Categories: Precious Metals
Topics: General Precious Metals

Perpetua Resources (TSX: PPTA)(NASDAQ: PPTA) — formerly Midas Gold — CEO Laurel Sayer on World-Class Stibnite Gold-Antimony Project & Newly Amended Path to Permitting

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real… coming to you live… from the 2021 Precious Metal Summit here in beautiful Beaver Creek. Joining me today is the CEO of, formerly Midas Gold, and now Perpetua — Ms. Laurel Sayer. Laurel, how are you?

Laurel Sayer: Doing great! Busy and excited to be here. It's great to be part of a conference that's one-on-one and in person.

Gerardo Del Real: It's been a challenging year, year-and-a-half to say the least. It's fantastic to connect in person again. I believe the last time I saw you in person was onsite.

Laurel Sayer: It was!

Gerardo Del Real: And again, back then, the company was called Midas Gold.

Laurel Sayer: That's right.

Gerardo Del Real: Can we explain the origin of the new name? I've had some questions about it, and I know Jordan, who asked me to ask you a couple of questions today, is excited to hear some of the answers.

Laurel Sayer: Well yeah, we're excited about our new name. We felt that as we were progressing into moving the headquarters to Idaho, Boise, becoming truly an Idaho company, we looked at changing the name. And it's kind of a funny story because a lot of companies, when they change their name, they go through this great lengthy effort, right, to do it. 

Didn't really know what we wanted to do… but our general counsel one day was out running, doing his morning run with his dog and thought… Esto Perpetua! That is our state motto. 

It references the three industries, economic drivers, of our economy of Idaho. And that is ag [agriculture], timber, and mining. So… came back and said, "What about putting Perpetua in there?" 

We sat down, the management, the senior team… we discussed it. Ten minutes later, we came up with Perpetua Resources. Ran it by the board. The board said, "We like it!" And we launched it. It was furious and fast… like a two week branding exercise… but we have really enjoyed it.

And it helped launch us in a place where we wanted to be. And that is focusing on not only gold as our economic driver of our project but antimony and what antimony is used for and becoming part of the clean energy solution for climate change in the US and the world. So it helped launch that topic. 

Gerardo Del Real: I love it! It's a great origin story. I've had a lot of subscribers that wonder why the disconnect between share price and progress. Now we know there's been a bit of a delay — although a strategically selected delay… I would call it… you can correct me if I'm wrong — but the bottom line is, you've been extremely busy behind the scenes. 

The market perceives this as the ‘boring period’ for Perpetua, right? And so I would love for you to explain the recent news surrounding the antimony. And then, let's get into the permitting because this is a project that has overwhelming bipartisan support, overwhelming community support given the fact that it's a mining project. 

Every mining project will always have a voice or two that has a differing opinion, right? We welcome that. But this is a project — I've been there multiple times — that the community really is behind. And so I would love for you to just address where the share price is and then all the progress and the momentum that we talked about.

Laurel Sayer: Okay. Well, we of course want to help our share price get bigger… to increase it and advance that… and we're taking some opportunities to do that. So let me talk about antimony a little bit. With this new Biden administration — with the focus coming out of COVID on supply chain — antimony is one of the 35 critical minerals listed not only in the US but Australia, Canada… other places as well.

A strategic metal that needs to be mined here; domestically mined. So we have been advancing that and telling the story about clean energy; how it's used in solar and wind. Well, about a month ago, a little less than a month ago, we announced a partnership we have with Ambri — a private US company that has developed a liquid metal battery that uses antimony as one of its primary ingredients along with calcium. And it's exciting!

It is a battery that will be used for solar and wind storage on a grid level. That is a game changer for climate change, for grids in the US, and being able to store clean energy. We're so pleased to be a part of that, and we committed some of our antimony to that. We aren't allowed to just say exactly what that is — secret sauce!

Gerardo Del Real: I teased you about it a bit off the record… on the record now… but I understand the sensitivity around that. I think the market missed the importance and significance of that announcement because, frankly, the share price didn't react the way that I thought it would. 

I suspect a reason for that may be the opaque nature of the way that the deal was struck. But again, I think, in time, shareholders are really going to realize the value that that deal is going to bring to the share price because I think it's — pun intended — it's ‘critical’ moving forward, right?

Laurel Sayer: I think so too. And I think we're very interested in attracting investors that have a thematic interest in clean energy. And we just need to tell that story more… get it out there more… and I think it will attract that.

Gerardo Del Real: You recently raised, I believe, it was over $50 million.

Laurel Sayer: We did.

Gerardo Del Real: Talk to me and explain to me where you see that being allocated. And then, let's talk about where the permitting stands right now.

Laurel Sayer: We need that money to help get us through to a Record of Decision. And we think that that's where it will take us. We're pretty confident we can get there.

Gerardo Del Real: Okay.

Laurel Sayer: We recently — so far as the permitting schedule goes — on July 1, we had the Forest Service announce that we would move into a supplemental draft Environmental Impact Statement [EIS]. It will be a focused, targeted, supplemental, which we're very pleased to work with the Forest Service on that. 

So it takes our proposed action… our action that has been refined from the comment period we had in August 2020. We did some refinements to it. We reduced the footprint; we improved the water quality; we improved the water temperature — all things that you need to do to support salmon and bull trout and the other fish that we have up there that we are working with.

So those improvements were in place. The Forest Service thought it was best to go out with a supplemental on that to have the plan be a little stronger and a little more defensible. We reluctantly agreed to that. It lengthens the time but it does make a stronger plan, and it will be stronger as we move forward to the end. So that will happen. 

They will put that out for just a 45-day comment period — first quarter of '22. By the end of '22, we should have our final EIS and our draft Record of Decision. And then, in the first half of '23, we will have our Record of Decision. And then, that process moves forward into finalizing our ancillary permits, getting financing for construction put in place, and then begin construction in '24.

Gerardo Del Real: So just to be absolutely clear with everybody; yes, slight delay, but a much clearer, surer, more direct path towards permitting, right?

Laurel Sayer: It is. And we're pleased that we were able to do that and the Forest Service was able to see that and help promote that in our plan.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent! We've talked antimony; we talked about the fish. I know you have a passion because of your background now to make this project sustainable, to leave it… frankly, not leave it… make it better than it's been for the past 70 years even before you mine a single ounce of gold. 

But I couldn't let you go without mentioning the fact that this is a world-class gold deposit. 

Laurel Sayer: It is.

Gerardo Del Real: You have a reserve base approaching 7 million ounces. I've been to the property. The property has phenomenal exploration upside. You are trading at a fraction of what I believe Perpetua now deserves to be trading at. And I think you'll get there. I think that's the opportunity. Can you just provide a brief overview of the gold asset there?

Laurel Sayer: Yeah, and I think as we move forward… you're absolutely correct… it is a world-class asset. And it is because of that that we're able to do the things we are doing. We're able to do the restoration for the project. We're able to commit and invest in the community like we are. We're able to be forward-looking in clean energy and put some really great clean energy, sustainable ESG approaches into the development of the mine as it operates. 

Those things are because of the world-class asset, and we're pleased to be able to do that. This is a brownfield. It needs us to repair it and to restore it. And we're doing that for the environment. But we're also being able to give a great return to our investors.

Gerardo Del Real: I know everybody's looking forward to permitting moving forward. The rocks haven't changed.

Laurel Sayer: Nope.

Gerardo Del Real: The antimony hasn't gone anywhere. The infrastructure is still top-notch. I'm excited to see it move forward. Thank you so much for the update, Laurel.

Laurel Sayer: Thank you.

Gerardo Del Real: Pleasure as always.

Laurel Sayer: A pleasure to be here.

Gerardo Del Real: Thank you.

Laurel Sayer: Thank you.