Categories: Energy
Topics: General Energy / Lithium Stocks

Monumental Energy (TSX-V: MNRG)(OTC: MNMRF) Founder Max Sali on Diversifying with Lithium & Energy

 

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the founder of Monumental Energy, Mr. Max Sali. Max, great to have you back on. How are you today, sir?

Max Sali: I'm good, I'm good. Thanks for having me as always. I know we did an update not too long ago, but we had two news releases last week, one specifically on Chile and one specifically on New Zealand, and it'd be good just to discuss those quickly.

Gerardo Del Real: No, listen, let's get into it. Lithium looks to have bottomed. It's slowly but surely making a U-turn higher. And obviously oil, natural gas, the energy market has been robust to say the least. I can't help but notice Monumental having exposure to both, and seemingly pivoting, or at the very least, leaning towards adding exposure in the energy space. So I wanted to have you on just to talk about the two releases because I thought they were interesting in the contrast of the two.

Max Sali: Yeah, so the first release we had last week was on Chile. The government announced something called an RFI, request for information. What that is, it's a package that companies with salars put together and will submit to the government, and at the end of the day, hopefully get something called a COEL, which is your exploitation license to be able to produce lithium from your specific salar. So we're working through that. I think the deadline to submit that is June 17th. What the government is looking for is they want to see companies that really want to move forward, and so this package that we're presenting to them is pretty much showing them that, "Hey, we're interested. We really want to do this. Here's all our information. We want to request information from you about the status of these salars."

But just before that was announced, Chile pretty much announced three things. One, they protected 30% of salars for environmental. We are not on that list. Then they announced Strategic Salars, so they added the Atacama. We are not on that list, so we don't have to partner with the government. And then there is a group of salars that will be able to privately produce, and we're on that. So that's the best possible case scenario for Laguna Blanca. So I think over the next six weeks to two months, you're going to see a lot more out of Chile. You're right, the price has bottomed out. A lot of the brines in South American companies have done very well since the start of the year. Our partner Lithium Chile was 45 cents in December. I think they were 80 cents recently, and we're up over 100% this year, too.

Also, I think part of that is due to the oil and gas investment. So the second press release we had, which was last Friday, was just an update on that. We were able to get another waiver from the TSX and increase our position in New Zealand Energy. But what we are trying to look at now is potentially farming in or doing a bit of our own oil. So that would give Monumental a bit of production and cashflow to fund our lithium exploration. And so, like you said, I think lithium is coming back. Oil and gas is very strong. There's an article on the front of the Financial Times Weekend Edition last weekend, and the article is pretty much how lithium EVs are kind of going back to hybrids. That seems to be the best model, is the hybrid, so your oil and gas and electric, and that's what Monumental is. We've got exposure to both, and I think we're very excited about what this summer has to offer us.

Gerardo Del Real: No, listen, I think it's good timing in the space as far as if you want to buy low and sell high, this most definitely, despite the increase in the share price, you still have a minuscule market cap. Can you speak to the market cap right now, Max, and the opportunity there?

Max Sali: Yeah, I think we're between six and seven million now. The last time I looked, we were about 11-and-a-half cents, so that was this morning. I have been adding to my position slowly when I can. I did buy last Friday after our news release on New Zealand, and we'll continue to add slowly when we can. But, yeah, I think that we're in for a really very positive summer. Obviously, commodities are ripping. The stocks are up off their lows across the board. So I think that the last few summers we've had have been dead since the big, big summer of 2020 when gold was ripping, and I think it's going to be a good summer and fall for us this year.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, Roaring Kitty is back, so what could possibly go wrong, right, Max?

Max Sali: You know what? I saw that, and I saw the stocks are up significantly, so it seems like the sentiment is good and everyone's happy, and it seems like it's going to be busy for the next few months. I look forward to our potential news flow and just deliver to the market the best results we possibly can across the board.

Gerardo Del Real: What a time to be alive. Thanks for the update, Max. Looking forward to having you back on.

Max Sali: Thank you, sir.

Gerardo Del Real: All right. Cheers.