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  welcome to CEO insights I'm Marilyn de Gusman with investing news.com we're here at VC in Vancouver and I'm sitting down with Gordon Neil president and CEO of world copper hi gour hello thanks for having me back yeah good to have you so in November you've initiated a strategic review process could you give us an update on this on how this is progressing yeah so um I'll start with just the markets themselves and why we are where we are we're not different than any other Junior uh strug some of a

struggling in this market where you we've got a low share price and we're trying to raise money and it's difficult so you know the zonia project is our main project and um it's going to cost the paa has a costing of 2 $50 million capex to build that um to go from to get to Bank of feasibility study and construction decisions and to build something like that it's very difficult to do with a 5-cent stock so excuse me we we went out and looked for strategic help in fact before we went out looking

for strategic help at our level when you have that kind of evaluation $15 million market cap when you believe you have a $100 million um asset um you uh company come to you so when I we started the Strategic review we had 12 or 13 um names or corporations in asking us or in our data room we have origin Merchant part partners of Toronto helping us with the process uh and they've grown that that number to 16 uh and where we are in the process is that we have three uh serious um uh uh Co corporations who come or fund or

corporations whove come to us and uh with ideas on how we could work together to fund the company and bring and bring zonia forward one of them is a merger would be a merger of with a u a copper producer out of out of Europe uh it's a it's a profitable company that um paid a dividend to its shareholders two years ago of $4 million it's got a $250 million market cap and trades at $2 a share those are The Sweet Spot of those kinds of companies that we would think mer merging the company with would make

sense and give our our shareholders more value second one is is a fund out of London that wants to actually acquire uh zonia the price that they're offering we don't think is high enough so we're working with them to get them higher uh and the third one is also another fund it's out of New York it's looking at an earn in at an earnin um situation where it could fund um zonia to be to a bankable feasibility study which would cost about $7 million get a specific uh percentage of the project and then maybe

come in if the BFS uh gives them good metrics and good economics then they would look at uh uh taking the company out but by getting it to BFS they're going to add value so we're not going to be trading at where we are today that's you know it's two or three years down the road to get it to BFS say two and a half years but by that time you know I'm hoping that when the BFS comes out if we did that transaction you know we would give be giving uh shareholders better value I mean our job um is to is to

create value for shareholders and I'm finding it this is the first time in my career that I found it extremely incredibly difficult to get a good copper asset get a Traction in the marketplace so that's where we are with the with the process and speaking of uh copper asset the zonia property could you talk a bit more about that um what is the value proposition why should investors be interested in that well um zonia is in Arizona first off which I mean it's a it is the Premier jur jurisdiction in North America now I

would yeah I would say in North America in Mexico Canada and the US 71% of all Us Cooper production comes out of Arizona so it's in the right jurisdiction secondly it's uh it's on private land so it can and it's it's it's a past producer so it can get its permits fairly easily a fair permitting timeline is 30 months which is isn't really long on a permanent standpoint it's got power on site water on site and it's pre-stripped so that or I actually standing on it in the pit is sticking

right out of the ground it's strip so getting it into production is fairly easy in a in a in an environment or a market where you know we don't have enough copper and we're trying to decarbonize and and our the number of Mines coming online is not going to anywhere near meet the copper demands in the next 10 years getting one into production that could produce 7 to 70 to 100 million pounds a year for 10 years which Zia could do at starting in in three years time is a is why people should be looking at at zonia because it

is a good asset it's ready to go into production the team that is look the technical team that we have to put into production Derek white and Joe Phillips have collectively put together um I'm going to say 18 copper mines in the last last 15 years so um 20 years uh so we've got the right team to do it um and and that's why people should be interested in zonia and in terms of advancing the project am is it um am I right to assume that that review process that you're undertaking is going to dictate the uh

of what you're going to do to progress that correct because the next Pro the next phase of getting it down getting it into production is to as a bankable fusibility study so you can fund it bankable fusibility study is going to cost5 to7 million we don't have that right now I'm raising $1.5 million um and I'm finding that a bit of a struggle I mean I've raised over $700 million in my career and it's the $1.5 million I mean I've raised 40 50 200100 million those seem to be easy to get try to get

$1.5 million for a six cent stock in this market is tough uh so I need help doing that uh and that the plan is to get it there but we're going to need Partners to help us get it there so that's why the Strategic review and it looks like we'll have an announcement in the next I would say few weeks on one of these opportunities that will give our shareholders will add value for our shareholders so in terms of 2025 know we're at the beginning of the year what should the investor Community expect

from the company what are the plans for 2025 well the plan really is I said I'm qu of looping back into the same conversation but for us to move this project forward we need help can't raise the can't raise 7 million could raise $7 million at 6 cents but it's going to dilute my shareholders and that's not in their interest so bringing somebody in who can actually help us lift it um is is the plan uh in 2025 we hope to have a strategic partner to help us do that that strategic partner will either um

provide us Capital through acquiring um our assets both both zonia and escalones because escalones is actually some there's interest in escalones from from Majors actually uh in Chile so um you know having having someone come in and provide funding and keep to keep the company going that way in terms of an asset acquisition could be part of the plan merging with somebody could be part of the plan and and these are as I said the the these the uh P people that at the company that's at the table right

now on a merger would benefit shareholders and the capital um the capital strength to take zonia in you know down to bankable and end into production um uh So the plan is to get that that strategic and then move the company forward from there for 2025 lots of options on the table thanks again Gord for taking the time to speak thank you for having me and thanks everyone for watching join us again next time for another edition of CEO insights if you like this video like or leave a comment below we'd love to hear

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