Categories: Energy
Topics: General Energy

Leading Edge Materials (TSX-V: LEM) CEO Blair Way Kicks Off Targeted Drill Program to Expand on Initial Excellent Results at the Bergby Lithium Project

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is President and CEO of Leading Edge Materials (TSX-V: LEM)(OTC: LEMIF), Mr. Blair Way. Blair, how are you this morning?

Blair Way: Great, Gerardo. How are you doing?

Gerardo Del Real: I'm doing fantastic. Thank you very much for asking. I understand you're on the road, if I'm not mistaken.

Blair Way: That is correct. It's an essential part of life these days but it's all good news.

Gerardo Del Real: Absolutely. Another piece of good news is, you issued a news release this morning announcing the commencement of a second drill program which of course, follows up the positive results from drilling at Bergby earlier this year, the first half of this year. Can you provide the details, Blair?

Blair Way: For sure. We've talked about the Bergby project. It's been quite an early stage project. We did that maiden drill program and as you're well aware we've talked about a number of times, the results have been pretty good. In fact, excellent. We've obviously taken the next steps to move into a drill program. A second drill program that'll allow us to explore downdip and up and down strike.

It's not a massive drill program. We do have capacity for a number of sites, but we'll be targeting a smaller drill program now. Depending on what that yields, then we may consider more drilling. We have a good relationship with the driller, so as we've mentioned in the press release, it's less than 1,000 meters of drilling. All drilling is targeted, but we really are targeting it, even more so, because we want to keep it brief.

To just better understand the scale of what we found at Bergby, because it's moved along a lot faster than you would normally anticipate. We've been very cautious with our resources, both people and money and facility equipment. Certainly everything we found in our last drill program with 17 of 18 holes where we've tagged lithium oxide, that mineralized pegmatite, which is what we're looking for. We are optimistic that these next 1,000 meters will also help us better understand the configuration of it.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. Now, I understand that the next part of the drilling is only 1,000 meters, give or take a bit, but you've actually been granted permits for up to 48 new drill sites. Is that correct, Blair?

Blair Way: That's correct. These sort of permits are more about the sites, because it's about the environmental disturbance. We have up to 48 sites. One of the reasons for doing that is that way, you're not obliged or required to use all 48 sites. You can drill all your holes from one particular pad, if you want. It means we can go up to 48 if indeed there was the motivation to move forward. Certainly, if we can do what we hope to do with this first round of the second drilling, then we might explore partners or an interested party that would want to be connected with a project of this magnitude in Europe.

Gerardo Del Real: Are you seeing more interest behind the scenes, specifically in Sweden, Blair, for critical metals projects in companies that actually have the expertise like Leading Edge? Is there more of an interest? Do you see more of a response there?

Blair Way: I think the best way to answer a question like that is short answer, yes. The long answer is, I'm sure listeners are well aware that there just has been this ramping up of attention in the media. Not that the media is necessarily always accurate, but what it does indicate or is clear is that electrification of vehicles, stationary energy storage, all these other green energy solutions in order to transition away from the internal combustion engine and the petroleum-based society that we lead now, it's around us every day.

Whatever town you're in, no matter what paper you pick up or website you look at, there's always something about some level of this going on. As a result, and it's exactly the same here in Europe as it is in North America as it is in Australia or in the rest of the world, we're seeing it in Sweden. Of course, we're talking to customers about our graphite because it is our flagship and that's a primary focus. If they're building lithium ion batteries, it's not just graphite that they need. They need lithium, they need cobalt, they need nickel, and a number of our other specialty capabilities that we certainly are not restricting ourselves to the graphite.

Graphite is certainly number one for us because of our fully permitted Woxna facility, and the ability to actually produce the material from that facility. Certainly, the lithium and cobalt are an example of other commodities that these potential customers we're talking to are interested in. When we have something like Bergby coming up, essentially out of nowhere, 18 months ago no one had even heard of Bergby. These sort of things are definitely work, bode well for us. The interest level across Europe, not just Sweden, is quite high.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. Excellent. Well, Blair, I hope to have you back on soon as you get assays from the drilling program. In the meantime, I do encourage everybody to get a bit more familiar with the projects and just the boom that's happening, frankly in Europe and specifically in Sweden right now. I know we've talked off the air about the Northvolt project. Hopefully we have news within the next two to four weeks from that. In the meantime, go to the website everybody. It's leadingedgematerials.com. Blair, is there anything else that you'd like to add?

Blair Way: You mentioned Northvolt. We have spoken about that in the past. We've announced the project that we're working on together. They are obviously one of those potential customers in the future as they're planning and we're working together with them to plan this Gigafactory, equivalent scale to what everyone's heard of from Tesla in Nevada. Certainly, it's worth keeping an eye on them. As we become able to talk more and more about how these various projects we're working on, both with the likes of Northvolts and other, there are other planned Gigaplants in Europe. Not just in Sweden, but scattered around Europe. In fact, depending on how you count them there's up to 10. We make a concerted effort to speak and work with as many of those as we can. We need to have obviously, more than one potential customer because you never know which one of these projects you're going to get up and running, as far as the battery cell manufacturing. It is an exciting time, simply because there are so many of these projects planned for building battery cells to meet the needs of this new sector.

We believe we are so well positioned here in Europe to be able to accommodate, or certainly work with many of these future producers of battery cells. I look forward to talking with you further. Obviously about the drill program at Bergby, and as we work through these various discussions and projects with potential customers. When things are going well and confidentiality agreements and stuff permit me to talk about it, then those are the sort of things we can share more with investors.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, I always say if there's confidentiality agreements in place in the resource space, that's usually a good sign, not a bad one. Fingers crossed that we get some more news here in the next two to four weeks. A little bit more clarity there. In the meantime, thank you so much, Blair. I appreciate your time today.

Blair Way: Thanks, Gerardo. It's always good to have a chat and tell our story a bit further.

Gerardo Del Real: Chat soon, Blair.