Categories: Base Metals
Topics: General Base Metals

T2 Metals (TSX-V: TWO)(OTC: AGLAF) CEO Mark Saxon on Advancing Multiple Copper-Dominant Exploration Projects in the US & Canada

 

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the president & CEO of T2 Metals — Mr. Mark Saxon. Mark, it's great to have you on. It's been a bit. I wanted to get an update. How are things, sir?

Mark Saxon: Gerardo, good afternoon. Good to talk and doing all right. Sitting here in Australia and feeling optimistic about the markets.

Gerardo Del Real: Well listen, the last time we chatted publicly was back in mid-April. You reported results from your first drilling program. Obviously, there was smoke there, no fire; a lot of very interesting hits geologically that will inform future drill programs. But you have a lot on your plate for the second half of the year, and that's why I thought it was important to have you on.

Share price has drifted downwards a bit along with the rest of the sector, right? There are a few exceptions. We joked about how great it is to be involved with a couple of those exceptions. But for 98% of the market, it's been a sideways to downward trend. 

And I think that presents an opportunity in the second half because I actually see a second half of the year where busy companies are going to be rewarded because I think the macro backdrop for the commodity space is going to be very, very favorable. 

So you just had some news. You just signed an exploration agreement. I wanted to get the details on that. And then, I wanted to set the table for the second half of this year.

Mark Saxon: For sure, Gerardo. And there's lots in that question and conversation. And, yeah, I agree, absolutely. And we're seeing it here in Australia as well. There's been a market easing, a softening, I suppose, across the board for almost every commodity. There's been a lot of IPOs that have come through. There's a lot of listings in Canada and reverse listings in Canada that have happened. 

And so yeah, the market, let's say, has been pretty busy over the last 12 months. So we're going through a period now where investors are reshuffling and focusing on some deals that they've gotten into. And yeah, it's not unexpected, I suppose.

So the next half of the year looks good, and I think particularly for battery metals and copper specifically. We saw lithium come off the boil and then find its bottom and then start to move up again. I think that's the way metals are going to trend. A little too soon, too fast with lithium, I think we can say that, but now it's found some really good pricing.

For us in copper, we're seeing only positive stories, only positive demand in the market. And maybe it's not next month or the month after but it's going to be there over the next 6 to 12 months, and the copper price will end the year much, much higher.

Gerardo Del Real: I couldn't agree more. And I think 2024 is going to be really, really fun for those of us that have positioned aggressively in the copper space here with the recent pullback in the price. 

Let's get into how T2 is going to take advantage of that because, obviously, it's a stock that I've recommended to paying subscribers. I'll say it publicly because it's been a bit now and they've had an opportunity to buy in but I've recommended the company to paying subscribers of one of my paid services on the Digest Publishing side of things.

And so I wanted to get a good update about the pullback, and I wanted to get an update on all of the activity because you have a lot going on, as I said, up top.

Mark Saxon: Yeah, absolutely. And as you know, we're a very technical group. We're focused on our current assets and always looking for new ones. But I guess the one that I want to touch on particularly today is the exploration agreement that we signed during the week, and that's from our Sherridon project, which is up in Manitoba. 

And the Sherridon district, or camp, is a famous, very well-known volcanic hosted massive sulfide camp. So it was mined up until the 1950s and produced around 8 million tonnes at 3% copper and 3% zinc, plus some silver and gold. So a very significant mining operation at that time. 

Since then, it was explored by Hudbay, it was explored by Sherritt Gordon, which is now Sherritt, and explored by Halo Resources. And all of that data, all of that knowledge, all of that history has come to us now to continue with — and it's a great legacy to have.

In the Manitoba region, we're dealing with a number of local communities and other stakeholders and rights holders, obviously. And so the one that has the rights for the ground where we're working is the Kiciwapa Cree Nation. We have just gone through the process of signing an exploration agreement with the Kiciwapa Cree Nation. And that gives us access to do essentially whatever drilling, whatever access, whatever sampling we need to. 

It's a very collaborative relationship and where we do knowledge transfer. We engage with the local people to employ them wherever we can and provide them with some knowledge and opportunity to be service companies to support us. So a great relationship and we're enjoying working with them. And it gives us a great opportunity to get all of the work done.

Gerardo Del Real: That's a largely de-risked project because of the huge amounts of data that you've had. I know there were some delays a few months back simply because of the volume of data that you had. 

Can you speak to how you advance that project forward in a perfect world? Obviously, I realize we're not in a perfect world but if you had it your way, what's the second half look like for advancing that specific project?

Mark Saxon: Yeah, for sure. And for Sherridon, we raised some flow through money late last year. So we've got cash in the bank that we'll be spending on that project as we look ahead. But yeah, the project, because it's got the village or the town of Cold Lake, Sherridon is a very small village there, which is where the Kiciwapa Nation is based. That's our working base and so we can work all year-round.

If we look backwards at the work that's happened before, it's around 400 or 500 drill holes that have been drilled in that region. We've got four historic resources that have been drilled out by the previous explorers. 

And the target at that stage was near-surface exploration because, quite amazingly — and there's some photos on our website — there's quite a major train line that runs essentially through the project. And that train line connects the village of Sherridon back into Flin Flon where Hudbay has a copper concentrator and smelter.

So the exploration in the past has always been, ‘Okay, can we find near-surface mineralization, which has been identified in multiple resources, to get onto the train line and get back in for near term processing?’ So we have that opportunity because the resources are there. We're looking to extend those resources with additional drilling.

But I guess the real excitement of that region is, if you look across the border at a company called Foran, and Foran had a very similar start in life, they had a number of near surface resources, started to do deeper exploration, and have found multiple high-grade lenses. Very, very exciting underground mining opportunities in exactly the same sequence of rocks in the Flin Flon Snow Lake Belt. And so that's really the other opportunity, I think, that we're excited by.

But yeah, as you said, it took us a little while because when you take on a project with 400 or 500 drill holes and tens of millions of dollars of past exploration, then you've just got to be cautious that you don't go back to the same places because you've got to know where every drill hole is. Otherwise, you're just going to be repeating the work of the past. 

And we're in that place now. We know the work history, we know the geophysics, we know the geochemistry and the drilling extremely well. So our work advances the knowledge, and we'll be finding more and more mineralization.

Gerardo Del Real: You can explore year-round. You have tons of data to help prioritize the targets that you're going to be drilling. You mentioned the tens of millions of dollars that have already been spent de-risking the project for you. What's T2's market cap?

Mark Saxon: So we're sub-C$10 million, and, yeah, very, very frustrating. But I'm a long-term thinker and so our market cap has lots and lots of room to grow, which, I think, is a great opportunity. 

And again, if we're sitting there at a C$5 million or C$6 million market cap, and our neighbor at Foran is pushing towards a billion, then I think that's an amazing re-rating opportunity when we start to do the work that we're going to be doing from now onwards.

Gerardo Del Real: It's a lot of runway between C$5 million and C$6 million and a billion dollars. And we're just talking about this one project, folks. There are already several very exciting projects elsewhere in the portfolio here in the US. 

And Mark, I've known you for a bit now. I think we're going on something like 14 or 15 years… and if I know you, I know that you're looking at other projects and other opportunities for when the market turns. We know the market always turns. 

You mentioned being a long-term thinker. It has paid off in spades in the past and it has paid off recently with some other projects, and I think it's going to pay off once again here with the right backdrop. Anything to add to that?

Mark Saxon: No, I think, as you mentioned, we've got a project in Nevada and a project in Arizona. The one in Arizona, called Cora, is a drill-ready porphyry target with very good historic numbers. 

We're putting together the work plan and the drill contract on that one. And we'll be down there and doing some work on that one as well this year. Yeah, a very exciting project… really in the heart of all of the major copper projects in the US. And I guess our nearest neighbor there is Ivanhoe Electric with their really exciting results that they've been getting. 

So yeah, we're in a great part of Arizona, and copper has never been more important in that district and for the US. So a great place to be.

Gerardo Del Real: Mark, thanks for that thorough update. Looking forward to doing these more often. Have yourself a great week, and I suspect we'll be chatting again soon. You have a lot of irons in the fire here.

Mark Saxon: Thanks, Gerardo. Let’s chat very soon. Cheers.

Gerardo Del Real: Cheers.