welcome to CEO insights I'm Marilyn Guzman with investing News Network I'm talking to Martin cwick CEO and director of battery mineral resources a Canadian Mining Company focus on battery Metals with projects in Chile Canada and the US hi Martin hi nice to meet you nice to meet you so let's start our conversation with just an overview of the company and your priority projects yeah i' I'd love to provide that battery mineral resources as you mentioned is is a mining company in the


junior mining space we uh we've been in public company now for a little over two years we trade on the otcqb in the US and the trial Venture exchange as well it is our goal um as a as a company and and as as representatives of of the shareholders to provide our investing Community with exposure to this Global electrification Trend that's going on around the world and I think everybody's certainly aware of the potential and and the projected growth in electrification going on especially with the advance of


the popularity of electric vehicles not just cars but other other types of vehicles that is a big a big component in the growth of electrication on around the world and we we we it is our goal to provide exposure via the Commodities that we represent and you mentioned a few of them around the world we have who represent Cobalt in North America we have lithium in North America we have graphite in South Korea and most recently we have uh hopper in Chile those Commodities are all expected to be in high demand and in short supply in


the coming years to serve and and feed this elect ation Trend that's going on and and and I think finally the point I'd like to make very clear is that it's not just exposure that we're giving we're we're Our intention is to provide value uh through that exposure and the value is going to come in the form of us as BMR as a company transforming itself from where it is now as a development style company and entering into becoming a cash flowing company can you expound a little bit


more on that in terms of the strategy to reach those goals for you know increasing shareholder value and achieving your uh strategic Visions absolutely our our goals are going to be achieved uh via the resumption of operations at our most recently acquired asset which is a former producing underground Coffer mine in Chile this mine has a 10-year operating history it operated as recently as April of 2020 and has been on car maintenance syn line mine was started by Glen core and operated for about eight and a half


years it was their first operating oper mine in chilate they uh of course grew as a company and their production profile increased tremendously such that the production profile of this particular mine which is called the kunaki mine became nonc for one and they looked uh to sell it which is exactly what they did in November of 2018 they sold it to our predecessor who then um operated it for as long as 18 months but eventually had to close it down due to lack of cash and primarily that was because they found themselves in a very


steeply declining copper Market over the months and essentially closed the mind when copper hit $2 and they just they didn't have enough Revenue to cover their expenses but the you know job one for us is resumption is first of all allocating the capital and resuming operations at and um and and that's going to be very exciting for shareholders because we will be one of only two companies putting a copper mine into production in 20124 um so that's exciting news for us and and the potential cash flow that


this operation will bring is is tremendous um relative to the size of the investment so I think all those things together will will be very exciting for our chers so maybe this is a good time to talk about the puniak project what makes it a very compelling project for you um and how is restarting that uh going to increase shareholder value that's a great question faki is a very compelling investment and and and I I think I'm speaking for our shareholders in in this regard because for one for one reason it it has a a


very long and successful operating history and because of that the amount of capital that's required to put it back into production is is quite reasonable uh compared to the amount of cash that it's going to generate while it's operating not only that but it was for our investors and for our company it was a very low price point to enter into this the acquisition of the assets at the punak mine essentially cost us around $12 million um with with because of the the operating um the recently operating


history of the mine and the capital that was allocated there over the years really spells out fact that um it's a very modest investment to put it back into production of around 13 to 14 million and again because of the the nature of the business that it was recently operating and all the fixed assets that that a mine would require are there and and existing and available for use all that means that the timeline to put it back in production is quite reasonable so once we start allocating Capital to restart a mine we're looking


at four to five months before we start start generating brand new Revenue so all that together we believe means low risk for our investors and and a nice return because the mine historically generated anywhere from 30 to $50 million of EA off per year um and we expect um we expect our our result to be much the same and in terms of um funding this project so what's the could you talk a bit more about your funding strategy and your current treasury situation yeah yes well that's a great question we as managers of the company


have always been very aware that um delution for shareholders is is is uh something that's undesirable and and when we're putting together a a a scheme to fund this in production we keep that in mind we keep in mind that delution is something that shareholders don't want to be a part of and so as a as a consequence we have a three-part process that we that we're going through to bring funds into the company to put it into production one part is a convertible debenture another part would be a piece of a small piece


of debt against cash flows of one of our operating entities which I'll have to talk about in order to put that into compuls and the Third Leg of that stool would be up of debt against some of the assets down at the count mine so those three thingss together two pieces of debt and and a convertible debenture would be our our means for bringing Capital into the the company for the restart now having said that when I when I mentioned operating entity and I just want to take a one minute to describe uh


to the viewers what what I'm talking about during the process of becoming a public company our largest shareholder which is a private Equity Firm based out of New York had the vision that while we're developing and growing the company we would have need for cash and again again um sourcing cash in a non-dilutive manner is one of our goals so they they had the vision that they should roll this company into ours during the process of becoming public it also was a portfolio company of ours this is a a um


a oil and gas and and Renewable Energy Services Company based in Phoenix Arizona which produces anywhere from three to five million inid per year it is 100% holy owned by battery mineral resources and it generates cash cash that we use very very um very well for example it funded our drill program that we had down in down in in Chile rather than going to the shareholders for raising activity so in a way we are already a cash generating company because of our 100% only own subsidiary but um suffice to say that uh that's


that's uh that that company then becomes important in terms of bringing in some debt against their the cash flows that they have so that's one uh one leg of this tool and um you know you mentioned you have other projects in other parts of the world do you want to sort of get just an overview of some of those and why those are happen to we're very proud of these projects they they are in overall I would say they are in various stages of development none of which are as close to production as our asset and Cher


course which was a formal producing line with all the assets so start starting in in North America we talk about Cobalt Cobalt um we have the largest I would say set of cobalt claims in Canada and it's in Norland Ontario proximal to the town of cobalt Ontario we've had those assets for several years now and have have done some extensive exploration on some of those claims we do have a nice feather in our cap there in in in such uh in the form of a brand new resource that we came out with a couple of years


ago as a result of a g program um the First Resource to of cobalt to be had in many many years it's a little over a million pounds very high grade Cobalt and and so that that is just a a set of properties that just beg to be explored further to add to those we have a property in Northern Ido which is also a Cobalt property but it's very interesting because these these this is a former producing area also and and it's in Norland Idaho these properties are not just Cobalt but they also have


value in gold offer so the the material in the ground is quite valuable if if they're in economic quantities and our property is drill ready we've done all the work that's required to to make the property drill ready including sampling and geophysics and whatnot um it is contiguous um to a property that's being put into production right now by a company called jua so we're very excited about that property I I believe a small investment there could bring it some great value to


EMR we can move over to graphite which is in South Korea we have two former producing graphite mines there which are inactive um but at one point serve the graphite industry in South Korea which is by the way very vibrant and very vertically integrated they produce graphite consume it make batteries and other other graphite products those projects are waiting for investment to be made the next steps would be further meterological testing and growing the resources and since the Advent of China recently announcing that


they're going to severely restrict in in many cases the export of of graphite from China which is more than 80% of the world's Supply I think um the attention is going to be turned to to deposits that are outside of China including ours so that's a very favorable position for us to be in and finally we have a very early stage lithium brine project in Nevada the project itself is in the same base as an operating mine which in fact is the only lithium operation in North America so we're very happy to be in


that neighborhood with a very nice uh land package that's just begging to be exploded going into 2024 which is a couple months away what can the investor Community expect from battering mineral resources over the next few months I think it's very clear what the investor can expect is that we we continue to bring in the capital that's required to restart the mine we are currently in the in the process of the pre-operational activities so we're going to continue those activities and


if we can stay on schedule and bring in the rest of the funding required which I'm very poent we will do and when the investor can expect to see production coming out of the mine in late q1 early Q2 of next year sounds great well thanks again Martin for your time and sharing your insights today thank you for your time and for the great questions and thanks everyone for watching join us again next time for another engaging conversation on CEO insights if you like this video make sure you subscribe to our Channel and


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