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Patriot Battery Metals (CSE: PMET)(OTC: PMETF) CEO Blair Way on Drilling Towards Triple Digit Tonnage
Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the President and CEO of Patriot Battery Metals, Mr. Blair Way. Blair, it was an interesting week last week. How are you?
Blair Way: I'm good. It's been a big week, PDAC in the first half and the site visit in the second half where I've got my VP of Exploration and director and myself touring around the site, taking a look at the drill program and a few other bits and bobs located around the site. So yeah, it's a full week, but a fun week.
Gerardo Del Real: Well, let's get right into it. I've insisted from pretty early on that I felt there was a potential for triple-digit tonnage, at least a hundred million tonnes and potentially more. I'm talking specifically about the two-kilometer trend you're working on now. You had some news last week that you would've thought was absolutely horrible, given that somebody decided to get in there and play with the stock a little bit, but the results were spectacular. You drilled 1.17% lithium over 61.3 meters, and 1.39% lithium over 26.6 meters. You also had a picture that you tweeted on social media about the current drilling that's going on and I understand that's going very, very well. Let's start with the results from last week. And then I want to ask you about the site visit.
Blair Way: Sure, absolutely. The results from last week, we put them out as part of the whole, it lined up perfectly for PDAC. I'd like to think we planned it that way, but the labs have... We have little control over that process, but yeah, it all lined up. We just got a lump of them came in and the results were fantastic. And I did expect a better response, but really PDAC week, this past week has been a dismal week across the board for a lot of companies. And we weren't excluded from that. But yeah, 61.3 meters at 1.17, 65.7 meters at 0.95, these are fantastic results that in any other parts of the world, we'd be getting positivity. 29 meters at 1.14, or 33.5 at 1.25, not sure. It really is something pretty spectacular we think, and we're continuing to see this potential as we're drilling.
We continue to drill, obviously with the summer drill program, the two rigs are still turning. One is working the CV1 end of the two-kilometer trend. The other is working the CV5 and 6 end of the two-kilometer trend. And they're continuing to drill and we're seeing intercepts to meet our expectations for sure.
Gerardo Del Real: You mentioned other parts of the world. I know that Australia has a very, very clear understanding of these types of lithium deposits. I also know that there's an eager audience there that's looking for these kinds of stories that have scale, that have grade, and frankly that have world-class exploration upside. How is the listing process coming along? Because I think that's going to be a major catalyst for shaking out some of the funny games that go on in some of the other exchanges around the world without pointing any fingers.
Blair Way: Yeah, I think you're right. The process, it is as you'd expect, it's a dual listing, so there's a bit of bureaucracy in there. We are working through it. We haven't come across any show stoppers or anything that's going to prevent it. Timing, I'm hoping it'll be by the end of July subject again to the bureaucratic processes. But you're absolutely right. Our expectation is the Australian market better understands these hard rock lithium projects, that they understand these large-scale, hard rock projects. And to be able to demonstrate that we have something of similar scale to what they see in Australia, but have it here in Quebec, in North America to service the North American market is a huge positive. And we expect, as you said, some form of re-rating as a result of that getting to that audience.
Gerardo Del Real: How are you feeling about that march towards that hundred million tonne potential? Is it still the plan to have a resource out in Q4 of this year?
Blair Way: Yes. We're definitely aiming for a resource. I have to be careful as far as using numbers and specifics because the regulator gives us quite a bit of grief about making any sort of overarching statement, but certainly, we have a two-kilometer corridor and we're working on drilling and we are going to focus the drilling on that. We obviously have some of these satellite outcrops that we've identified over the past programs that we're putting boots on the ground to do proper prospecting, mapping to understand and prioritize putting drill holes in there. But if, as we get towards the end of the summer or that third rig, that's the goal for the third rig. But if we feel we need to put more holes in this two-kilometer corridor in order to deliver the goods, then we'll focus on that. At the end of the day, the two-kilometer corridor is where we're going to be able to build a resource. So we have to put the right work into building that resource.
Gerardo Del Real: Speaking of delivering the goods, I referenced the tweet that you sent out last week. It said summer drill program, pegmatite looking good. And I must say it looked good. It's just a few boxes of core. Tell me how the current drilling is going. How far into the program are you? And how's it coming along?
Blair Way: Yeah, the summer program is going great. Obviously, it's just a little bit more efficient moving rigs around and the drill crew can be more productive… just snow and everything just does slow things down a little bit. They're just pushing through holes and I think we've done eight holes already. We’re somewhere around eight holes and certainly, we're seeing the intercepts that we expect to see. And in some cases, maybe a little bit more, but obviously, we'll wait until we get the final core logs on those and then the assays to follow up on that. But what is great when you look at these cores, you're seeing the spodumene, and you're seeing the spodumene which we previously already identified and defined as the primary lithium-bearing mineral in our pegmatites. And we're certainly seeing some beautiful examples of spodumene, the geologists love it because it's interesting to be able to tap into the core and find all this really interesting mineralogy .
The drill rigs are delivering core. We're seeing the pegmatite intercepts that we expect to see. We're moving from hole to hole pretty quickly and efficiently. And we've got a lot of work laid out ahead of us in the summer, but it won't be long before the summer is over and we're waiting on assays and building the resource.
Gerardo Del Real: Speaking of assays, we're waiting on assays right now. How's that coming along?
Blair Way: It is coming. We are expecting any day now. And as I said we put these results out on PDAC. We didn't even know if we'd get them out the week of PDAC. They showed up on the Friday evening, so we scrambled together to get all the stuff together. And I expect it's going to be the same, which is that these most recent assays are just going to pop on our desk any day now. And we'll put the press release out as quickly as we can.
Gerardo Del Real: In the latest release, you mentioned that you're looking over to prospecting an area of more than 25 kilometers of trend across the property that it has never been evaluated for lithium pegmatite. This type of prospecting is what allowed you to zero in on the current two-kilometer trend that you're drilling out and defining. How is that coming along? Has that process commenced? And if so, how's it going?
Well, it's a good question. It actually commenced pretty much this past week. So all going to plan, we're going to start seeing some of the results. There were some delays with flights and a bit of weather in Quebec. The guys are on the ground basically now getting ready to... or they're on the ground, prospecting the various prospects, the outcrops, as well as looking in areas where we haven't found outcrops, but we expect to where in some cases they've been targeted on air photos or air satellite imagery. The prospecting crew actually has a lot of work ahead of them. We've got multiple helicopters out here for that very reason, so we can move our drill crew around, people, as well as our prospectors, so we can keep them on track and moving as quickly as possible.
Blair Way: I just spent the last two days walking around a fair amount of the outcrops. And it's hard walking, so the guys have got a lot of work ahead of them. There's a lot of black flies, so they're going to have to contend with that. But we believe by the end of the first stage of that work program, as far as the prospecting, then we'll have some prioritization on outcrops we either already know about or ones that we have not identified in the past. And then from that, we can make some determinations of what we will do in respect to deploying the drill to those outcrops.
Gerardo Del Real: The last week of trading action showed me a couple of things. One that there's probably two types of shareholders. I think there's shareholders like me that are in this for the bigger picture. I think this will end up being one of, if not the biggest lithium deposits in North America. Whether or not I'm right, if I'm halfway right, we're going to do phenomenally well. The other type of shareholder that exists is the shareholder that's just kind of trading in and out in between releases. For those that are newer to the stock and maybe are just hoping to catch, a good day to the upside or a good day to the downside if they're shorting the stock, can you provide just a brief overview of what the current drill program is hoping to accomplish?
Blair Way: Sure. We started a 20,000-meter drill program, which included about four and a half thousand meters in the winter, which was completed in the assays, as we just discussed, as a last batch of assays, probably I think it's four holes. We should have those any day soon. Then we'll have a bit of a gap between assay results. But obviously during the time, while we start drilling, we will start talking about how things are going with regards to pegmatite and intercepts, and the like, as well as a few other things that are going on here in the field. We have essentially another 15,000 meters that we're drilling this summer and into the fall. And we've got two rigs right now, third grade coming in July, early July. The two rigs are solely focused on our two-kilometer corridor between CV5, 6, and CV1. And then the other rig will be either dedicated to the outcrops or some of the outcrops and helping with infill if we feel we need to catch up in respect to building a resource in this two-kilometer corridor.
Gerardo Del Real: Assays pending, hitting pegmatite, hitting the spodumene in that pegmatite, third rig on the way in July, potential for the ASX listing to happen in July, I think it's going to be a fun summer. Anything to add to that, Blair?
Blair Way: No, you're right. It's a great summer for the company. We're fully funded to do our drill program. That's something I probably didn't mention, but again, people that know the story, know we are fully funded all the way through to the end of our drill program. We just have a lot laid out ahead of us and it's all really positive and things that I think our investors or shareholders should be looking forward to as we progress through it.
Gerardo Del Real: Blair, great catching up. Look forward to those assays. We'll talk soon.
Blair Way: Thanks, Gerardo. I'll talk to you later.