Categories: Energy
Topics: General Energy

Leading Edge Materials (TSX-V: LEM) CEO Blair Way on Additional Drilling at Bergby Lithium Project and Developing Woxna Graphite Product Lines

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: Hi, Gerardo. How are you doing this morning?

Gerardo Del Real: I'm doing well, I'm doing well. I want to thank you for your time. It's been several weeks, and you've had some pretty significant news. You just recently were permitted for up to 48 additional drill sites at the Bergby Lithium Project, which, of course, had some very successful first pass results. I was hoping that you could comment on that, and just kind of give us an idea of the way forward there.

Blair Way: For sure. It's just a continuation, and good news from the results are 16 out of 17 holes on the last drill program at Bergby were mineralized. We had 16 meters of thickness to work with, so that gave us good reason to consider testing both further along strike and also downdip to better understand the shape and configuration of this body that we've identified. So we decided, let's just roll right into the next permit and we've got up to 48 sites, which will allow us to drill the holes to better understand what we have.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. Now I understand that drilling is anticipated for the next couple of months, Q3 here. Is that accurate?

Blair Way: That's correct, all things go to plan. Summertime is a great time to do drilling in Sweden and we expect to pull it together by the end of Q3.

Gerardo Del Real: Fantastic. Now you've had a lot of news coming out of the company's backyard during Sweden. Volvo had some huge news here a few weeks back. Could we comment on that a bit?

Blair Way: Yeah, it was great to hear one of our Swedish homegrown companies is well known the world over and well recognized automotive brand. Volvo's going to produce no more solely combustible engine vehicles by 2019, so that's not very far away, and that's quite a bold statement. The first bold statement by any of the major automotive vehicle manufacturers, so it's nice to have that sort of confidence in the sector, and that continues to reinforce our position. What we believe is a reinforcement of our position in this sector because we are a potential supplier of those specialty materials that these electrified vehicles are going to require in the form of graphite from our Woxna facility, but also now with this recent work, our Bergby property may be a candidate for it as well.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. Now of course, Volvo being Sweden based, there's obviously a benefit there if Leading Edge is able to get a seat at the table. The NorthVolt Project has also seen a lot of attention recently. Is there anything there that you can comment on, Blair?

Blair Way: Well NorthVolt is a facility in Sweden that's being anticipated, and they've done some site selection and are looking at fast tracking that project, so all things going to plan. They have identified two sites and the people are interested in understanding that, they do have their own website, it's under NorthVolt, and they'll find the news on that project, and certainly we hope to be able to collaborate and work with these sort of organizations in the future. As I mentioned a number of times, there are a number of giga plants planned in Europe. This is one of them, and being in Sweden and with the story of Volvo and all the other innovations that go on in Sweden, we hope and expect to be a part of that process. And as time progresses, we hope to be able to advise our investors of our progress with these organizations.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. Well, I encourage everybody to go to the NorthVolt website to learn a little bit more, because that's a pretty significant project there. The website is northvolt.com. I also encourage speculators and investors in this space to go to the Leading Edge Materials website, which is leadingedgematerials.com, and do some due diligence and hopefully connect some dots. I know there's a lot of things going on behind the scenes, Blair, that frankly a lot of us aren't privy to yet, but hopefully these are things that become more public as time goes on.

Blair Way: For sure, as we progress through various technical projects, and that's really what we're doing, is working with our Woxna graphite to develop graphite product lines that are suitable for these various customers that are coming down the pipeline. And we've announced some of these projects. There's the VINNOVA project that we announced back in early June. That's working with the aerospace industry in Sweden, and we are working on projects like this as they become more readily established, then that's when we can start talking about them, and my expectation down the track, we'll have more of these to talk about, more interesting partners that we're working with. And that's just the evolution of the space, and the news that we see almost daily now on the electrification of vehicles, energy storage, stationary storage facilities being put in place. Tesla announced a stationary storage facility being put in south Australia.

All of these sort of things are pointing in the same direction, demand for these sort of specialty materials, and we are certainly the potential supply of that type of material for the European sector and quite possibly even more than Europe in the future.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, I've called it the megatrend of the future. That future appears to be getting closer by the day, and I think that Leading Edge Materials has done a phenomenal job of positioning itself, and hopefully soon we're able to talk a bit more clearly about the fact that Leading Edge Materials may very well play a significant part in that future.

Blair, I want to thank you very much for your time, and I hope to get you back on. I know there's a lot going on. Hopefully we have you back on soon as the lithium drill program is initiated, and as you get further along in the high purity graphite qualification process.

Blair Way: Absolutely, Gerardo. It's always great to catch up, and take the opportunity to have some voice time with you to tell the message more about what we're up to, and certainly I expect this summer we'll have a continuing news flow. Unlike many summers, I don't expect this to be a quiet one, and that's good news.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, that's definitely good news. I look forward to speaking soon. Thank you, Blair.

Blair Way: Thanks, Gerardo.