thank you I'm Marilyn De Guzman with investing News Network I'm speaking with Todd Ross managing director and CEO of Nordic nickel about the battery Metals market and the supply landscape in Europe hello Todd Hi Marilyn how are you and good thanks thanks uh thanks for joining us today that's good to be here great so let's start a conversation with just an introduction of Nordic nickel and some of the highlights for the investor community that you'd like them to know great thanks Maryland yeah look um Nori


Niko is a a new newly listed nickel exploration company um focused on the central lap playing greenstone belt of Northern Finland we have two assets um our pulley project where we're currently exploring at the moment and we also have a second project called the meningioki 3 project both of these projects we're looking for what we call cicadi style analogues which is high grades massive sulfides nickel sulfides we um we know in the central lap playing greenstone belt that we typically see


disseminated nickel as a marker for hargrade massive sulfides based on historical drilling that we had on their hot Enviro expiration Prospect where we're currently drilling right now we had a lot of disseminated nickel and some high grade massive sulfides contained within that we've commenced to 22 000 meter drilling campaign on that same area now and what we're seeing is a continuation of the mineralization below the extent of the original drilling so we're seeing the continuation of the the


disseminated nickel and some massive sulfides at depth um but also we've recently released a um drainage survey where we've indicated that there's at least another nine of these potentially um hotenborough style mineralizations throughout our full 240 square kilometer land package so it's a it's a really exciting time yeah naughty nickel is a um as a young company but we're getting a lot of attention already from some of the majors who are looking to support secure their supply of nickel sulfides


in in Europe in particular right so let's talk a bit about that your look your projects are located in Finland can you talk a little bit more about sort of what it's um the operating environment in Finland the infrastructure that's there um you know what investors need to know about that location yeah absolutely look it's finland's a fantastic place to operate um it's it's certainly got all of the um ingredients to be a major player in the battery value chain um and and the country itself is is


positioning itself to become a major player in the in the critical minerals and battery value chain uh in Europe they um has it's it's a highly prospective area for Nicole copper Cobalt there's been a number of major discoveries in in the in recent years and um they've also got a highly skilled Workforce um they've got the infrastructure in place which is critical for being able to deliver nickel into the market in particular throughout in our situation um so they've got all of Europe's nickel


refining and smelting capacity exists within Finland and Norway and there's a number of gigafactories being built throughout um throughout Finland um and and in Europe in general around 20 of all of the gear factories being built in Europe uh I've been guilt in the United States so we're looking to be able to tap into that full-bage hat right so um so the European Union in general no they've um implemented they've embarked on this uh really uh massive strategy to um increase their supply of critical


minerals that we will need for you know the electrification efforts and the um you know energy decarbonization so how does how do you see your company playing into like the role that your company will play into this whole dynamic and and um what you're seeing in terms of what the European Union and the Europe is is um is doing in in this regard yeah look I mean Europe is said to become the second largest battery manufacturing Hub outside of China um this as I mentioned there's a number of Giga factories being constructed at


the moment throughout Europe around 20 of those in the Nordic region um the the realization um of recent years is that there's obviously a massive shortage of critical minerals to be able to go into those um construction those gigafactories and and the the battery value chain in particular so the EU has recently launched the EU critical minerals act um so it's a discussion that's been on the table for a couple of years the acceleration came after the inflation reduction Act was launched in in the US


and obviously the recognition that there's a real major issue coming for the supply of critical minerals so the EU has implemented certain initiatives to kick off that EU critical minerals act the first being that 10 of all raw materials need to be secured in Europe so there's a number of incentives that they're working on at the moment about how to eventually be able to encourage investment in in Europe in particular Finland as the next level is also looking at its own incentives as I


mentioned before about trying to position itself to be a major player in Europe as well for the for the battery value chain so look there's there's lots of um incentives being discussed at the moment there's a lot of talk about how we can potentially speed up the permitting process um and also being able to provide funding support for exploration of nickel and critical minerals in in Europe as well so look I think it's it's a bit of a watch to space situation at the moment there's certainly a lot of


attention there's a lot of realization that the the main critical minerals at the likes of lithium copper nickel are all going to be a big issue in the next few years and um and they're looking to try and position themselves to be able to secure that Supply it's still um as you mentioned all these incentives are are being um laid out for for the industry specifically I guess to um to enable this supply chain for for the for the region it starts with exploration right um and you you mentioned what are the


steps that that you're seeing in terms of building up that because it takes some time to it takes a while to bring you know a mine into production from exploration into production so are you seeing what are what are some of the strategies in terms of speeding that up I think you've mentioned the the permitting can you talk a little bit more about that yeah look at it does come down to this to the speed of Permitting access to resources to drill rigs um to uh skilled labor uh all of those things


um the the support that we're getting in Finland is really around the the existing industry that that's already there um there's obviously a highly qualified and and very experienced uh exploration industry and mining industry that already exists there's a lot of Majors that are that are looking around this area environment in particular the likes of BHP and Rio and first Quantum are all are all in the area looking for uh for nickel and copper assets um so there's there's a lot of support


coming in at the moment um it's really about how quickly can that translate into uh dollars uh in the ground essentially and um and and exploring projects that have got potentially District scale I think that's where um you know our huge advantages were one of the early movers in this area uh we've got a land package on our puller project of 240 square kilometers and at the moment we're only exploring five square kilometers with that land package although we've done recently done a um a drone mag survey


which has identified through the high resolution mag survey there's probably another nine at least similar targets to what we've got in the hot envira license where we're currently exploring at the moment as I mentioned the um the current filling campaigners is only uh what's 22 000 meters so it's quite an extensive drilling campaign for 12 months but it's only on two percent of our total land holding and I think that's really what's attracted the attention of some of these


Majors as well in particular BHP who um selected nickel to participate in the uh inaugural bhpx4 program where they're supporting Junior camp companies like us to help accelerate that that expiration program uh and and they're the sort of things that I think we're going to see more of coming coming forward because it's a difficult industry um obviously you know there's there's a massive Supply shortage coming particular for nickel there haven't been any major discoveries in recent years


other than the the zakari deposit that was discovered by anglo-american um not far from us in in the central like playing greenstone belt of of Northern Finland um but there haven't been there hasn't been a lot of money spent because uh raising expiration dollars is is always tricky um and you know when when the the risks off and the market isn't being able to support new exploration projects um it's very difficult for new new discoveries to be made and um and that's what some


of the majors are recognizing that we need to look at a different way of this model um in terms of the the battery Metals uh market and the looming shortage of this this important uh this critical Metals you know the solution obviously I think will require a multi-sector effort from you know across the value chain from manufacturing distribution and you know to the end user what are you hearing from them uh from these sectors in terms of how they plan to address this new main shortage well I think I think they're coming


further Upstream um so the the downstream players are recognizing that it's not it's no longer um possible for them to just be ready to to buy whatever their critical minerals are at the time that they're ready for it they need to look at partnering with with companies like us early on um where they're securing their supplier for you know five ten years down the track um there's there's a huge incentive now to be able to do that and we're seeing that happening in the in the lithium


space we'll certainly hearing very similar things in the nickel space now and and I think that's where where um you know we're we're very excited about the fact that we have this first mover advantage in a district scale Province where um we've wrapped it up with you know 240 square kilometers of land holding um yeah we're in a we're in a unique position that we're able to take advantage of that as these majors are looking to try and secure long-term support right so um what can the investor


Community expect from Nordic nickel for 2023 look 2023 is um is a really exciting year for Nordic Nicole as I mentioned we've only only listed uh less than a year ago so we'll turn one in a couple of weeks time we've we've got a number of runs on the board already the first six months of our um life as a listed company was about looking at um or and planning our exploration program for this year and there's a lot of geophysics work that we needed to do initially to be able to get ourselves


set up for identifying all of those targets we're now executing that plan um we have the 22 000 meter dual campaign well I'm truly underway and we've accelerated that dual campaign with um putting two rigs on initially so initially the plan was to have one rig for for 12 months now we have um you know that one rig continuing on for that 12 months but we had a second rig for the first three months as well we're starting to get assay results through and we'll be releasing those uh


in the next week or so and we're going to see continual news flow uh coming from our x-ray operation program now I think what's exciting for investors is the the initial drilling campaign has not only confirmed um the the vertical continuity of the um of the the deposits I was seeing a lot more mineralization below the surface of the existing historical drilling that was there that was done by otakumpu but we've also now with these Regional mag survey that we've done identified another nine of these look-alikes


throughout the belts that we're looking to forward to getting involved in and drilling over the next year uh next couple of years to come so it's a it's a lot of a lot of news flow it's exciting it's a really good industry to be in um certainly well supported in Finland um and yeah we think that the time is coming for out for Nicole as well yeah certainly it's uh the right the right metal the right time and the right location absolutely yeah yeah so we'll um we'll uh looking


forward to hearing more about the assay results as you release them fantastic yeah thank you Marilyn thank you thank you for joining us today Tom good to chat to you thanks bye and thanks for watching join us again next time for another engaging conversation on CEO insights