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 [Music] welcome to CEO insights I'm Marilyn De Guzman with investing news.com my guest this episode is James cross CEO of Eep power resources a graphite focused exploration and development company based in Montreal Quebec Canada welcome James thanks maryn good to be here yeah good to have you so we're talking about graphite China currently dominates the global supply chain for graphite and has also recently imposed new export export restrictions what role do you see uh graphite Focus Junior mining companies

such as yourself uh what do you see as what they play in this Dynamic well um yeah the junior companies especially in North America are especially important because um North America has virtually no domestic production of graphite there's only one small producing mine in Quebec um the US has no production at all um so the US Imports 100% of its graphite um and yeah China really uses all their graphite there just isn't enough to go around and the next largest source after China is East Africa meaning mosan Beek

Madagascar and Tanzania um now mosan Beek recently uh saw its top producer I think its only producer um a very large mine uh run by an Australian company shut down due to civil unrest so with China and East Africa amounting to about 90% of the the Global Production Market uh North America needs some kind of homegrown Supply and uh even just from a distance standpoint it's pretty far away from your your supply chain so um the yeah there are only um I'd say 10 significant projects in North America that can

really make an impact on the looming Supply deficit or graphite Supply deficit um in North America or really globally and that's including you uh so like maybe we can talk about your uh strategy as e- power resources to set yourself apart from your other uh peers in in the graphite space in North America yeah that's a good point I should have mentioned um yeah ew Flagship project teda Pisa is one of those 10 significant North American projects now two of those 10 projects are held by uh another company nuo mon

graphite which has seen huge Equity investments from uh in in the hundreds of millions of dollars from General Motors Panasonic and mitsui simultaneously and so newo mon graph F projects are essentially controlled by those industrial players now so that leaves eight really for everybody else um and it's also important to note that this you know when we started the company um the big battery or the Big Driver be behind uh graphite production was the increase in evv batteries really um but now it's about much more than

that um it's also about industrial self-sufficiency because to give you an example there's no defense industry without graphite you absolutely have to have it for artillery for to make ships um you know to to make missiles it it you you absolutely have to have it so um where does eow fit into all that we are one of those 10 projects to remember two are already spoken for that leaves eight for everybody else now the continent North America probably needs about um 38 projects really to be

self-sufficient in graphite and then the manufacturing that goes into products containing graphite so um in our view all those are going to be taken out by either industrial players or any company who wants to get into and control some some graphite so maybe this is a good time to talk about about your project you mentioned the T pisca um you've recently uh reported some promising results from um that property could you elaborate on those findings and their significance to your growth strategy

yeah sure the um yeah one thing I should have mentioned about teda pisca is it is very well positioned geographically to supply either the European market um because it has Maritime it's only about 3 hours from U an important port and that Port is an interchange point where barge traffic going into the interior of North America in the Great Lakes switches to oceangoing vessel traffic so um you have easy Maritime links to say uh Western Europe um through bomo Quebec which is that that Port near our project

and um you also have ground transport and Barge links to the rest of North America so um teda pisca is um is the largest um land package in what is known as the highest grade known graphite District in North America and if you remember I mentioned um nvo M graphite um earlier they um they have a project immediately adjacent to our Teta Pisa project which is probably um the best uh graphite deposit in all North America um it's called the uon project and recently we reported some additional results

discovering another yet another Target area on our property which actually sits only 4 and a half kilometers from the proposed pit at that project so really 4 and a half kilometers from the really in my view the best project in in North America but again we need 30 more like it or or more and um so what our strategy is is um we're we're trying to keep it as simple as possible we're only looking for graphite from surface to maximum 100 meters deep and we really start out using um uh Airborne

surveys to find conductivity in the ground and that's why one of the reasons graphite is so special it it conducts electricity very well along with its heat resistance properties so we find that conductivity and then it's it's mapped with pretty good Precision on the ground and then we um we go walk that ground and look for places where the graphite protrudes the surface and we can take samples of that and know it comes from a conductive body in the ground and if you're getting at the

surface um you know lots of good samples you know it's quite Poss possible that this represents a uh you know a quite graphitic system I suppose we can call it from surface so we just scour the ground um and uh and look for graphite that way and that and right now what we're doing is developing target areas for resource delineation from surface so we're kicking the stuff on the ground really and and um using those as targets and then we do metallurgical test work on uh The graphitic Rock we get from

there to um you know to help us choose which Target area gets the highest priority so when you're uh you know B your strategy how far do you take this I guess particularly this T pisca what's the plan for how far you're taking this project before you know uh is it all the way to production are you looking for partners GVS what's the strategy there yeah we we actually in our our intent is never we're not trying to build a billion dooll company here or anything like that instead what we're our mission

is really to find for someone else a critical Link in their supply chain and be able to deliver it to them in exchange for cash really um we're looking to monetize the graphite while it still sits in the ground so we're just developing the project enough so that they can see all right this is a project that can um you know help us solve a problem and that problem is a shiny new Factory that needs graphite to produce anything but there isn't any graphite so we're in I guess you can

call the problem solving business so we're the intent is not deploy tremendous amounts of capital but to deploy you know and and do massive drilling programs you know and try to bring it to production you know and go to investors for 500 million in capex and we're not looking to do that what we're looking to do really is just deploy small amounts of capital uh and then you know monetize that asset while it's still sitting in the ground the aim is really exponential returns right and

then speaking of capital uh you've announced a private placement H what initiatives do you intend to fund and why is now the time to invest in e- power resources yeah well um right now um the macro picture around graphite supply and demand has never never been better when we started the company back in late 2018 and raised capital for what was then a private company um and uh to to take on the property we have and and uh do some exploration work on it back then we were predicting you know a a graphite

crisis now that crisis is here we don't we don't have to predict it anymore so the Tailwind is there really for any uh any good North American graphite project so uh you know and if you remember you know I was saying industry needs maybe 38 of these projects rather than the eight that are remaining and the industrial players or anybody else wanting to get into graphite and control some of it um they're going to have to you know take all these out but retail hasn't really responded so our share

price is quite low um I I won't spoil it you can look it up for yourself symbol epr but the share price is quite low so retail investors still have the opportunity to front run those industrial players who are going to absolutely have to own in my view that project and uh as well as the others so um that's that's the reason it's it's a good time to get in now I wonder if you could comment like of of uh like so you're focusing on graphite and you know the the need for graphite North America

wide uh is you know cannot be overstated enough but you know amid that is the ongoing trade War tariffs War you know with the US like how is that impacting in you know your your how you proceed or your your planning for for for the future like is that impacting it at all or what are your thoughts on that not really um it it's not you know at the moment I think we're just seeing you know that the stuff we're seeing is um um just this is the negotiation you know the tariffs on tariffs off and all that

but can you put a tariff especially a big tariff on a raw material that your industry needs you know the US can't afford to put a tariff on graphite or electricity or oil or anything like that this is just the negotiation um but you know if the us only has two projects and probably needs at least 32 um you know and and for defense and self-sufficiency reasons which is what you know that's what they're all about um it you need graphite at least in Fortress North America so we're not really worried

about about tariffs and and you know uncertainty is always good for the resources business because then that causes people to scramble to secure resources so it's not something we're worried about if anything it's something we're we're kind of excited about okay we'll leave it at that thanks again James for taking the time to uh share your insights today great thanks maryn thanks everybody for watching and thanks yeah thank you everyone for watching join us again next time for another

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