Transcript
Automated transcript · Written by software from the replay's audio. It can mishear names and figures; the replay is the record.
0:04 I'll say good morning, good afternoon, good evening depending on what time of the day you're watching this webinar today. Thanks so much as always for joining us. I've got with me today James Cross, the CEO of ePower Resources. James, how are you? Fine, Romeo. Good to see you. Awesome. I just wanted to chat with you just based on the back of news yesterday. That was this point, Monday, April 7th. What I really wanted to do was give you an opportunity to talk about the news, What it means for the company, what's up next. Then I'm just going to come back, shoot you a couple of questions if that's okay with you. Yeah, sure. Yeah, yesterday's press release was pretty straightforward. We are working on a $500,000
0:45 hard dollar private placement.
0:49 We've closed the first tranche for a little over 180,000 and expect to close the remainder probably by the end of the month. A lot of our money comes from Europe and sometimes the logistics around, you know, sending money from there to here takes a little bit longer. So yeah, we're probably looking at about the end of the month.
1:14 You know, proceeds of the private placement are, you know, we're, well, a few things, you know, 1 is, you know, continuing to get the message out there about the looming, or not even looming anymore, but about the graphite deficit North America and Europe are facing. So we're gonna continue to do that. Of course, keep the company going. Everybody kind of overlooks that when, you know, you see juniors doing small financings, you know, it takes money to keep the lights on. And, you know, our business is all about staying in the game. So we've got this project when we, and we know industry is going to have to come take it from us. And that would be cash. Awesome. No, appreciate that James. I think it's good Updates help people understand what's going on with the company. I think that's some useful insight. I've got, if you don't mind, a couple questions. Some of them we have covered to some degree before, but I'd love if we could talk about them just in the context of this week's news, if that's okay.
2:15 Sure. Awesome. So I know you've got a lot of really promising drill results, sampling data, etc. At Tetepeeskem. I'm curious though, what are the qualities that make the graphite from this region and at this project attractive to not just potential battery manufacturers, but other industrial users of graphite?
2:33 Sure. I guess starting from the top down, you know, where it is. It's in Quebec, a jurisdiction very supportive of mining and the battery industry, which is one of the big drivers, but certainly not the only one of increased graphite demand. They've also always traditionally been very supportive of the mining and exploration business. So where it is is a big deal. Then we look at geography. It sits about, you know, a three-hour, 15-minute drive north of the port of Bay Como, which has maritime links to the rest of the world, but especially Western European ports in about 1 week of sailing time. And then you've got barge access to the interior of North America through the St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes and ground transport links to the rest of the continent. So you can drive right to the property. In other words, you sleep in a hotel in Bay Como and by lunchtime you're there in a pickup truck.
3:36 No big deal. So where it is is quite a blessing and it's also in a place with quite developed infrastructure because there's so much hydroelectric power and forestry business in the area. So you have roads where there are basically no people. So, you know, it's it sits where you don't have to worry about waking up the neighbors with a drill or creating dust from a graphite project that gets into their back garden or something like that. And then if we go, if we dive a little deeper, there's plenty of graphite here or graphitic rock, call it, sitting at surface. You can, in many places, kick the graphite on the ground.
4:24 And our business is all about finding low-hanging fruit, finding and developing low-hanging fruit to solve the big problem industry has. So, you know, we're looking for 0 to 100 meters of graphite, we don't even care about the rest, the next generation can worry about that. And, you know, If we're looking for graphite 400 meters below the surface, forget about it. It doesn't matter. And then also you get to flake size and grade. We have the largest land position in the highest grade known graphite district in all North America. And it sits next to what I would consider probably the best known graphite deposit in North America, the Ouatton deposit.
5:15 Now, the grades are much higher than you would see internationally in the average producing graphite mine. Graphite mines normally produce it a grade of 2 to 7% graphite. And in this region, the average resource grade is 14%. So you typically see much higher grades than usual. And then there's the flake size, which is probably the last thing. You generally want, especially in more developed markets, a deposit with a high preponderance of mid to larger flake graphite because it commands a much higher price than amorphous graphite.
6:02 So
6:04 yeah, I think that covers it from the top down. This area, of course, I didn't really say that, is known for quite good flake size, and you can see it with the naked eye. And we're getting testing done to verify that scientifically. No, that's great. My only other real question is, I know your corporate strategy, or at least as outlined in your deck, talks about monetizing the projects through M&A, JVs, trade sales, et cetera. I'm curious, just for investors watching, what milestones do you think we need to achieve at Tenefisca before those start coming into place?
6:38 Well, before what starts coming into play? Sorry. Yeah, sorry. Before really you're looking at a serious M&A move that would take you far. Okay. Well, I think we're already in the position to be looking for it, because, you know, the perfect storm around graphite is here. You know, if you're, you know, The US imports just of raw graphite, 60,000 tons approximately of natural graphite. And about half of that reportedly came from China. But they're not letting any go anymore. So that's got to come from somewhere else. Now the reason 60,000 compared to global production of like 1.6 million sounds like very little. And that's because none of the manufacturing base require, or not much of the manufacturing base, requiring graphite is in the US.
7:38 It's in China. So if that's going to be transferred home, graphite demand will also be transferred home. And wouldn't it be a lot more convenient and politically reliable to get your graphite from Quebec than across the world in China? Sure. Honestly, James, appreciate that insight very much and great to talk to you
