Categories: Base Metals
Topics: General Base Metals

Latin Metals (TSX-V: LMS)(OTC: LMSQF) CEO Keith Henderson on Deploying a New Copper Exploration Model in Argentina with Barrick Gold

 

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the president & CEO of Latin Metals — Mr. Keith Henderson. Keith, how are you today?

Keith Henderson: I'm great, thanks. How are you?

Gerardo Del Real: Great… it's good to have you back on. It's been a busy month of news flow. We talked earlier in the year about the second half being a critical one for the company with multiple exploration programs and partner-funded drilling. 

You just provided an update on Barrick Gold's exploration activities on the Cerro Bayo project in Argentina. I thought I'd have you on to get an overview of what's going on with Barrick and how things are coming along.

Keith Henderson: Yeah, look, I'm really, really happy with them as a partner. I've probably said to you before that I like these major companies. They've got enough money to do what they need to do. They tend to have really top-class technical teams, people in the geological world, geologists who are good geologists. They like to get in with a major, and they like to stay there. And the majors are good at retaining them and building good careers for them. 

So you tend to be getting involved with a really good team. And these guys have really approached this project from first principles. They've done all of the basic work really, really well over the last year or so. They've taken tons of samples. They've done some ground magnetic surveys. They've had anomalies. They've been able to track down the veins.

Just for the benefit of investors who just don't know what this thing looks like, this is in southern Argentina, and it's an area where there's a whole bunch of mines operating. And they're mining bonanza-grade gold and silver coming out of these narrow veins. That's exactly what Barrick is looking for here. 

And what they've managed to come up with is an area that's about 6 km across; about 4.5 mi across. And that kind of tracks across the property. So it's a nice big, wide zone with lots of veins popping up to surface.

Their target will be a little bit deeper so they're going to do a bit more work over the next few months. They're going to do some more geophysics. They're going to do some trenching at surface as well, and then, hopefully, get into the drilling. And they need a bit more permits for the trenching and for the drilling. So that's in process as well. They've jumped on that. 

They've done all the environmental work that they need to do for the permits, and they submitted those in April. It's a six-month process, approximately, so they're about halfway through the permitting process. So in about three months’ time, we would hope that they have the permit, and then, hopefully, they get to drilling pretty quick as well.

Gerardo Del Real: The portfolio in Argentina is very, very robust. You're doing some really neat geologic work and approaching the region in a way, in this part of the country anyhow, that hasn't been explored before. Can we talk a bit about that? 

I know we touched on it last time but I think it's important to emphasize the work that you're doing in Argentina because it is definitely a game-changer for the company if it continues to work out the way that it has thus far.

Keith Henderson: The stuff that we're doing that's kind of brand new for us is the set of copper targets that we've developed in the northern part of the country. We've done a whole ton of staking there. And now, we're getting on the ground and doing regional geochemical surveys and seeing what we can come up with. 

But it was just a beautiful piece of work that came out of some thinking that our exploration manager did. And he came up with this idea, he brought it to me, and there was nothing staked — so we just jumped on it.

And I think we really surprised some other companies. Nobody had really thought about it before. And we've staked all of this ground kind of en masse. And I've become aware that some of the bigger companies have gone into Salta province and started to try and stake a little bit of this stuff too. 

And what they're finding is that we've got everything. And that's the best possible position you can put a company in. Here's our idea. We've staked it. If anybody really likes the idea and anybody watches and looks at the results that we come out with in the next couple of months, if they want to work on this kind of stuff, they're going to have to come and talk to us. And that's what we want. 

We want these types of ideas that will be generative and really good for big companies. These deposits, if we can find one, they tend to be big. They tend to be high-grade. And they tend to be of interest to major mining companies. It’s early stages but we've been on the ground and we've picked up copper mineralization that's sitting in exactly the right kind of rock, exactly what we would want to see. And so now let's get on the ground and get these samples taken and see what we can come up with.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, you have a C$12 million market cap. I can tell you, if and when you do find one of those deposits, given the land tenure that you have been able to secure for shareholders, it's going to be a fun second half of the year seeing the re-rating when and if that discovery hole really materializes. Anything to add to the conversation about the rest of the portfolio?

Keith Henderson: Not really. The Peru stuff has been going really well. Everything we've picked up in Peru has turned out to be a really interesting project. And we've got a couple of copper projects in Peru that are ready for partners, and we're kind of working on that right now. In Argentina, we do our own work but we've kind of got an eye to the drilling, and we hope that three of these projects will be drilling before the end of the year. 

We don't exactly control the timing of when our partners react to some of these things. 

They work within a framework of an agreement. So sometimes it's a bit earlier and sometimes a bit later. 

I would've loved if drilling had started around now or even a couple of months ago but we might have to wait a couple more months to see it happen. But that's fine. If we can get three of these things at least started drilling before the end of the year, that'll be a huge, huge milestone for us… and we're really excited about it.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, I'm excited for the second half of the year. I'm excited to see the drills turn. Everyone that knows my speculating style knows I love investing and speculating in companies that are going to add value via the drill bit. It's my single favorite way to see a re-rating of that company happening. 

Clearly, you've positioned Latin Metals shareholders pretty darn well for that in the second half. So lots of irons in the fire, lots of shots-on-goal. It should be a fun second half of the year. Thanks again, Keith.

Keith Henderson: Thanks a million. Cheers!

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