[Music] welcome to CEO Insight I'm Marilyn De Guzman with investing news.com I'm speaking with Scott Williamson managing director of Blackstone minerals Scott is sharing his insights on the company's recently announced acquisition of copper gold project in the Philippines hi Scott hi Marilyn yeah so as I've mentioned you just announced a merger with IDM International for the acquisition of the cayen copper gold project tell us more about this acquisition and how it positions Blackstone for future


growth yeah thanks Marilyn it's uh so it's a merger of equals U IDM is a unlisted company that has been operating this asset for the last three or four years we're now bringing the two companies together and we can leverage off the experience that we have from operating in Vietnam which is a similar jurisdiction we've operated in Vietnam for the last last five or six years uh we've been focused on Nickel in Vietnam now we can use that team and our expertise in developing Minds in Vietnam


to the the mankind project in the Philippines so it's a copper gold pory uh it's a really exciting opportunity it's got some historic drill intercepts some of some of the best we've ever seen anywhere in the world so it's a a great opportunity to to use that experience and that team that we've built in Vietnam to now unlock this what we see is probably a worldclass copper gold P Frey in the Philippines can you talk about then some of the key exploration and development you've got planned for


this new project that investors should look forward to yeah so uh luckily the IDM team have already done a couple of really um long holes so they've done two 1,000 M holes and they were done for geolog geological geotechnical and metallurgical purposes so the assays are pending on those holes so that's some some good news flow uh in the near term uh but then we're going to look at potentially doing some geophysics so one of the things that we did in Vietnam is we did a lot of geophysical um


techniques and we've got a geophysical team that we can bring over from Vietnam so we're looking to do a bit of geophysics but then also um uh once the merger has been completed assuming it is all successful then we would look to um to further drilling uh we think that there's opportunity to expand the res it's open a strike and at debt so we're going to expand the resource through further drilling but also looking to do some geophysical work so really stepping back and uh really understanding the


full potential of this or body so you know as you said if if um when the acquisition is completed how does this um new project influence the future plans for the takoa your project in in Vietnam yeah so that's a great question so we've always um had the plan to to a joint venture on the Taqua project in Vietnam that process is still ongoing and we've got a number of groups that are looking to joint venture on that asset so the likely scenario is we would joint venture on Vietnam which would


then allow us to focus most of our efforts on the mankind project in the Philippines so uh yeah so that's still the plan is and we're still running that joint venture process and we hope to be able to bring that joint venture partner in over the coming months and that would then allow us to spend you more time in the copper gold opportunity in the Philippines so for investors that are probably um you know not too familiar with the jurisdiction can you talk about uh the Philippines as a mining


jurisdiction what's it like uh the environment and and and the regulatory environment there yes yeah it's a it's a good question because there has been a long history of mining operators in the region uh particular groups like Oceana gold B2 gold so they've been successfully operating gold mines for over 10 years so we've got a long history of successful mining we've got a new president Marcos who who came in uh in 2022 so and since he was elected um mining production has


increased significantly so it's a pro mining president um he will be in play for another two or three years so we've got a good run with the current president who is PR mining but most importantly we've got a long history of successful operators uh being uh B2 gold and Oceana gold with the uh mabari and didipio mines which are very close to the mankind project so similar geology and similar region of the Philippines in Luzon so what's um some of the other any other upcoming catalysts or what do you


have plans for the next uh for the over the near term that investors should look forward to yeah so once once the uh emerger is finalized then we can really start the expiration phase so it's yeah like I said it's really about stepping back understanding the or system through geophysical techniques we think there's opportunities for also even um assaying some of the drill holes that previously were unass so there's a there's a number of good things we can do just with the existing data and bringing in our own


geophysical techniques and then then it's really straight into that exploration phase stepping out we we want to do some big step outs and really expand the footprint of what what already is a worldclass py uh but with with a bit of drilling uh once the merger is complete we think that we can make this even bigger great well thanks again Scott for joining me today and uh talking about this new acquisition thanks Marilyn and thanks everyone for watching join us again next time for another edition of CEO insights


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