Categories: Base Metals
Topics: General Base Metals

Patriot Battery Metals (CSE: PMET)(OTC: PMETF) President Blair Way on Mobilization of First Drill Rig to the Corvette Lithium Property, James Bay, Quebec

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the president of Patriot Battery Metals, Mr. Blair Way. Blair, great to have you back on. How are you?

Blair Way: I'm doing great, Gerardo. It's great to catch up again, and keep you updated on what's going on.

Gerardo Del Real: Let's get right into it. You just announced the mobilization of the first drill rig to the Corvette lithium property, in what I describe as one of the most exciting recent lithium discoveries in North America. Provide the context for me, Blair.

Blair Way: Yeah, this really is. This is the rubber hitting the road. We've had a build up to this point. We obviously had a successful drill campaign in fall last year, and we've raised a bunch of money. We've got a war chest, which has to be spent on drilling, and as we've communicated through the past couple of months, we've secured our ground, a hundred percent ownership. We've got a 50 kilometer strike length to work away at. We're putting the rig on the ground and starting to drill. And so the mobilization is that first step. So in the coming weeks and months, we're going to have multiple drills turning on our property. And yeah, we're just super excited about what we're going to see in the coming months.

Gerardo Del Real: Walk me through briefly of the targets for this initial winter portion of the drill campaign.

Blair Way: For sure. So the drill program that we did, we focused on CV5 and 6, and we had some fantastic intercepts, as people are probably aware, of 155 meters, almost 1%, 0.94%. So, we've had some fantastic outcomes on that first drill program, but that was four drill holes around CV5, CV6. Further to the east is CV1, which is just across one of these shallow glacial lakes. So we know or we believe there's some connectivity there, but we've got to put the drill in the ground to discover that or define that connectivity. What we do know of course, when a lake is frozen it's hard, so a hard lake is a lot easier to put a drilling rig on. So what we're planning with a winter drill program is to work the lake, so as to speak, so the rigs will be drilling on the frozen lake, so that we can do that connectivity between the outcrops on each side of the lake.

And then as spring breakup comes, the rigs will just get moved onto the ground and we'll start drilling on the ground around CV. Again, we'll be focusing on that 1.8 kilometer corridor between CV6 and CV1. Those are quite significant outcrops and people have seen pictures of them in our news releases and the like, so that's where our main focus is in order to start looking at building a preliminary resource of some type. But then we'll also be working on the greater property, the ground we've already held, the ground that we've converted to a hundred percent ownership and some ground that we've added. So we've got a 50 kilometer corridor. The two kilometers that we're working on between CV1 and CV6 is obviously the drilling, but we're also going to have the field crew chasing and looking much closer at the ground for more outcrops, and just confirming the scale of what we have.

And then later in the summer, that field work will define, we believe, future drill targets for other outcrops throughout the property. But it's important to note that we've spent a modest amount of time on the property and really haven't had a chance to really map out all the pegmatite outcrops. Some of the ground we didn't have. Now we have it. Now we have a ton of work ahead of us, but drilling on one side of the equation of what we're doing, and also further understanding the greater, bigger picture of our whole Corvette property. So super exciting time. The boys are going to be busy this summer. I'm certainly looking forward to getting there for the winter program and the summer program to actually see what's going on, on the ground, because there's a lot ahead of us.

Gerardo Del Real: I love a great exploration story. I hate using words like “massive” and “company making,” but there is absolutely the potential for a massive, massive resource here and a company making resource. I have to ask you about the labs, Blair. I know that there were significant delays the last go round. Are you making preparations, have you made preparations this go around to ensure that we don't have those types of delays?

Blair Way: Absolutely. Labs, no matter what country you're in right now, certainly have some challenges. They're just overloaded, over-committed and under-resourced and then throw a bit of COVID in the mix, and then people can't show up for work for any number of reasons. So, certainly our expectation is that we're going to have a better process. We have changed labs and we have had a commitment from them on a turnaround time, TAT they call it. We believe they can hold it. One of the things that they have said to us is they will not be committing. They're committing their resources to a particular amount of companies and their activity and they won't commit more. And that I think is part of the problems, is that labs were not saying no. So we've moved to a lab that will say no. And they've committed to us that they'll fulfill our expectations to turnaround time on assays.

So it definitely is a problem and we'll have to stay on top of it. But we do believe we have solved that challenge, and proof will be in the pudding as we start sending some material for assay and see what the turnaround time actually is. But they certainly have committed to that, and that was one of the key. It was less about cost. Cost is always important, but it was more about reliability of turnaround time. We can't wait four weeks for one and eight weeks for another and 12 weeks for another. It's completely unacceptable. So we believe we have a solution there.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. Last but not least, we have assays pending, copper gold assays, and one, what I view as a significant lithium hole that's still pending. Look, we're both aware that we're not expecting every hole to hit a hundred meters or 155 meters of 1% lithium, but we sure are hoping. And I know I am as a biased shareholder, to hit something six kilometers away, where hopefully the grade's holding up. Any idea on timeline for those assays?

Blair Way: We're pretty close there. We are in communication with the labs and certainly we expect to see them, certainly in the next week or two. So we are getting to the end of our assay wait. So yeah, we've got the copper holes and then that final lithium hole, which is drilled at CV12, which is almost six kilometers to the west of CV5 and 6. So certainly our expectation is it was a bit what you call a wild cat hole. I guess that's more of a petroleum term, but it's a single hole at CV12. We've had good surface results. What we wanted to be able to do is confirm that the continuity of chemistry and that we were seeing similar elements and obviously the lithium and tantalum and those sort of things. So those results will be coming out very soon. And then we can certainly talk more about that.

Gerardo Del Real: Six kilometers definitely opens up that corridor that you describe.

Blair Way: Absolutely.

Gerardo Del Real: You're focusing on a couple of kilometers, but you have 50 kilometers of perspective trend. A lot to look forward to. Looking forward to having you back on, Blair. Anything else to add to that?

Blair Way: No, I think we've covered most things, but yeah, with our 50 kilometer corridor to work on, we have a ton of work this summer. We're fully funded for what work we have to do this summer. And as you said, these are the sort of things that make for a great story for a company like ours starting out. And we've got the property. We've got the resources to put the effort into the ground. The ground still has to deliver, but certainly our preliminary drilling, it has delivered and we have pretty decent expectations it'll continue to deliver. And that's an exciting time for a company like ours. And we don't have a massive market cap yet. I think our market cap is still pretty modest. I think people are just starting to get their heads around our story here, but I think once they do, we're going to see some big changes.

Gerardo Del Real: Looking forward to hopefully being able to write a check at much, much higher prices. Blair, thank you so much for that update.

Blair Way: Thanks, Gerardo. Always great to catch up.

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