought maybe we could take a step back and just do a brief overview of some of the work that was done. I mentioned it, right, some of the work that was done consolidating this just high grade copper play and then the work that went into that. I thought that would be a good starting point and then we can talk about the drilling and what comes next, but I think the historical context of what you've been able to accomplish thus far should be emphasized.

Ken Brophy: Yeah, no, thanks Gerardo. Listen, I tend to agree. The last time we spoke was just the initial call. We talked a little bit about Intrepid and we have other projects as well, but certainly our Corral Copper project is the one that most people are interested in, especially today. So as you touched on, this is really a story two years in the making. When we came to market just in 2022, we came there with the intent to build out an asset base that we think could generate a lot of shareholder value.

And this Corral Copper project was one that it took us two years to be able to once again corral a bunch of this fragmented land ownership. We had that advantage of having a lot of historical data, which is why we wanted to corral this district and it took time. There was a number of different property owners that we had to negotiate with to piece this story back together, and I think we've done that. Now, with the next stage is starting to create value from the drill bit. And as you touched on, I think we've done a great job at starting that process as well.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, let's talk about some of the numbers. I read the highlight numbers, but there's some other just really long, impressive runs of mineralization, and I should add that most of this starts very, very near surface. You had 193.15 meters of 0.68% copper and 0.33 grams per tonne gold. That was from 27 meters. There was 124 meters of 0.52% copper and 0.35 grams per tonne gold from 10 meters and 159.65 meters of 0.57% copper. That was also from 28 meters. Walk me through what the goal was with this specific drill program and walk me through what comes next.

Ken Brophy: Certainly. I think it's important to also highlight that all of these drill intercepts that you just touched on, they're within just a three kilometer trend that is less than 15% of our entire property. And it's also important to point out that this three kilometer trend is on private lands. It's a combination of patented mining claims as well as one area that we have the surface rights over. And then mineral rights are owned by the BLM, so it's effectively kind of private lands as well. So within that three kilometer trend, as I touched on, there was historical drilling and there was even historical production back in the day, and this is where all that fragmented land ownership, there was individual patented claim owners that would just have one or two claims and they were mining it back in the early 1900s and they weren't just mining some of the copper.

It was a lot of gold as some of our numbers identify. There's some really high grade gold within that system. So we've learned a lot within this drill program. We continue to learn more with each drill hole, but you're bang on. I don't know a lot of other stories out there that have been able to drill the high grade copper as well as gold, silver, and zinc as well with it being so shallow and also within private land. I think those are three really important facts for people to take away and we're only just beginning.

Gerardo Del Real: Couldn't agree with you more. You mentioned you're only just beginning, what comes next as far as the drill bit, and then walk me through what the approach will be to advance the asset forward.

Ken Brophy: Yeah, so we still have about another 10 to probably 12, 13 holes. The advantage of having private land and having cash in the till enables us to add a few holes where we might want to. So I'd expect us to do anywhere from 23 to 25 holes. We already released 12, so there's still a lot more news to come. I think we're starting to dig into the data a little bit more, really understand some of the historical drill holes, like there were some series of drill holes from the 1980s that when we drilled within the same area because I guess that's another important point is we've had significant success with regards to confirming the historical drill holes where there was a historical drill monument. There were some other drill holes where we were just going by what a coordinate or was on a drill log. So we were assuming we were in and around the same area and some of the data that we got still high-grade copper, but it was a little different than what we saw in the historical data.

So completing this first phase one will enable us to categorize, I guess our confidence in some of the different series of drill holes, which will enable us to start pulling together that geological model that will help guide future drilling. We're still fortunate. We'll have, I think, three-plus by the time we're done, $3 million still in the till by the time we complete this first drill program. So that enables us to continue to do drilling, but also look to start to step out and test some of these other targets because the source of all this mineralization has yet to be discovered. Once again, I use the term we're just scratching the surface. That's literally because of how shallow all of this mineralization is. So I think we've got a lot of potential and have that advantage of a lot of the historical data to guide us forward.

Gerardo Del Real: No, look an exciting 2024. I think copper is going to be very, very supportive of the copper positions and the copper plays that we've written checks for and are involved in. I think Intrepid is positioned just extremely, extremely well with the step out drilling, with the confirmation drilling, being on private land, having the infrastructure and being in a top notch jurisdiction. Ken, great update. Anything to add to that?

Ken Brophy: No, I think you've hit all the high points once again. I think you touched on there's a lot of companies that are focused on copper right now. I think from our standpoint, being in a tier one jurisdiction is also very important. We can drill year round, private lands, no permitting kind of issues. I think these are just some of the elements that separate us and just how shallow our mineralization is. So our cost per meter drilling is likely going to be much lower than many others. So I'm really excited for what's ahead and I couldn't agree more. I think when you start seeing BHP making a move at Anglo just for their copper, it's a clear sign that the copper market's got a lot of room to grow and having an asset that can be developed quickly, responsibly on private lands, tier one jurisdiction I think are keys to our success.

Gerardo Del Real: Couldn't agree more. Thank you, sir.

Ken Brophy: All the best, Gerardo.

Gerardo Del Real: All right. Chat again soon. Cheers.