Transcript
Automated transcript · Written by software from the replay's audio. It can mishear names and figures; the replay is the record.
0:10 So, our first company today is going to be Temas Resources. It's an iron, titanium, vanadium explorer with 2 advanced critical mineral projects in Quebec, La Blanche, which has a PEA, and La Brute, which has got some upcoming drilling coming onto it. They've got about 33 million shares outstanding, fully diluted, about a $9 million market cap. Their ticker symbol on the CSE is TMA s on the OTCQB it's TMA SF and on the Frankfurt exchange It is
0:43 26 P. Oh, I'd like to welcome Kyler Hardy, Executive Chairman, to present. Thanks. This is what I use to do all the stuff with? All right. Right on. Thanks everyone for having me here today. As Graham said, my name's Kyler Hardy. I'm the executive chair of Temas Resources, listed on the CSC. Oh, look at that, it even works. So we are a titanium dioxide iron developer in Quebec with the LeBlanc project, where we recently published a PEA on it, and the Lac Brule project which is hopefully going to be going into PEA later on this year with an additional drill program.
1:33 Both projects are located in Quebec. La Blache is approximately a hundred kilometers north of Bay Como on the St. Lawrence Seaway and Lac Brule is about 80 kilometers north of Saguenay. So 2 excellent communities to support the projects with. The infrastructure around both projects is considerable. Roads come within a few kilometers of the project. There is a winter road in through La Blanche and Lac Brulet is is accessed by secondary logging road. Additionally there's railhead to the northeast as well as a high voltage power line that works with the iron developers up in Shefferville, close to the Labrador border.
2:24 So we've recently, in addition to recently completing our PEA,
2:32 we consolidated the land package around the La Blanche project. So we've consolidated 3 additional lenses off to the west and have an exploration target to the south and to the east of the project now. So we control the camp which is we're quite pleased with. So the LaBlanche project itself is 208 million tons at approximately 16.5% TiO2 equivalent. There is vanadium in there and there is a significant component of iron ore in there, but we're focusing on the titanium dioxide as it is the primary metal within the deposit.
3:17 Onto the PEA now, the actual numbers. So about 6.6 billion NPV post-tax, a sizable project to say the least with a just over 60% IRR. A sizable build though at 1.2 billion, we anticipate being able to optimize that as we go into pre-feasibility later on this year. 14-year mine life and about 2 years of pre-production development that will be required as we move this project forward. The secondary piece of what we've got outside of the LaBlache and the Lac Brûlé project is we own 50% of an extraction technology which we used as part of our PEA. It's a chloride leach technology and
4:07 the reason we bought it was to reduce the cost of extracting the titanium from the rock. Traditionally, it's been a very high electricity use process that you see at La Havre that Rio Tinto operates. It's big metallurgical facility on the St. Lawrence Seaway to the east. Ours is more of an ambient temperature process, which reduces the cost of electricity considerably, but also allows us to have approximately 95% recycling of our reagents for the extraction. So making it a much more environmentally friendly process.
4:53 One of the things that you may be asking, what's titanium dioxide? So it's in essentially everything you use on a daily basis, from the paint and the walls, making this room nice and bright, to making the paper white. It's a highly refractive, I should say, mineral. And finally, it's also in plastics. It makes the plastics harder and makes them brighter as well. So it's in everything we use, which kind of is required. It's approximately between 5% and 6% growth year over year, about $19 billion industry currently with expected growth to about $32 billion over the next 10 years.
5:45 The interesting thing that we're seeing right now is a redomiciling of TIO2 production and seeking new TIO2 production. So Kronos Worldwide, a major vertically integrated TIO2 producer and chemical company, one of their projects, one of their mines in the south of Norway is nearing end of economic life and they're looking for a new asset, as well as Tronics is seeking to divest itself of a lot of its African projects currently, and we're seeking to redomicile into Australia and Canada, as well as the United States. So there is a definite lack of advanced projects out there in the hard rock sector. You will notice if you do some research on this later on, is the mineral sands producers. So you see rutile and ilmenite production out of East Africa, as well as a little bit out of West Africa. Most of these are Aussie and UK producers that are operating in those regions.
6:54 So it's a nice graph. It consistently... Demand increases consistently
7:04 over the last 40 years basically. Our management team, myself, executive chair, I've got a long history in the resource sector, exploration and operations side of the business from building operators that executed large exploration programs to small mines development. Tim Fernbeck, our new CEO, brought him on, ex-investment banker from Wolverton as well as a venture capitalist within the resource sector. Dave Robinson, a partner with myself in Cronin Capital but also was an audit manager with M&P. And Rory Kutlalulu, who you'll see around the show here today, economic geologist, over 20 years in the resource sector, and several significant
8:02 development projects to his name over the last decade or so. So just to, I don't want to say correct Graham, but just a small correction, Graham, we're at 22 million shares currently issued and outstanding with some warrants priced between 15 and 40 cents. We, me and my partners, stepped back into this project, into this company about a year and a half, almost 2 years ago. And we restructured the company mid last year in June, did a small friends and family round at 10 cents in the fall, which was to go to words paying for the balance of our PEA as well as starting to ramp the company up.
8:47 And we're currently completing a second financing at 20 cents right now. We've closed the first tranche of it a month ago, significant insider participation in that placing and anticipating closing the second tranche of it here in the coming days. Luckily, we're well-structured with a minimal float out in the market, to be frank, and the warrants all have accelerators on them so we can call them in as required. And significant insider ownership of 24.5% currently, which you'll be able to see us buying in the market as well. So, TMS Resources, Like I said, listed on the CSE in Canada, as well as the Frankfurt here.
9:35 And I'd be happy to take any questions.
9:39 Any questions from the audience? Perfect. Well, I can ask some. Absolutely. We got a little bit of extra time. So you're in Quebec, right? Yes. Quebec is a really interesting jurisdiction because there's a lot of advantages to being in that. Can you maybe tell us a little bit more about why it's so good to be in Quebec? Absolutely. Yeah, so it's a mining-friendly jurisdiction, which is one of the things that we really like about it. It's got a long history of resource development. You know, it's with several major mines that operate there currently and several developers as well, multiple developers. Additionally, the Quebec government puts a lot of effort into promoting the industry within the province.
10:27 They've got NVSmaq Quebec, CEDEX, as well as SOQUEM, which are all financial supporters and exploration supporters of the miners and developers that are operating in the province. Outside of that, the government itself takes a very proactive approach to helping and pushing companies forward that are operating within their jurisdiction and that they see that have potential
10:55 to build significant tax revenue for the province. Okay. Gab got another one, I guess. So with the whole supply chain issues, the friend-sharing and all that's what's going on in the product that you have that is primarily out in the East, Is there anything specifically you can do in terms of the Inflation Reduction Act or any government grants or anything like that that you guys are looking at? Great question. So we're actively engaging with all of the major users of titanium dioxide from a government point of view. So it is a critical metal. It is one that is keenly focused on reshoring it, like you said.
11:48 The recently Bombardier has, which is a large Canadian firm, as many of you know, just got permission to continue buying titanium itself, which is a further refined product from, of titanium dioxide from the Russians in order to continue building their aircraft and their aircraft components, which Boeing, Airbus, all of them have, there's a significant supply constraint on titanium itself for ongoing aircraft construction and defense construction. So we are actively pursuing the various three-letter agencies that all want to keep this reshored.
12:36 Sure. Where does the titanium dioxide come from? How is it there? I'm not a geologist. So how is it there? Where does it come from?
12:47 I'm not a geologist either, so I'm going to have to refer you to my colleague Rory. I'm happy to have a chat with you out here and answer that question. I can't really answer it, to be honest with you. I got one other question, I guess. So how does a junior, with a relatively low market cap and a relatively high CapEx, how do you guys manage and deal with that kind of situation? That's a fantastic question and 1 we've been struggling with, to be honest with you. Our market cap is teeny right now compared to our proposed CapEx but also our NPV. Over the next while, so this is over the last few months as we've released our PEA, as we've done these financings. This is the first time we've actually engaged with the market in over 2, 2 and a half years almost now.
13:48 Part of what we have to do is get out and tell the story, which we're doing here today obviously and tomorrow, but look for and engage with alternative forms of financing as well, whether it's joint venture partners, whether it's off takers, or whether it's be acquired at the right time. I'm a big believer that juniors should not necessarily become producers. I think that they should form partnerships in order to develop minds and develop projects past a certain stage. There's different skill sets required at different times of a junior's existence. And building a large CapEx asset requires a lot of skills and experience that a lot of juniors don't necessarily have. So we will at some point bring in a partner on the project.
14:41 Okay, I think we've probably got time for one more question if anybody else out there has anything. What's the history of the project? Great question. Yeah, great. So I bought the project with my partners out of another junior in 2018. That Junior was going off to do something else. I can't really recall what they were doing. It was going through a restructuring. We looked at the asset. It had a historic resource on it from 2012, and the price that we were able to acquire it for was very low. It was sort of bottom of the market opportunity. So when we, that whole region that we're focused on here from Saguenay and Bay Como North, there was a large exploration rush for specifically 2 companies, Novato and Argex Titanium, I guess mid-07 through 14, 15, around then.
15:43 And they drilled out. They drilled and developed all kinds of resource through the area and ultimately, there was an implosion of both companies and now we control the key mineralized lands from both companies when we consolidated that land package here recently. So there was a lot of drilling that went on on the projects and through the region, as well as advanced studies. Believe Argex may have been working their way through a pre-feasibility study when the market fell out from under them. Look at that. Bang on. Amazing. Thank you guys very much for your time today.
