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 [Music] welcome to CEO insights I'm Marilyn dezman with investing news.com I'm speaking with Paul Ferguson CEO of metals Australia and exploration and development company with Advanced critical minerals projects in Canada and Australia hi Paul hi maryn looking forward to the discussion today with you yeah me too so let's start off with yourself you've been with the company for about a year what Drew you to the company and how has the last year been for you and your uh and metals Australia

yeah well first up I uh this was my first time working in the in the junior mining um space and I was kind of really impressed with uh medals Australia for really three kind of key reasons the first one of those was a really high quality project with what we now call the L Carill graphite project in in Quebec um that is advancing through PFS stage at the moment so that was a key draw card and second was just the breadth of the rest of the the portfolio of uh expiration um assets that the the company held including projects in

Western Australia where we got three projects one in the Northern Territory and another one back in in in Canada so it's it's not often that uh you know companies in the in the junior space have such a broad range of of projects and then the third reason that's probably really very important one is that the key enablers were there the the resources both on the financial side mle's Australia very well-funded uh company for its plans and its projects um to take them through the stages that

need to be U progressed and and also the the people um I was particularly impressed with the the caliber of the the the geological uh Team but you know legal resource public affairs uh tenament management um yeah we've we've got we've got a lot good Finance to boot so with that there were a lot of lot of vectors pointing the right direction to come and work for medals it's a pretty good summary of the company um you've mentioned the the larel graphite project your Flagship project in Quebec what can

you talk about what makes that project significant and what makes it strategic yes well it's uh I mean firstly you know location location location it's on the the doorstep of of the US um it's in a prom mining stable jurisdiction in in Canada and particularly in the province of Quebec uh it's located only 20 km south of the township of Vermont which Services the iron or industry largely Mont rights um the montro iron or mine it's been running since the early' 70s and the region itself consists of

several other large townships wush and Labrador City that are only another sort of 20 20 km or so further to the Northeast so there's kind of three major regional centers uh all supporting mining with mining Services the right skill sets and the infrastructure to boot um we have a Quebec Hydro high voltage power line that actually Bice our claims um and we have a new highway 389 reroute that's being constructed from Fire Lake up to fermont that actually bcts the uh the North Western corner of our claims it will make main

plan Access Road very very convenient on on the new highway so there's there's a lot to like about um that of course uh graphite itself in in um in Canada there's there's very little the whole of North America in production uh today there's really only one small mine that has a li limited life uh and when you look around uh there aren't too many that have high grade um High resource potential in terms of tonnage um but also then have the um the technical and financial capacity to pull pull them off

and to take them through the various studies so our as was a real standout uh in in that respect it had been some good work done an early resource indicated around 1.53 million tons of contained graphite a scoping study had been completed outlining the first 14 or 15 years of of uh of life but again that was just taken simply from about 3% of the mapped graphite trends that we have on the property uh which is an indication of the enormity of its future potential and some great battery um ear scale test work had been done in Germany

to verify the high yield um capacity of the battery high yield of the um material in the battery the electro chemical characteristics are very high Purity very great cycle time high tap density all the things that you want to see in the early test work for for battery um anode material so lots of lots of real positives in the right part of the world uh which is sort of growing in terms of the Strategic interest we think we've got something really big at at cill when you're looking at the uh the graphite

industry uh as a as a whole what do you see are some of the headwinds that's facing the industry um and you know how is Metals Australia leveraging those um headbands well there's yeah so I mean it's been a slow development for graph artman I think we all know for most who who invest or have an interest in in medals Australia or indeed our peers of the progressing graphite companies it's uh it's well understood you know China has been a dominant force in terms of not only the

percentage of natural graphite production which is well into the highest 70s but also uh in terms of refining we almost all refined graphite um comes from China I think between China and Japan you've got 97% of um of production which which means that um everyone else is playing catchup and and they're doing it um in an environment where it's not necessarily a a a Level Playing Field so you're trying to create an industry where in front of you there's already a built out supply chain from

from China and from from Asia generally and to do that you've got to create the right in incentives so there's got to be a a pricing structure that supports production not only of of concentrate but in terms of the even the junior companies progressing in this space you've really got to have an end to end uh program lined out that's you know from from M to battery anode material which means we we also need to have a battery and noed material Refinery uh approach and in that respect outside of

CH most effectively inventing the technology for that application so so I I kind of likened it a little bit to the oil and gas industry where you know once upon a time you know that in that you know the late 19th century uh when oil production was really getting underway the producers of small oil fields uh didn't have to also invent and build and develop refineries I mean Refinery companies came came along and it was much later in the oil and gas Evolution that integrated companies took over and

producers and and refiners became one and the same company in many cases in the case of graphite I mean you're you know you're you're you're the minor uh you're the producer of the concentrate and then you're also the the designer and builder of of the refinery because the refineries don't exist I mean there's one you know very you w say very small but there's one you know small relative SC Refinery that's been built in in Louisiana essentially using largely

Chinese Chinese technology and that's it in in North America there's others on the planning board um but that's the only one that's in operation in North America today so coming from a long way back um in terms of how that will change and how that will evolve I think we we've really started to see particularly in the last 12 to 18 months and maybe a little longer than that uh just the focus with which countries particularly in our case Canada and the US have have started to move in terms of strategic

supply of of domestic graphite I mean really understanding that with so much graphite dependence coming from China and um you know approximately 60 Kg on average of of of graphite used in every electric vehicle from battery perspective uh that you need to be able to control your own Supply uh for to to maintain your Independence in in production and transition and of course EVS is just one of the stories storage batteries and and so forth is a big one so with that I mean we're seing the Quebec plan for the development of uh

strategic and critical minerals really unfold in the last couple of years and provide that support and supportive uh infrastructure and development and Aid in inside of that we've seen we've seen um battery anode manufacturers start to start to outline their plans and construct and in fact in many cases well construct in um in in Canada for capacity on top of that the Canadian federal government late last year released its first uh annual report on the uh on the development of critical and strategic minerals in

country country and that was really interesting because it also provided high level motivation for us by indicating that uh there was a need to develop at least five graphite mines and at least five uh coded spherical graphite um plants which are effectively the the high Purity refining infrastructure that's needed to make battery ano material that was laid out in the plan and in that they also outlined the fact that there were there were four entrance into the production the downstream anode production battery

manufacturing base that we're setting up with three manufacturers in Ontario and one one in Quebec it's probably the closest one to us is North Vault that's that's uh constructing east of east of Montreal so there's you know we've seen the changing on tide um obviously some political changes of course in in the US but so generally speaking there's been bipartisan support from from all groups that see the need to uh have have better supplies of their own critical and strategic minerals and see those things

being arbitraged in the in the market and through negotiations today so I think it's uh you know we're we're on the CP of I think what's going to be an important time for the future of graphite and we're really starting to see some of the key countries particular in our case Canada and and the US recognize that and and create policy and and supportive uh environments for companies such as stic gr interesting times indeed for um especially as you mentioned you know with the recent political geopolitical things

that are transpiring you know within just North America it's it's uh it's it's such an interesting thing to watch so what can we expect from the company in the near term um any upcoming catalysts yeah look there's a lot um I think for you know our courtly report was was published on the on the 29th of of January so was just last week and uh in in that we outlined a host of things that have been going on for the L that Carill graphite project we've got a a contract signed with a mineral

exploration company magor expiration company I should say in out of sagun they'll be doing the drilling for us at L Car Hill it it be their call based on winter weather on when that gets underway but that'll be occurring we've um we've got in place the the resource independent consultant to do help us do the design work and ultimately sign off on the the minerals resource we should see a uh I'm looking forward to a potentially a substantial increase in not only quality of of resource that we deliver um both

in terms of grade and and and tons and and the amount of that we can move into the indicated class will be a good a good output in the first half of the year uh beyond that PFS will will continue U we've got mining consultancies environmental consultancies to do those work Scopes almost in play got ly and Podium minerals doing the design work for us in in Canada based in Ontario or M Saga and uh in addition to that we've just completed a uh a pretty large scale metallurgical test program with SGS in

in the Lakefield Ontario laboratory uh which has been a sort of host of lot of very good information that we'll be using in the flow sheet design which is largely settled so that that work is ongoing so from a Carill perspective uh we'll see that that work pressed forward throughout the year our ultimate aim to publish a PFS um and just as soon as we get all those pieces together um staying in Canada and and down in the James Bay Region we we'd also announced or published some of the results we had

from our phase one field exploration program which was really uh indicating some some nice results on both Gold Silver and base medals so that region itself is is a really three separate projects within a sort of broad um area uh for us and we're starting to see some very good gold results come out of that we'll hopefully be back there um in the middle of the year when we get long daylight hours in in in Canada uh to go and do phase two which is a which will be the followup and extension to to

better identify drilling targets for future drilling but suffice to say there's been several historical projects or programs that have been conducted in that area and every one of those programs we' sort of discussed all of those results have have yielded um um you know very highgrade very interesting gold results so this is certainly the time to be um finding um more in that space back in back in Australia I think key Focus for us is going to be uh after the wet season in the Northern Territory

uh we have an exploration program planned at Wargo East which is just east of the old Wargo mine which is a a mine that operated for over over 20 years produced around 5 million tons of of um production that graded about 2% copper and nearly 8 gram a ton gold so in this I think the original mine ceased in in 1989 but I think we can see uh some similarities between uh the ground that we've got in part of the waranga formation it's all undercover of course um with with waro b the original waro

mine that will be a a potential Catalyst for us and and we're confident in that regard there there are companies off to the east of us and companies off to the South ofest who have have mined and and who have had good production but have also recently outlined resource uh resources in those those those close areas and on top of that interest is growing in the in the northern uh territory or particularly the tenant Creek uh area we saw panafrican resources come into play um with an acquisition of the uh with a private

mining company which is also just to the east of us and holds the um uh the claims also on the old waro field so uh and that was that was exciting uh that panafrican resources transaction went through it just over 80 million Australian dollars so there's some that's that's a nice Catalyst potentially for us if we can uh if we can unearth something at Wargo East and we're quietly confident in that respect and indie project in in Western Australia also get some attention this year we already have a published draw

compliant um mineral resource there zinc copper silver resource and uh next immediately next door only a couple of kilometers away there's been a high grade titanium vadium and iron Discovery uh the work underway on that is for for mcal test work so we're separating out concentrates and just looking to see what grades we can get and what recoveries we can get that'll determine our next step so I think uh potential investors current shareholders should see sort of another busy year from uh

from Ms Australia yeah it's year ahead indeed with such a diverse portfolio thanks again Paul for taking the time to speak with me thank you Marilyn and thanks everyone for watching join us again next time for another edition of CEO insights [Music]