This is the Investing News Network. I'm Georgia Williams and we're in Toronto for day three of the PDAC conference. Joining me today is Gourd Neil, director, president, and CEO of Domestic Metals. Good to see you again. >> Great to be here. >> How has PDAC been so far? I haven't eaten lunch in two and a half two days. I've never I can't make it to lunch. It's it this place is insane. I mean, >> you know, we've been coming I've been coming here for 15 or 17 years and you


know, we go through cyclical that's obviously we're commodities. We're cyclical and we've had a lot of down time in this in this environment and in this in this commodity cycle. and to see the kind of enthusiasm and the deals and the people and it's it's it's really uplifting. Money is actually flowing and I can say that it's flowing not only at the top levels where it normally starts when you have these kind of opening in the in the markets but it's flowing down


to the juniors and that's getting this the whole floor is excited. It's really really nice to see happy people. Um and now we our job is to to deliver uh on those on those funds that are coming into shareholders. >> Yeah, absolutely. The enthusiasm is pulpable in the >> Yeah, absolutely. >> So, back to domestic medals, can we start with your ticker symbol and what exchanges you trade on? >> Uh uh DMCU on the TSX Venture and DMCU FF on the OTC. >> Fabulous. And Domestic Metals um is an


exploration company focused on the Americas. Can you tell us about your Smart Creek project and what it's like operating in Nevada, which has been named the number one mining jurisdiction by the Frasier Institute? >> Now, I'm in Montana, not Nevada, but that's okay. We all there's so much going on it people can get confused, >> right? >> Uh we're actually sixth in the Fraser Institute. Um it is a Rio Tinto project. Uh Rio Tinto uh it's an exploration project and it's a hopper porefree in


Montana just east of uh Philipsburg, Montana. Um Riointo it didn't make Riotinto likes it but it didn't make its basket of of uh exploration projects but they liked it so much that they actually went out and as asked our geologists who's worked for Riotinto in the past if they would look at it and if they liked it and our geologists loved it. Ar our two geologist just loved it and so they decided to take it on and put it inside a domestic. So it's um the fact that we have Riotinto as partners, they have a


technical committee that we we report to. Um we can use their their their resources which is really great to have a company of that size. $140 billion dollar market cap or hundred hundred billion dollar market cap of fluxes fluxes but the third largest um mining company in the world is your partner and they've handed you basically handed us um a project that we look like we're going to make a major discovery on this thing in the next two to three months with the drill program. So yeah very


exciting for us. >> Yeah and uh it's been an exciting year and busy year so far. Um you guys started a geohysical program. Yeah. How's it going? Can you give us an update? >> Uh, we're finishing it today. As a matter of fact, they're on the ground in the snow in Montana um running our geohysical lines. Um, I hate to say that. I don't know exactly how many meters uh kilometers of geohysical we're running. My geologists know that, but it's a lot of them. We're covering the


it's 40 it's a 50 square kilometer um uh project. So, it's a lot of it's a it's a it's a lot of geoysics. They've been running those lines for the last month. um and it will take two weeks for us to process the data and then we go from there. So, Riointo did a a a um uh a geohysical program that they handed to us, but it was incomplete and we could see that there were some uh some hot spots, some heavy conductors there um uh that lit up the geoysics, but they weren't complete. So, we wanted to


complete them before we start the uh the drill program. >> And the drill program will be commencing later this year or 202. >> Yeah. We're going to take the next two weeks to process the the geohysical data. We've been processing processing it as we're getting it anyway, but we we'll be complete on the geoysic processing uh in the next two weeks. And so then we plan to we've hired a geo we've hired a drill uh drill team um company and we will be starting to drill


sometime at the end of March probably maybe early early April just depending on that's not weather it's weather and we can drill in the winter but we just we we just want to make sure the geoysics have tightened up our targets we're the fifth company to be drilling on this when you're looking for a pfery you don't want to be the first you want to be about the fifth or the sixth and um Rio was the fourth was year was the fifth and we're the sixth and they handed us their best hole which was


distal is distal um to the center of a pfury and that was 109 mters of 75 and if that percent copper and if that's distal to the pfery um my geologists are telling me to get ready for um a a serious hit uh in this next drill program. >> Yeah, it's exciting. >> Yes, it very exciting. >> And you know and on the corporate side um you've just announced a private placement. How is it going? And once closed, where are you planning on allocating the capital? >> Um, as I said, it's very exuberant. So,


there's lots of there's money coming in. Um, we timed it a little bit off in that there's, you know, when I timed the announcement of it, there was in Daba and V-Rick and and there's a whole bunch of of of PDAC, Uh, and so the money didn't come in as fast as I'd like, but it's coming in now as we get to the end of PDAC. Um we look we're looking for $3.5 million to augment our our drill program. We initially were going to look at um 5,000 meters, but I am Peter McGau


um who I we worked at Mag Silver with, he contacted me and said, "Look, I think there's a carbonate replacement deposit here by the numbers that he sees came out on our sample program." and he says, "You really want to give your geologists a bit more meterage on the drill bit to make sure that they, you know, they're successful in hitting very close to the center of this this pfery and and there's he says there's probably more." He's telling me it's like tentacles off


the pfery. There should be more than one CRD here. So, we need to give my I need to give my geologists enough drill drill pipe to do that. So, we've expanded it from 5,000 to 10,000 mters. And we, as I said, it will start probably the end of March or early in early in April. And um I was just talking to the guys at ALS at the booths here and they can't promise us now because of all the money that's coming into the into the sector here. Um that we can get our our results as quickly as we would like. I'd like to


get them in 30 days. Um 45 is probably more like likely and it might run to 60 days. So if we drill in April, we probably won't be putting out um results until June, July. >> So something to look forward to in the summer. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> And you touched on this a little bit, but you have [clears throat] a partnership with Riotinto and they are actively prioritizing copper production, aiming to bolster output by 40% by 2030. What does that mean for a project like


Smart Creek? [snorts] >> Well, it means that they're paying attention to us. I mean, they first of all, we we can only get 60% from them. I tried to get 80%. They said no way. I tried to get 70%, they said no. And it tells me that they are expecting this to be a um a successful and fairly large project. To the south of us, 50 miles to the southeast is a is a mine called the but mine. Now, the but mines produced 22 billion pounds of copper in the last 120 years. It is the largest producing


copper producing mine in the United States and produces and has produced 20% of all copper ever produced in the United States. They are telling me Rio is intimating that um the fact that we're in the same for in the same formation, same rock formation, the same trend which is the Hel the Helena formation >> uh and and it's the same age rocks. The hope is that we're going to tag into another another but again that's forward-looking statements and um as a as an explorationist I'm going to make a


lot of those but I made a lot I've made a lot of forward-looking statements in my career and they've turned out to be backward-looking statements uh when you look back. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> And what does it mean to you that you know like Riotinto is one of the biggest mining companies in the world and they believe in you and they and they've taken a chance with you guys. >> They actually believe in the project. >> Yeah. >> And they believed in us. the the belief


in us really comes and again I I I've been doing this for 35 years. It comes down to the geologists who they trust to do this correctly. And these are geologists who have made major discoveries in the past. And when you work in this world of of commodities and geology and mining, um you want to stick with geologists that have made multiple multiple major discoveries, multiple major economic discoveries. You can make a discovery, but making it making sure that it's economic, that it can stand on


its own is it I've been trained by these guys like Peter Mande McInness and Reef Fang from Silver Corp that if it it can't stand on its own, it's really not worth asking shareholders for their money so you can keep diluting and keep asking the banks for for more money. It makes no sense. Find projects and are hard to find, but Mag Silver, New Pacific, and now domestic. I would say I'm hoping domestic will be economic, but we will see. >> Yeah. And I think that's a good point


you mentioned because they are getting harder to find and they're getting harder to access. >> Exactly right. >> Yeah. Um, as we head into Q2, what catalysts should investors be watching out if aside from the drill results that'll be coming out in 45 days? >> The most the most important thing for us right now is to put our money where our mouth is. A lot of doing a lot of arm waving. Yes. Um, uh, Rio hit 109 meters of 75. Our sample program was the highest results I've ever seen in my


career in 35 years. 102 grams per ton gold, 38 grams per ton silver, and 23% copper at surface. That's when Peter called and said, uh, I think you might have a CRD in your hands. Um so what's excit what the catalyst the biggest catalyst for us is to complete this financing which we will have done in the next few days >> and then uh and then get the drills turning and get these results out and and as I said take these forward-looking statements and make them backward-looking statements when and I


think that's again a Peter Mah Peter Mau terminology when we make forward-looking statements and they turn out to be true they're no longer forward-looking we can look backwards and say we said this and we did this and that's what we delivered and I'm looking forward to delivering those backward-looking FA statements uh to my to my shareholders >> and I look forward to catching up with you again soon. >> Yeah, it's gonna be it's like it's a real real whirlwind right now and the


next the next time I see you I I'm pretty sure I'm going to have my dancing shoes on. [laughter] >> I look forward to it lovely to chat with you again. Thank you so much. Have a great day. >> Thank you. >> Once again, I'm Georgia Williams and that was Gourd Neil, director, president, and CEO of Domestic Metals.