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 [Music] welcome to CEO insights I'm Marilyn dezman with investing news.com I'm speaking with Patrick Elliot president and CEO of for to minerals and a very special guest Patrick thank you thanks for having me um we brought patcha the Lama from uh the altiplano of Peru here to join us at the show and uh she's been quite the hit at pdac 2025 here so new member of the team we we're expanding quite quickly now we're lucky to have H patcha here to make an appearance in this interview thanks thanks

pcha all right so uh on to the questions um you've accum accumulated a portfolio of copper gold Assets in Peru um what is the process for and the strategy that guide your project selection and prioritization in in this region I mean honestly it's uh two and a half decades exercise that we started uh you know about 2006 after uh zafrel pyy we put together a private uh project generator and we started picking up uh prospective metal deposits in in the southern Peru copper belt and and the high sulfidation

gold systems and whatnot so um at that point you know we we we we were staking a lot of things a lot of perspective stuff that we were waiting to come available and come free and then this happens uh a lot in during the downturns where these properties come available where major companies relinquish their expiration assets and and we pick them up so it has taken a couple decades to assemble these portfolios um of 30 plus properties and then from there as we advance some of them we select the you

know the best four that we wanted to put into Forte and spin out and what's your uh strategy for advancing these projects can you talk about that well again the the top four there's two high sulfidation Golds and two po Frey coppers that we wanted to retain 100% interest of and drill ourselves we felt that that had the best chance a lot a lot of the other properties we have in the in private company it it operates as a project generator that we option out to to other uh interested you know third

parties other copper explorers and whatnot um so you know you know what criteria it's when it comes down to por free age is important if it's a pay leing in age the location's important does it have that that um you know leech capping with with the enrichment blanket there it hasn't been eroded away that's that's you know vitally important in these in these P free systems but also the the alteration footprint does it have that footprint on surface that that demonstrates that the size and the

tonnage can be there to you know build a one to two billion ton deposit and so that's what the par is a high sulfidation gold systems we traditionally find them uh Target them from from remote sensing from the aster uh anomalies the aric fic anomalies that that we see from space and follow up on foot with them a lot of them are already Stak before when you get there and you wait for them to come available if they ever do um and and Advance them that way but uh we have three drill permited projects uh now and um I think when we

spoke last year uh we we only had one so now we have three Dia drill permitted projects out of the four and we're working on the fourth uh as we speak so we're ready to start drilling our first project here this summer all right for a macro macro perspective you know with all indications are saying that Global demand for copper will continue to increase where do you see Forte minerals playing in this Dynamic and and and what is that's the strategy to leverage though is well I mean it's it's exactly

uh you know making the Acquisitions and staking and and building his portfolio in the downturn and then and as a cycle improves and we get into a you know a more robust bull market Metals uh climate here um the demand for these these types of assets always goes up and there's there's a shortage of of uh you know expiration uh poery copper assets out there that um you know um have have been Advanced or discovered and so we you know are at a point now where we can um start looking for partners and

and bringing strategic Partners in order to to Advan these so every major uh copper even gold company are looking for poor free copper ERS and Peru is one of the best adders to be in it's the second largest copper producer in the world and a lot remains to be found and developed and and explored there it's been a lot lack of expiration in the downturn and for about 10 years we didn't see a whole lot of expiration efforts and expiration dollars Capital put into pipeline projects advancing these early State

projects through to drilling resource definition and and uh feasibility yeah so what are some of the upcoming catalysts that investors should watch for well certainly making a drill Discovery at puerini here with this High sulfidation gold system it's uh you know something that uh several companies and ourselves been waiting to drill for uh 11 years now and uh it's permitted ready to be drilled so we'll June July we'll be uh deploying a small four hole, 1400 meter drill program that made in inaug

inaugural drill program for that project and and then we'll move right into esparanza py and and drill that so so um two big projects to drill this year and um the third one uh we may we may option that out or look for a partner to come in I'm not sure we can handle drilling three projects this year so we'll be busy uh raising capital and uh coming up results on a pyy copper and a high sulfidation gold system that uh looks looks really good through geophysics and on Surface so it they have to be drilled

really good at that thanks again Patrick for joining today apprciate it thank and thanks everyone for watching join us again next time for another edition of CEO insights [Music]