Categories: Base Metals / Energy
Topics: General Base Metals / General Energy

TinOne Resources (TSX-V: TORC)(OTCQB: TORCF) Executive Chairman Chris Donaldson on Emerging Lithium District?

 

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the executive chairman of TinOne Resources, Mr. Chris Donaldson. Chris, great to have you back on. How are you today?

Chris Donaldson: Hey, Gerardo. I'm doing great.

Gerardo Del Real: Let's get right into it. Look, we've seen a little bit of weakness in the lithium sector right. People forget that over the past three years the lithium price is up anywhere between eightfold and twelvefold, and that pullbacks are normal. We've had a 27% pullback in the spot price, depending on which index in which region you're looking at here over the past month. Despite that, the mid to long-term trend is clear as all day to me. You, despite being named TinOne Resources, have had some very, very positive lithium news here recently. And you had some news yesterday, or I should say this morning, that I want to touch on. You expanded the zone of lithium mineralization, something that I called a discovery, a month or so ago. You discovered higher grade samples at your project in Tasmania, Australia. I want to talk about the grade. I want to talk about the infrastructure. I want to talk about the potential scale of this. Then let's talk about what comes next. I know that was a lot, but I'll let you provide the context.

Chris Donaldson: Yeah, absolutely. If you remember, we've got a basket of properties in Tasmania, Australia. In the last year we were focused on our flagship tin project, which was Great Pyramid. We put out results on the 5,000 meter drill program, all very good and expanding on that. While that was going on, we were prepping to start drilling on our second property, which is called Aberfoyle, which is 20 minutes up the road. Aberfoyle is a past producing tin district, produced over 2 million tonnes of tin up until the mid-eighties. At that time, they basically were following these high grade veins and didn't really do any modern exploration on it. We started doing a soil sampling program and mapping it out. In that process, we went back and did multi-element testing and discovered about a month ago, discovered some lithium and very aware that everybody and their dog is trying to get into the lithium game here.

We sent it out for secondary assays and it all checked out. And then embarked on a targeted program to really target the lithium in micas, which are all over our property, and actually both of our properties in Tasmania there. We just got the first batch of samples, and sampled over a percent lithium, which for lithium in micas, which is different than that associated with spodumene. The typical grades are kind of 0.2 to 0.7% lithium. We've got good grades. It's a hundred square kilometer property, and we've just done sampling now on about a one square kilometer, and absolutely thrilled with the results here.

Not something we set out to move into, but we were definitely now focusing on the lithium aspect of the properties. And to your question of what's the scale, that's yet to be determined here, but everything we've sampled so far is coming back positive. If we are able to identify lithium across the property here in an area that is fully serviceable, roads going up to it, there's a little town right next to it, which was set up when they were mining tin, all the power is there. We may have ourselves an emerging lithium district.

Gerardo Del Real: One thing that shows me that you're serious about pursuing this is the fact that you're already undertaking mineralogical analysis. I get really tired of Johnny-Come-Lately, lithium companies, that it seems like their only plan is to market and congratulate companies that are actually doing something of significance. I loved scrolling down this release and seeing that you have already taken several samples and are undertaking these studies because we all know that you can have the right grade, the right scale, the right infrastructure. At the end of the day, if you can't recover it, or if the extraction isn't up to par, then the economics go out the window really, really quick. Can you explain a little bit about that process and what you're doing for that?

Chris Donaldson: Yeah, and we're kind of taking the opposite approach. If anything, we're trying to be as conservative on this as we can because we have good tin assets. The fear I had was we put something out there and it turns out to be in the end just kind of a blip, and then people will discount what we have on the tin asset side. We're taking every step that we can to ensure that what we have is real. The reality though, is Tasmania, it's a mining jurisdiction, but they've never produced actually lithium. The grades that we're getting are double, and in this case, quadruple the results that any other sample has been taken in Tasmania. We're getting the attention of CODES. CODES is one of the top three geology universities in the world, and they're absolutely interested in helping us out.

And so is the MRT. MRT is the Mineral Resources Tasmania. And so we've got their scientists and geoscientists coming up. And for them, I mean, this is a big thing. If we can actually prove out that we have a lithium district there, I mean this is absolutely good news for Tasmania and the fact that we're in an area that we're not remote, we've got infrastructure. We're in a country that is the number one lithium producer in the world, but nothing is coming out of Tasmania. And they know that this will attract investment and potentially a staking rush there.

Gerardo Del Real: I'm looking forward to further results. I'm looking forward to having you back on. I love the fact that you're highlighting that you still have some very high quality tin assets, because I initially was attracted to this story because of the team, the people behind it, and the fact that you do have some very, very high quality tin assets in top-notch jurisdictions. This could be a game changer, but it's good to have options. Right?

Chris Donaldson: Well, and that's what it's going to do for us. So we'll see where this takes us, but as more samples come out, but yeah, maybe we spin something out or partner on one side or the other, but for a junior company to have something like this at our market cap right now, this will give us some flexibility and certainly as you say, some options going forward.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. Chris, looking forward to having you back on. Thank you so much.

Chris Donaldson: Hey, thanks, Gerardo.

Gerardo Del Real: Right. Chat soon. Bye now.