Categories: Energy
Topics: General Energy

Q2 Metals (TSX-V: QTWO)(OTC: QUEXF) VPE Neil McCallum on Drilling Significant Continuous Spodumene-Bearing Pegmatite Zones at the Mia Lithium Property

 

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the VP of Exploration for Q2 Metals, Mr. Neil McCallum. Neil, how are you today?

Neil McCallum: Great, good. Glad to chat with you again.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, it's good to have you back on. I'm losing my voice a bit, so bear with me. But listen, you had some news. I loved the headline. You drilled significant continuous, and that word was key to me, spodumene-bearing pegmatite zones, zones as in plural, at the Mia Lithium property. I don't think the market appreciates the scale of what you were able to do in the amount of time that you were able to do it given the delays due to the fires. So I wanted to have you on just to give us a geological overview of the program, where you feel you were successful, and then of course we'll talk 2024.

Neil McCallum: Yeah, okay, for sure. First of all, I think it's one thing to understand that the project itself has significant scale with the entire trend being around 10 kilometers long, so we've done the work that we need to do on the ground to prove up those zones, several of them. We've got 11 in total and we're starting off with the ones that we know most about with drilling, that's the MIA zones, so the far west. We call all of them MIA zones, but MIA 1 and 2 are what we were originally calling a MIA zone and then we've named them all subsequently to differentiate them all, and then the Carte Zone. It's starting at the most well-known ones, and then we're going to be going from there. It's a matter of time before we are able to test all of them.

Right now what we're finding at the MIA zone is a continuous zone that strings together between drill holes, there's a lot of pegmatite there, different bodies that takes a bit of drilling to string together, so we're on that way now. What we're going to be doing in 2024 is a similar two-pronged approach by doing the closely-spaced drill holes at those zones that we know already and as well, doing that real greenfield testing of all those different zones along that 10 kilometers. That's no small feat and we have to be methodical and straightforward with it. That's going to be our goal this winter is to really hone in on our best targets as well as test several of them along the trend.

Gerardo Del Real: You were able to drill 31 holes in what seemed like, and we talked a bit off the record here, in what seemed like record time. How proud are you of yourself and the team for being able to get that done, and then how aggressive are you going to be in 2024 given the fact that you have a treasury of $9 million still, if I'm not mistaken?

Neil McCallum: Yeah, exactly. We have two drills, so that helps things. You can sort of hopscotch the drilling and move them subsequently, one after the other. With that, and because some of those holes are going to be closely spaced, we can do a series of holes from the same pad, which is a nice way to save on logistics of not having to move, we just change the angle of holes, so that's one of the reasons why we're able to get that many meters, and we'll do the same this coming winter as well on those zones that we want to focus in on. We had put out 10,000 meters as our goal for the first program. We got as much done as we could this fall, and then we're going to be rounding out that 10,000 meters this winter with the possibility of doing more, we're obviously well-financed to do that, but we have to do the entire exploration program methodically. We may want to take a pause and take some time to model things just to make sure that we're attacking the best zones as we find them. That sometimes takes a little bit of head scratching, making sure the analytical supports what we see visually with the spodumene. Yeah, we don't want to get ahead of ourselves, but we want to be appropriately aggressive.

Gerardo Del Real: As a committed shareholder, Neil, and let me preface this statement by saying that I am absolutely spoiled by Corvette and Patriot as far as the widths, right? I completely get that that is a one-off and Corvette is special and it's a generational discovery and it's not fair to anyone to compare any property to Corvette. But with that being said, if I'm playing devil's advocate, as a shareholder, if there's one thing that I'm hoping for are more within the mineralization. How are you feeling about what you're seeing as far as the widths of the mineralization that you've encountered thus far? Obviously you've been at site, you've seen some of the other targets, do you think that with more drilling there's the potential to improve there or are you happy with what you're getting? Give me your take on it.

Neil McCallum: Yeah, that's a really good question and a good way to put it into perspective. One thing that a lot of people that have been following PMET, Patriot, are focused on are the widths, even additional zones on the Corvette property, comparing that to some of the 100-plus meter intervals, and that's great and all, but you don't need those widths to put together tonnage as long as you have enough smaller intervals that add up to a large tonnage over time.

If you look at the James Bay deposit not far away from our project in the western James Bay region, a lot of those intervals are similar to what we're seeing and the size of the deposits, over 100 million tonnes so you don't necessarily need those 50 to a 100 meter intervals, they're nice, it'll quickly get you tonnage, but it's not necessary by any means.

I am not disappointed at all with what we've been seeing so far. In fact, I'm quite encouraged by how many different individual pegmatite bodies there are, and then we just systematically define them, and you can easily add tonnage that way by progressively adding those stacked pegmatites to your modeling, which we're not at that point yet, obviously, but that's what I'm foreseeing in the future, is just adding up layer upon layer, all the different pegmatites, whether there there's five meters, 10 meters, 20, it doesn't necessarily need to be that a 100 meter benchmark that really Corvette is setting the standard for in James Bay. It's great, it's not necessary, but look at all the other projects across Canada are comparable to what we're finding, and I'm quite satisfied with that too.

Gerardo Del Real: So you are content with the continuity of the pegmatite bodies that you're encountering and then the amount that you're encountering?

Neil McCallum: Exactly. I'm very satisfied with it. It would be great to have 100 meter interval here and there, but who knows. There's always the possibility of that too.

Gerardo Del Real: Couldn't agree more, Neil. Couldn't agree more. Looking forward to an excellent 2024. Congrats on getting as much done as you did in such a short amount of time. Really excited for next year, and I think the timing's going to be perfect. I think we're likely bottoming here in the next 30 to 40 days in the lithium space, so looking forward to getting to the other side of this year. Anything to add there?

Neil McCallum: No, that's it. That's great. That's a good context. I think 2024 is going to start off really well for the lithium space. It's going to be a bit of a bounce back I'm anticipating as well.

Gerardo Del Real: All right, Neil, thanks again for your time. Appreciate it.

Neil McCallum: Good, thanks.

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