Categories: Base Metals
Topics: General Base Metals

T2 Metals (TSX-V: TWO)(OTC: AGLAF) CEO Mark Saxon on Being Cashed-Up for Drilling at Multiple North American Copper Exploration Projects in 2H 2023

 

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, how are you today?

Mark Saxon: Hey, Gerardo. Good morning and good to talk to you. Been too long.

Gerardo Del Real: Well listen, you're in the field; you're in Nevada. As always, you are vetting projects, doing quality due diligence on projects, as you always do. You and I had a conversation out there that I'll share, and hopefully you don't mind.

We talked about how there are two types of companies right now. There are companies that are spread too thin that don't have the personnel or the budget to advance the properties that they've secured and are likely going to be going away very, very soon. 

And then, there are companies like T2, which, look, let's be frank, the share price has also been pushed down along with most other companies in the resource space…  summer doldrums… people are outside. But in T2's case, you actually have the good fortune — by way of being very strategic with the way that you position shareholders in the company — you have the good fortune of being able to go look at projects and being opportunistic in the projects that are being offered to you and the projects that you have under consideration.

With all that being said, you just signed a drill contract for the Sherridon copper-zinc project in Manitoba, which is a phenomenal project, especially relative to the market cap of T2, which is minuscule right now. 

I suspect that as we get out of the summer doldrums and move into the month of September, you're going to get a pretty significant rerating just on this project alone. Tell me how much of that you think is accurate. And then, let's talk about Manitoba.

Mark Saxon: Yeah, for sure, Gerardo. And that was a very big introduction so there's lots of points to touch on there. Yeah, I guess, from the top of your comments there, the mining industry is going through a bit of a flat patch at the moment and lots of companies that don't have sufficient money to generate news flow and get work done. That's an industry-wide problem. 

T2 has adequate cash in the bank. We've got both hard dollars and soft dollars, flow through dollars, to work in Canada. We'd like more but we're doing okay at the moment for this stage of the business. We're quite safe in that regard. And as you mentioned, we protect our shareholders’ capital very closely. We've been working in this company for quite a while, and we've still only got about 30 million shares out. We're in a very good position as the company moves ahead.

As you said, I'm sitting here in Nevada, in Ely, in the north of Nevada, looking at some new projects we've been kicking around for a couple of weeks, looking at new ideas here. There are lots and lots of projects that are coming up from companies that are a bit underfunded, and that makes it a really exciting time in the market for those of us that have got ideas and a little bit of money to get out and do deals.

This week, we announced the signing of a drill contract, which is for our Sherridon project up in Manitoba. The Sherridon project sits in the Flin Flon Camp, which is one of those the VHMS camps, or district, which is a world-class district with major deposits, small deposits, and everything in between. A really good place to be.

It's where we're focusing for our next drill program, which we're thinking will be a month or six weeks away. The drill contract is now in place with the local operator out of Flin Flon. And about a month ago, we signed the exploration agreement with the local Cree community, which is a major step forward as well, which really puts us in a position to have a long-term partnership in the Sherridon District. Lot's going on. We'll have rigs turning soon and cash in the bank to make that happen.

Gerardo Del Real: It's going to be a very, very active second half of the year for T2. Can you just touch on that? Outside of Manitoba, which, again, I'm excited for the drill program, this is an area that I think you’ve got, geologically, a very, very good handle on it. 

I think, and hope, obviously, that results bear that out pretty quickly once the drills start turning. But outside of Manitoba, can we talk about some of the other projects that you have? And then, let's talk about the projects that you're looking at.

Mark Saxon: Yeah, for sure. Manitoba is currently the flagship. And in the press release of this week, I shared a few of the past drill results from the project and the places that we'll be going back to and drilling in this next program to look for extensions. 

For example, at the Cold Lake project in Manitoba, which has a small resource calculated and was being pushed ahead by Hudbay as a near mine opportunity, that's got an interval there of 17.3 meters at 2.7% copper and 4.1% zinc and also 2.6 grams per tonne of gold. Very typical VHMS numbers. But those are great numbers in terms of the economics. And that's only 60 meters from surface. 

The project really has a whole bunch of heroes and highlights there that we can get in and we can follow up at a very low cost and close to surface. We're only two or three km from the village of Sherridon. Sherridon is only 70 km from Flin Flon. It’s a really easy project to operate and relatively low-cost in that northern communities sense for Canada. That's obviously the flagship.

But looking down in the US as well, and, obviously, so, so much happening in terms of the move to bring mining and production back into the US that it's pretty hard to ignore having quality assets in safe jurisdictions at the moment like the US and Canada and Australia, obviously, and the places where projects, if they're found, they can be developed and where there are none of the nationalization issues that we're seeing in some regions or local conflicts. 

So, very focused on the US and the western US. Nevada and Arizona have a whole series of great copper projects; world-class copper projects. In Arizona, we've got the Cora Copper Project, which is a drill-ready porphyry target with some great past intersections. 

We drilled at Lida in Nevada, which was a copper target that turned into a gold target through the drill rig. We're out looking at other ideas and particularly focused on copper. And the western US gives you opportunities for skarn-style deposits, VHMS deposits, and porphyry deposits — all of which are the major classes of copper production in the world… so all great targets.

Gerardo Del Real: No, listen, a lot of great catalysts to be excited about in the second half. I know people are outside, I know people aren't following the markets as close as you and I do… but I think a lot of the value proposition is being created now and will flush itself out here over the next several quarters. 

Mark, thank you as always for the update. Anything else to add to that?

Mark Saxon: No, I think mining markets and metals markets have cycles, and it takes a bit of gray hair, or a bald head, to be able to realize that cycles come and go. We're at a low point in the cycle, which means the only way is up, because, I think we both agree, we're not going to zero. 

The only way is up for the industry as a whole so we will see more funding coming in. And once some political issues in the US stabilize, and currency issues, I think we'll see a whole lot of money coming back into our industry, which we need as a whole. So, very happy to be part of that.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, looking forward to catching up again, and definitely looking forward to drilling in the second half of this year. Thanks again, Mark.

Mark Saxon: Thanks, Gerardo. Cheers, mate. Bye.

Gerardo Del Real: Cheers.