Meet Jean-Michel Gauthier, CEO of E-Power Resources

0:03 Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, depending on where in the world you're signing in from today. Thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to join us. I've got with me today Jean-Michel Gaultier, CEO of ePower Resources. Jean-Michel, how are you doing today?

0:17 I'm doing very well, Bianca. How about yourself?

0:20 How's Toronto treating you? How's the weather? Oh, you know, it's just in time for everyone to come in for PEDAC. We have, you know, beautiful warm weather. Yeah, the snow is getting a little unruly, but we will nevertheless survive. I'm sure it's the same over where you are in Montreal. But looking forward to today all the same. And in that vein, here's how today is going to work for the folks in the room. I've got some questions for Jean-Michel, But if you guys in the audience, if you have any questions, feel free to publish them in the chat. It's on the right-hand

0:51 side of your screen. It's going to be a short event today. We're likely only going to be about 20 minutes or so. So if we don't get to your question, we'll make sure that the team still gets a hold of it. And without further ado, Jean-Michel, for listeners who may not know you yet, can you walk us through your professional journey? What experience in capital markets, corporate development, and the resource sector have shaped your career and prepared you for leading a junior exploration company like e-power resources. I like that lead. So let's start off in 2009. I think that's a safe bet. I was roughly 28 years old at that point. So I started working as an assistant bond trader. I used to work at Jitney Trade, for those who remember what Jitney Trade was.

1:41 I was mostly in what we call the backroom, making sure that the trade settled, understanding the mechanics behind doing the financing, making sure that every party would just match the trade. So that was my inception into the financial world and then from that on kept working in the bond sector. It's actually a family thing. We're in my family, you know, we're all debt.

2:13 We understand debt really well. So, But eventually we got introduced because it was like talking about late 2000s, early 2010. For those who remember, that's when there was a lot of interest and speculation in the junior oil and gas world. So around 2011

2:36 I started, I co-founded a group that was called the Montreal Oil and Gas Club where we hosted over 35 different junior oil and gas companies. So I got to learn a lot about soft rock, not hard rock, but got to understand how the, you know, that world of the natural resources played and also got to introduce those companies to large funds. I think that one of the largest we brought, I brought maybe 4 or 5 companies to BlackRock in the US, which at that time had a very small fund. It was only $5 billion. And we're talking about 2012.

3:19 So that was my beginning of the exposure. And then gradually, you know, kept working in mostly in the bond sector. It would meet a lot of mining companies also. And then we started a company called Inversio, my brother and I, where we do digital awareness, go on location, film, got to do interviews. So I know exactly where you sit. I've been there before. And I got to learn more about mining, because mining is a very big part of Quebec. And, you know, I'm, I'm from Quebec, it's part of our culture, we've got great mining stories. So that's how I got into the mining world. So I got financials,

3:59 you know, get to get to talk to people and got to learn about the mining world. That's in a nutshell. It's the right recipe of things coming together there. In that vein, you've built expertise, as you said, helping public companies grow and gain market visibility.

4:17 What are 1 or 2 key lessons from your past roles, whether it's in strategic positioning or navigating capital markets that you're applying directly to e-power today? I think that there are really 2 important factors. Institutional credibility. So when do I say institutional credibility? It's I've met a lot of companies when they meet institutional investors. Well, it's very simple. The institutional investors, some of them want to hear the grand picture, the story, you know, that we say, but a lot of them want clear, actionable plans saying, okay, well, I'm going to take this money and this is what I'm going to do with it And it's not like I'm gonna do some work over the next 12 months No, no, no, no, if we go see guys at Blackrock or a Wellington West in the US They want you to have exactly a plan about the work that you're going to be doing and they want prices.

5:20 Because they want to know where that cash is going. And in the most of the companies I dealt with, they were invested, they got funding from the states and in the states it's a different game. They want freely tradable shares. There is no more there is no 4 month and 1 day in the States. Actually Canada is the only one that does that to my knowledge.

5:44 But they want So if you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing with their money, they will short you right because That's what they should do that because they're like, you know, you show I will give you money You do your plan you follow the plan if you follow a plan will be there If you don't follow the plan, well, we won't be there. And we'll be a little angry. So that was the, that was the, that's 1 point that I took from my previous

6:14 experience. Like to have institutional grade rigor, make sure that every dollar is spent, most of the, well, every dollar, not every dollar because you have salaries to pay, but the majority of the money that you have goes into the ground to prove up the risk, the project. So that's 1. The second is mostly from my later career at Inversio, the importance of digital awareness and digital investor engagement. Things have changed. Just in my short career, I've seen from regular lunches where people would do 45 minute slides and at that time, especially when I started, people had time. They would go for lunches, do those meetings.

7:07 As we progress, people have less and less time. So if the brokers, their bosses are like, no, no, no, There is no more hour and a half, 2 hour lunches, maybe on Fridays.

7:21 On regular days, no. So you've gotta adjust your messaging. Marshall McLuhan always said, the medium is the message. Well, that's true. Well, in the mining world, we've had, we have to adjust the medium. And the medium is for bite size, actionable, interesting information.

7:47 There's still room for those 45-minute geocentric PowerPoint and you'll get those investors but they'll come and see you. So that's the difference. You've got to create an online identity. You've got to keep yourself fresh. That's why I thought, let's do a new, something a little fresh, new logo. For those who don't realize, but that's actually

8:14 the structure of Graphite. So you've gotta adapt yourself to investors and younger investors also, because we've got too much going on. So that's pretty much the 2 key points that I'm bringing to ePower. It may shock you to know that I share your sentiments as it relates to digital communications in this new age of investor relations. On a similar note, you've come into this role now. What was the moment or factor that convinced you to step into the CEO role at ePower in late 2025? So full disclosure, ePower was a client of Inversio and I learned that they were looking for a new CEO and I did my homework And I saw that the bones were good.

9:05 The project is good. It's interesting. It's graphite. It's not, it could be worked quickly. I'm Maybe I'm a child of my era I have a hard time imagining 15 20 years down the road So I'm not the guy that that's thinking about the gold mine and that's gonna happen in 15 years My attention span is not there. I saw the Importance of graphite also I saw also the neighbors. I've got great neighbors on the Tadapisca property about focus graphite this close. I've got nouveau moan that's close You know, those are those are big boys, you know, especially focus.

9:48 Well nouveau moan is a you know, it's it's it's a story in itself And I always tip my hat to that company because to go from where they've been to where they are and where they're going,

10:01 That is something impressive. But also I look at Focus Graphite, which is literally their project, one of their projects. It's called Lake Titapisca. Well, we're Titapisca. We're 5 to 10 kilometers away, so it's the same formation. Well, I've seen under the tutelage of Dean Anish, I've seen the stock move because There was a clear vision. So when I took all those factors together plus when I saw the When well when I saw and I won't when I was explained the geology because I'm not a geologist at all. I can learn, but I'm not a geologist. So my geo, Jamie Levine, really took the time to explain to me, show me the targets.

10:53 So we got like 16 Targets with high-grade surface samples. We did bulk sampling and the results were good. So that was just pretty much the, okay, I'm good. Let's go. Beautiful. That's it. That's what you need. It's funny. We were talking about this right before the webinar started. So, and that's often the case. Sometimes some of the conversations we have before it goes live, end up being super insightful. So I'm glad we get to circle back on this because we're talking about graphite and how it's

11:23 often called an overlooked or blue collar critical mineral. Why do you think it's such a compelling opportunity right now and what personally drew you to focus on graphite rather than other commodities? Well, I like the term blue-collar mineral. I like it because for me, blue-collar people are the foundation of our society. They're the people that make sure that the wheels are turning. So I don't see it as a negative, I see it as actually a positive.

11:58 And that's how I relate to graphite, because graphite is always working. And it's a different beast than gold or silver or copper it's not traded the same way it's a specialty material and where the price is negotiated based on the flake size and the purity. So it's its own little world, but it's always working. And that's what I like about it. Because in just about everything we see, there's graphite. And of course the big question that everybody shifts towards is, oh, EV. Yes, it's in electric vehicles, but it's also in lubricants, it's also in pencils, golf clubs, it's also in computers, it's also in just about everything. You know crucibles for smelting,

12:54 they're made out of graphite, you know there's a lot of that. And I know you have another question that's going to be a little bit more about the graphite and the EV market but I just want to say a very interesting thing that I've recently reflected on why graphite is neglected.

13:16 You know it's not because it's scarce we have a lot of it and we have to go back 1 back the clock to when I was, let's say, 18, late 90s, early 2000s. Well, that's when globalization was in its full swing. And why is that important? Well, that's when pretty much the West, you know, decided to outsource nearly 80% to China, a myriad of different resources. And now we've shifted. For Gurban, we've shifted to more of a protectionist mentality. Wow. Has it been triggered by our friendly orange man down south?

14:06 There's a possibility, but is it good? Is it bad? I think it's actually good. I think that had a ricochet effect that has forced Canadians and Americans to wake up and be like, well, we can't be dependent. So now we have to invest in our own resources. And we have to protect them. So there's a very important part of that that has shifted in the past 20 plus years is that we've gone from globalization being the greatest thing ever. I remember studying in a university to now protectionism.

14:46 It's important. And right now we're facing 1.2 million ton deficit by 2030, which it's always funny when you say 2030, sounds so far away, but we're in 2026, that's 4 years. That is not that far away. Man, yeah.

15:07 That's a frightening sentence, but it's so true. You mentioned earlier about electric vehicles, and so we'll dive into that a little bit now. With the global push towards electric vehicles, renewable energy storage and the energy transition. Graphite plays a behind-the-scenes but very essential role in batteries. How do you see graphite fitting into that massive shift and why is it still flying under the radar compared to lithium or cobalt? So we have to like understand that lithium, cobalt, it's pretty much I mean It's the way it's traded that plays a factor, because it's traded on the market.

15:56 Graphite is not as flashy, and there's probably not enough education towards graphite. When we think about it, most people don't realize where graphite is in a battery. And it's the anodes. That's one of the most important part. But It's not being

16:17 really spoken out. So it's not a flashy aspect. And I'm happy that you talked a little bit about, you introduced about the EV, electric vehicles. Because I always have that question, it's like, oh, electric vehicles, electric vehicles. Full disclosure, I'm 100% Québécois Canadian. Like most North Americans, we come from a car culture. We like our cars. There's a place for electric vehicles. Like mostly metropolitan areas, that makes sense. But, you know, we live in a country that is vast and wide and very big. Very, very, very, very big. Just to give you a small example, I'm in Montreal, my, the project is in Baycomo, well that would be the closest city is Bay Como. So from Montreal to get to my project, just by road would be 8 to 10 hours.

17:16 That's no coffee break, no lunch, that's just pure driving. But that doesn't really marry itself to an electric vehicle, plus factor in the coal. So electric vehicles are important, But what's much more important that goes also under the radar is how the electricity demand has grown in certain sectors. Like when you think about cloud data, you know, cloud data centers have risen from 10 to 12 percent their electric demands over the last 5 years 10 to 12 percent per year AI is also a huge component that It was I'd say about 2 3 years ago was under the radar also, and now it's in every sphere of our life.

18:08 Well, just AI, the demands for electricity to make AI run, we're talking about 1.5% to 2% of global power demand. Now, we need power. How do we store power? With large battery storage devices that have a component that is made out of lithium ion batteries with graphite anodes. So that demand is going to keep growing, unless everybody goes back to the pen and paper. Yeah, well, God I hope not, For all our sake. So looking into this, much of the world's graphic supply is concentrated in certain regions, you were just talking about your project there. How do you view the strategic importance of developing high quality, North American, Quebec based specifically, sources like Tetepisca, and especially for geopolitical and supply chain resilience reasons? I know you mentioned a little bit earlier, but I'd love to dive deeper into that. So it's going to be a really quick, easy answer.

19:18 It's based in Quebec. We're close to Baie-Como, which is a portu... Well a portu... This is where my French is gonna pop out. I'm gonna have a hard time saying... A port city! There we go! There you go! That was creative! I like that! And so for international trade there's also plans of building a graphite purification plant there there's highway like there's you know when I say it's it's a highway well to the property there's a highway it is actually Highway 389 so it's a so it's 220 kilometers from Baikomo. We're close to one of the one of Quebec's largest dams the Daniel Johnson Dan and a dam for most people who I think Wait a second. No, I wasn't around when when Daniel Johnson was a political leader. I remember his son but But so we're really close by the hydro hydro Quebec and she cheap energy. That's Electricity hydroelectricity is I believe one of the cheapest electricity in all of Canada.

20:35 So, we're right there. So, we've got all the components, plus we're in Quebec. Mining is part of our reality. You know, there's the Planal that's been going on for years. If you go to cities like Val d'Or, you know, you realize how mining is a really big thing. If anybody wants a good startup company for Val d'Or, I would suggest lawn maintenance. Oh yeah. Because nobody has time, because they're all working. You have to go to Val d'Or to experience how mining is important in Quebec, when you see that you get served at McDonald's by 11 and 12 year olds. Wow.

21:20 Because everybody's fully employed. So, and good salaries, and good salaries equal taxes, taxes equal government spending. It's all good. So, that's how Quebec is such a good jurisdiction. So we got a great situation happening in the Grenville area, well, Grenville structure. No, it sounds like it. That's very exciting. And continuing the chain of very exciting things, you guys have been seeing some really strong metallurgical results from your project recently. We're talking high recoveries, premium flake sizes, and solid concentrate grades. For those new to the story, can you share what excites you most about this project's potential and how those results reinforce your confidence?

22:11 So, it's, so the, the metallurgic validation is the most exciting part of the recent news cycle, because we did some grab sample and then it got analyzed, and then we got the results. So we're seeing 96.7% recovery at one of our targets, Graphy West, and 84.8% concentrated grades using generic flotation flow sheets. So it proves that the value is there. It's high quality product.

22:57 It's large flakes, perfect for, how can I say it? It's perfect for batteries, it's high quality purity, it's there, and it's not, how can I say, it's very feasible? It's not 5, 10 years on the road. There's proof in the pudding. Now we just have to go keep working at it to pull out more and do greater delineation of our project. Brilliant. And looking ahead, I know we're talking, you're not saying it's going to be a long, long, long time horizon, which is really exciting. But what is your vision for ePower Resources over the next couple of years, balancing that aggressive technical work, capital discipline and steps like resource definition or partnerships.

23:51 How do you plan to translate that into real value for shareholders? So my vision is to maintain extreme capital discipline while executing clear technical transformation. So you know we defined in our last presentation which I will make available to anybody who wants to get in touch with me, a you know the plan of how we're going to be spending you know our budget, the money that we're going to be using it, where it's all going to go. And just it's from, I would say, starting May 2026 to mid-2027. So that's my game plan. I don't see anything further than that at this point, because I have to get that plan out of the way. After that, then we'll be able to see exactly, you know, fully, hopefully, everything changes. There is no such thing as a good plan, a stable plan, it always changes.

24:57 But our intentions are to follow this plan and we're, we think we're going to be able to fully de-risk and be able to do a resource estimate. So delineation, proving up and then after that take it from there because and doing that will maximize you know value for the shareholders because you're only good as the data that you present. You could be talking about the greatest story in the world, but if you don't have any technical data to back it up, then it's just, it's a good story. But I'm a firm believer of, and I think I've already said it, the proof is in the pudding. And that's the only way that you could test it. So we have to do our work. We have a budget.

25:45 All of the budget, the spending is included. And anybody that's interested could see that. So I'm really putting our best foot forward saying, this is how much we need to get us from 0.1 to point B. After, once we get to point B, then we'll reevaluate and see the next steps. But I've got, like I said, I've got great neighbors. And great neighbors sometimes like to, you know, they may be interested in what I've got. It won't be the first time, I've seen it happen before. No, that's great. Thank you so much, Jean-Michel, for joining us today. Thank you everyone in the room. I totally understand If you guys have questions afterwards that you weren't able to communicate in the chat, if you want to send them our way. But before we close things off for the day, we'd love to pass it back over to you, Jean-Michel, just for your final words, anything you want to leave the audience with.

26:46 Thank you very much for having me today. It was good. I appreciate it to be able to talk about ePower and the direction that we wanna go. Also, I invite people to go on the website. You'll have all my information my email my number. Please be kind. It's my personal number and If you got questions comments I'm all I'm all ears and you don't have to call me Jean-Michel. You can just use my initials JM. That's okay, you know More than that. I thank everybody that participated today for giving me the time to expose a little bit my vision for ePower. And I hope you like the logo. Thank you so much, folks. Have a lovely rest of your day. Take care.