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Q2 Metals (TSX-V: QTWO)(OTC: QUEXF) CEO Alicia Milne on Next-Steps at Flagship Mia Lithium Project in Redhot James Bay Region of Quebec
Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the CEO of Q2 Metals — Ms. Alicia Milne. Alicia, it is great to have you on.
You and I have not spoken before, which is interesting because I'm actually a shareholder, a very committed one, that has participated in the last two financings. So I know that we've corresponded but we haven't actually had the pleasure to chat. So it's great having you on. How are you today?
Alicia Milne: I'm good, thanks, Gerardo. It's nice to be here and nice to finally talk to you in person.
Gerardo Del Real: Well, let's get right into it. I actually reached out because, as I mentioned, I'm a committed Q2 shareholder. I firmly believe that Q2 is the next company in the James Bay area with a legitimate shot at a legitimate discovery. Of course, we all know what Patriot Battery Metals has done. We all know the Corvette district is turning into a one-off in a very unique and special situation.
But there's a lot of common — and I hate this word — but there's a lot of synergies between Q2 and Patriot. I don't want to rehash them because I have in the past. But Neil McCallum is involved, obviously, with Q2 metals. Neil, of course, being famous for helping stake the Corvette district.
I know privately and publicly, he loves the properties in the Q2 Metals portfolio. And we happen to have the good fortune of the stock pulling back recently from the latest financing coming free trading and, I think, some shortsighted traders locking in some profits.
So with all that being said, before we talk about Q2, before we talk about the property and the catalysts coming up and why I think this is an excellent entry point, can we speak a bit about your background?
Alicia Milne: Sure, my background is, actually, I was a securities and corporate paralegal way back in the olden days. And then, I started working at Pretium Resources, and I was their corporate secretary for seven-odd years.
But prior to that, I actually worked with Jody Dahrouge and Neil McCallum with a group of other companies. So I mean, I've known Jody for going on 20 years, and Neil is probably close to the same because he was based in the same office that I was in. So we have a good history there.
And flash-forward 20 years and here we are working on Mia and it's been fun. It's been great. And it's good to have that trust level with Jody and Neil because I've known them for so long.
Gerardo Del Real: Absolutely. Well listen, no coincidence, obviously, with the network and the relationships that you end up with Mia, which is a property that I am extremely excited about. It's worth mentioning you are also a former director of Women in Mining BC, by the way, but we’ll have that conversation another day.
Alicia Milne: Yep.
Gerardo Del Real: Yeah, I love that! Let's talk about Mia and let's talk about why the stock is trading right now at roughly C$0.45. It's pulled back quite a bit. It's got a 52-week high of C$1.23.
I think if we have success with the drill bit later this year, C$1.23 is going to seem modest. So C$0.44, C$0.45, I think, is a spectacular, spectacular entry point or a great point to average down on.
The last check that I wrote was at C$0.50, and I'm happy to see it on sale because it allows me, one, to get subscribers in at a great entry point and, two, for me to add to my existing position. But tell me about Mia and what is it about that specific property that attracted you to it and that made you decide to call it the flagship?
Alicia Milne: Well, there's been no work done on Mia historically. It's been a gold project for years and it's just sort of flown under the radar until the vendor that we acquired it from — he had staked it and he had done a little bit of work on it and he's been very active in the area — and it just sort of came to us and we looked at it a little bit closer.
One of our directors who’s based in Australia is a mining engineer, and he had a coworker who's a geologist, and we reached out to Jody and Neil as well. And we said, ‘Hey, we have this project here that we're looking to acquire. What do you think?’
And everybody's eyes just opened up and they're like, ‘What… this is amazing… nobody's touched this!’ And just looking at the satellite photos and looking at some of the samples that the vendor had come up with — he was out there in August and September last year — it was a bit of a no-brainer.
And I don't think we actually knew what we were getting ourselves into until we actually acquired it and announced it. And then, the market started running and we closed a C$10.25 million private placement in February.
So we're very well-funded for doing a considerable amount of work on the project this year. Of that C$10 million we raised, C$7.5 million of that was flow through, so that's going directly into the ground this year.
Gerardo Del Real: I love that you actually answered my next question.
Alicia Milne: Yeah, there's going to be a lot of news flow once we start hitting the project hard. I mean, this week, actually, Neil and another person that are going to be working on our project are actually heading up to Mia right now. They're on a plane flying over James Bay.
Neil was sending us some pictures earlier but they're heading there now. We get, I guess, kind of locked out from April 20th to May 20th because it's goose harvesting season. And they’re anticipating being there May 21st, getting on the ground, starting their initial mapping and sampling programs.
To this point, none of us has actually been there. We have an IP survey going on right now and a mag survey that’s going to be happening. But those are the only people that have been on Mia since our vendors were there last September.
So we have a lot of work coming up and it's been good. We’ve had a bit of downtime so we've been able to get all of our contracts in place with who's going to be doing the work on the project. We've got all of our drilling lined up. We've got everything lined up and ready to go. So May 21st, we'll be hitting it hard. And then, hopefully, it'll be an extremely busy summer and fall for us.
Gerardo Del Real: Well, work means news flow. We know that. And a quiet period tends to be when stocks consolidate. I think the consolidation is healthy. I spoke with Neil. And I actually spoke with Jody as well and had the good fortune of meeting with him at PDAC and interviewed him here a week or two ago.
And what stood out to them, and what stands out to me, are a couple of things. One, the pegmatite intrusion is over an 8.3-km-long trend. That's impressive to me. The second thing that stands out to me was the 1959 report detailing pegmatite dykes that were as much as 30.5 meters in width.
And then, of course, you’ve got to talk about the 18 outcrop grab samples that had an average of 2.65% lithium. And that was just from the Mia-LI-1 area. And so all of that says there's a lot of smoke. It's only smoke until we put the drill bit down and see if there's actually some fire that's causing it.
But again, I'm confident in saying that I think Q2 is going to end the year trading much, much higher… and then, obviously, voting with my checkbook on my end. You have the news flow, you have the treasury topped up. Anything to add to that, Alicia?
Alicia Milne: No, I think we're just really excited to get out there and get going on this. It's been a few months since we've acquired it, and we've got all of the things in place. And now, it's just a matter of getting out there and executing and proving things up.
Gerardo Del Real: I always tell people it's buy-low, sell-high. You can't do the sell-high part if you don't do the buy-low part. I think this is the buy-low part, people.
Alicia, it was great having you on. I'm looking forward to having Neil back on when he gets back from site and hearing his observations. And then, obviously, looking forward to a year's worth of conversations here as the new flow continues. Thank you so much for your time.
Alicia Milne: Awesome. Thanks, Gerardo. Appreciate it.
Gerardo Del Real: Alright, chat soon.
Alicia Milne: Bye.
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