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Latin Metals (TSX-V: LMS)(OTC: LMSQF) CEO Keith Henderson on Obtaining Key Exploration Permit at Esperanza

 

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

Keith Henderson: I'm really great. Thanks. How are you?

Gerardo Del Real: I'm well. I'm well, we chatted a bit off-air. We got record high gold prices, silver's finally trading like a commodity instead of an industrial metal. Copper is broken $4.30, this despite a dollar index, it's at the 1.04 level. Not a bad time for you to secure a key permit to advance exploration at the recently joint-ventured Esperanza Copper Gold Project in San Juan province, Argentina. Congrats on another step forward closer to moving things across the finish line. Can you tell me a bit about this permit and what it allows you to do?

Keith Henderson: Yeah, it's super big news for us. In my opinion, this is a very strong signal that the government wants this project to move forward and that's understandable. There was another project further north of here called Gualcamayo, which was an operating mine that closed, there was rumors and attempts to reopen that mine and it didn't reopen. So really, our project becomes a very central and economically important project for the future of this region, and we see the government getting behind it and supporting it so that's just great news.

We've been through a quiet few years with this project. We had a previous partner who failed to secure any permits during a three-year option. I don't want to say too much more about that, but here we are. We're moving forward. We've got the permit and this allows our new partner, Moxico, to get on the ground almost immediately, just a couple of weeks after signing the option agreement, which is great news.

They've got a superb technical team. They want to do some mapping, sampling, geophysics, probably most importantly, and that's going to help them just to define exactly where those drill targets are going to be and we expect to see a drill permit around the end of the year. I think it's a good timing and I really do think that's going to happen. We're really very advanced in the permit process.

The government's got in their hands, the drill locations, the road locations, the camps, the water sources, everything's very, very advanced. We're just in the final steps of finishing off our environmental impact assessment connected with that work, and that's going to include a water study. And that's a very forward-thinking thing for us to do, water resources are very important in San Juan and it's a very important topic that everyone cares a lot about. So by producing this report, which is really a little more than a company might typically produce, we're really sending a strong message to everybody in the region that not only are we providing a great project and job opportunities, but also we're looking after the environment and doing everything correctly.

Gerardo Del Real: No, look, we've seen over the years the importance of social license. You mentioned the failure by the previous partner in securing those exploration permits and advancing the project across the finish line. I want to remind people, because it's been a bit since this project's been drilled, this isn't a greenfields project. This has a hole that includes 387 meters hitting 0.57% copper and 0.27 grams per tonne gold. That was from surface, right? There's 166 meters within that grading 0.84% copper and 0.37 grams per tonne gold. This with an expression, a mineralized expression of over 1,400 meters by 850 meters. It's a considerable size, considerable target, and again, we know there's gold, we know there's copper there. It's a matter of scale. What comes next, Keith?

Keith Henderson: Once we get to drilling, say an early part of next year with Moxico, I expect, well, I basically know what they're going to be looking at. I've talked to them at great length. They're going to be looking to step out to get the extent in the western direction in particular, but other directions as well to see how they can expand it. But there's another very important aspect to this, which ties in a little bit to the Filo del Sol story, which is also in San Juan. Filo del Sol has been one of the most significant discoveries in as long as I can remember, and it's just been subject by part of a $4.1 billion transaction with BHP.

And what happened to that project was they had something a little bit similar to Esperanza in the sense that they had hundreds of meters of surface, 300-400 meters thick mineralization. They defined a pit, they were moving through pre feasibility and feasibility, and then they had the thought and the geological idea to go and test some deeper targets. And when they did that, they found additional hundreds of meters of mineralization and at much higher grade, and that really changed that project forever.

Now I'm bringing that up for a particular reason. All of the drilling that happened at Esperanza, which finished, actually you're right, it was quite a while ago, 2018, but all of the drilling that was ever done was done with small man portable rigs, which means that it's not that mineralization stops at 400 meters, it's that the drill rigs were unable to proceed past that depth. So if you look at all of our drill holes, some of them finished at a couple of hundred meters because the drill machine ran out of steam. Most of them got to around 400 meters, but none of them got any further. So they're all basically open at depth as well. So there's this bigger question, which is like what's sitting underneath this thing? And that's something that Moxico will have to look at as well. So we can expect to see deeper drill holes and we can expect to expect to see them stepping out to the west as well.

Gerardo Del Real: You mentioned the technical ability of your partner. Can you speak to that a bit because I've known you long enough now, Keith, to know that you don't excite easy. So when I hear you excited about how aggressive and intentional your partner is on advancing this project forward in a very methodical, but as I said, aggressive way that makes me excited as someone that's recommended the company in one of the paid services for Junior Resource Monthly. It's got to make shareholders happy to hear the enthusiasm, but can you articulate why you get so excited about that technical acumen that they possess?

Keith Henderson: It's their technical acumen in exploration, but also their execution ability to move projects forward and their ability to finance these things and build them. This is a group that's done fabulous things in Zambia. They've got a project all the way to production. They've been producing for a year. They're looking at a major expansion this year, and now they're looking to expand their operations around the world. So we know that they can do it. They've got an absolute track record and they've done it before.

I know the particular consultants that they're planning to use in San Juan as they get into this project, and I'm very impressed with them. They're a wonderful group of people and they also have a track record, not just in Argentina, but around South America as well, particularly in Colombia. So yeah, this is a really good group and technical ability and technical knowledge is really everything. You can collect as much data, you can drill as many holes as you want, you can do as much geophysics as you want, but if you don't have the right people in your company, you're not going to make the right drill decisions based on that data. And that's really important and that's important to me.

Also, you'll have noticed that this week we announced another couple of additions to our technical advisory group. We previously had Dan MacNeil in there for the last couple of years who's been helping us a lot, but we've added two more people this week. And if you don't mind, actually, I wouldn't mind just introducing them a little bit as well because both kind of significant additions to the team.

Gerardo Del Real: I would love that.

Keith Henderson: One of the guys, we put in a fellow called Mike Basha. He's a geologist with about 35 years experience, so he's certainly got experience, he's got a discovery record, he's got actual deposits that are accredited to him for discovery, particularly one called Hammerdown Gold Deposit in Newfoundland. He's got experience in South America. He was the VP at Cornerstone, but he was actually the guy that brought Cornerstone into Ecuador. He went in and did the ground selection and that project got acquired by Silver Gold for $120 million. He's also an entrepreneur and a founder. He acquired all the ground that he put into a company called Aurion in Finland that he founded that's now part of a big joint venture with B2Gold, and there's a deposit on there as well. So also really good on relationships like he brought Kinross and B2Gold into Finland.

So the themes here are this is an ideas person. This is a guy that at the earliest stages gets the right ground that leads to a company success or a company transaction or something like that. So an ideas person that's got the ability to pick up the right kind of ground. He's also a guy that's got a fantastic network and that just simply broadens LMS's reach in the offices of the major mining companies. We already have a lot of contacts, as you can see from the kind of joint ventures we've been putting together, but this guy will have the effect of broadening that for us as well. So he's really a superb addition.

The other person that we brought in is a lady called Fionnuala Devine. She's a porphyry epithermal expert throughout the Andes region. She's got very specific experience in San Juan where the Esperanza project is located. And I mentioned Filo del Sol and that transaction a few moments ago, she was part of the team that discovered the mineralization in that district. And she is a winner of the PDAC Award in 2024 for the work that she did in this district together with the rest of the team. So she's been very, very much recognized as being a key part of that team. She's been writing technical papers together with some of the world's greatest experts in porphyries. So this is a huge achievement for us to have us and her involved. She'll bring a huge amount of experience from this particular district and this province that more than anyone else that I know and a track record of turning exploration and ideas into actual discoveries.

So these two people are going to make a material difference to what we are going to be doing in terms of what we're going to be looking for, where we're going to be acquiring property, and how are we going to move them forward to the point where partners feel compelled to come in and take over the project.

Gerardo Del Real: Exciting times. I know it always takes longer than we want it to and longer than we think. I've been around long enough now to know that, but this is one of those where I think the patience is absolutely going to be rewarded, and I suspect that the end of the year and the beginning of 2025 is going to more than make up for some of the delays, through no one's fault other than the market, right? Some of the delays that were experienced in securing exploration permits and advancing projects with partners. So great work. Kudos to you and the team. Anything else to add to that, Keith?

Keith Henderson: Nothing in particular. There have been delays, but had we delivered some of these key items and news into poor markets, would it have made any difference? Here we are in a good market. It's exactly the right time for these kind of good news items to be coming up in this company, and we've got plenty more that we hope to deliver before Christmas. Even two weeks ago, we were raising money at 8 cents, now the stock's 65 cents up from that and we're getting into a real market here where proper news items and real companies are getting rewarded, so it's an exciting time.

Gerardo Del Real: Couldn't agree more. Thank you so much for your time. Chat soon. It sounds like we'll be chatting a whole heck of a lot more frequently here.

Keith Henderson: I hope so.

Gerardo Del Real: All right.

Keith Henderson: Thanks very much.

Gerardo Del Real: Cheers, Keith.

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