Six Projects, One Country: Eastport Critical Metals' Botswana Strategy

0:00Thank you.

0:30at Semarula and Thick Copper Intervals at Matsutama Copper Asset. The Fraser Institute ranks Botswana as one of Africa's most attractive mining jurisdictions. Daniel Major is CEO. Daniel, welcome to Mining Stock Daily. Michael, thank you very much for the invitation to join you. Matsutama is one of your flagships, Daniel. It's 1 ,845 square kilometers sitting between two copper mines. Matsutama has a historical deposit. For listeners new to the story, you did have a drilling campaign. What have you proved since you've wrapped up that campaign? Yeah, as you said, very large area of ground, almost 2 ,000 kilometers squared with its two mines.

1:18We've only listed in November. And so part of that listing document was the competent persons report that went with it and the company initially focused on the recommendations of that report that related to an area which had a deposit called Nacalacuana. That drilling was really targeted to prove that worked, to validate it. We drilled into NAC Maine and proved up that the 10 million pounds at all almost half a percent was valid we drilled out at knack east and knack main uh knack west which gave us about a 10 kilometer strike length and what that really showed is that there we got long intersections of copper there um about 100 meter consistent copper running at about 0.2 percent uh and in many cases into intersections quite high inside of that And what that really showed is the link between, you know, the copper, the structure around NAC and gave us a 10 meter strike.

2:26But it was really the starting point for us of just getting on the ground and doing the work. The, you know, markers that you've already alluded to having two copper mines, one with, you know, 1 % copper, almost 100 million tons. The other one at 2 % at Takadu shows us copper there. Soil sampling that's been done shows us literally copper everywhere across that project. So our next step is to step back, actually, and look at geophysics on some of the bigger areas up there, particularly La Pash Snake, where we've got a 30-kilometer-long soil anomaly, major folding structure and faults and folding geology and we kind of think you know that's on the same trend as the moana copper mine all this other stuff going on which you need to infuse copper into the into the rocks is happening we know we've got copper elsewhere we're looking for the for the beast that's on the property so when does uh the next uh drilling campaign start and what are going to be your top targets?

3:38Yeah, so the next stage we're already underway, which is the gravity work. I mean, it is, you know, we're doing a gravity survey over 291 square kilometers. I mean, these are big bits of ground, as you can appreciate, anywhere in the world, they're big bits of ground. That should be completed by the end of October. On the basis of the results of that we will then run em surveys uh gravity obviously giving us a more two-dimensional view with some 3d em costing more but also giving us a much more three-dimensional view looking for the sulfide targets themselves so sometime probably q1 and going into q2 we will start drilling into the em targets that are defined and so hopefully you know within the 12 months window that we've said ourselves, we will have made discovery, which is really what we're looking to do.

4:34Let's swing to your rare earth. That would be a SEMURULA. Clearly has size. You reported more than 300 meters of mineralization in all three holes. Grades are running somewhere between 0.13 to 0.21 % total rare earth oxide. Can you talk about grade and scale at SEMURULA? Yeah, I mean, SEMURULA, the cyanide target that we went after is 15 square kilometers, three by five. And within that, there was a smaller band that we were going after, more like one and a half to two square kilometers. The company drilled a total of eight holes, and there were two prior holes drilled by the Botswana Geoscience Institute as well.

5:17There were holes one and two. We have announced a number of those holes. Most recent ones were holes seven and six. And just for those who, you know, we're on radio, to put an image here, you're looking almost at a fence between five, seven and six, which is about 1.2 kilometers in length across the anomaly that's sitting there. Hole five turned out to be the strongest of these. You're right. It was 320 meters of continuous mineralization at 0.21. and hole seven similar grade out to 347 meters the grade fades away as you get out to hole six so that's clearly the edge of whatever it is on the northeast side what was interesting as well in hole five the first 50 meters of it runs at 0.64 and and within all the holes were sitting at about 28 percent on the magnetic rare earths what we have then found is we we found within the reports the grades for hole one at the top end first meters of it at 11 meters they were hitting grades at um 3.6 meters percent total rare earths um so we got three points on a you know equidistant triangle about 600 meters apart so real scale here um what has also become clearer is that the higher grades are sitting in within the mafic um cyanides these are the bigger coarser ones and they appear to trend towards the the southwest away from our drilling um so you know clearly we're hitting something really big here um finding the exceedingly high grades that we really would like to see here even though you know these are great results already and show complete scale i mean hole seven has got 15 meters running at almost 0.5 percent treos in there as well um you know we're gonna then look at we've got some magnetic um we've got some mineralogy results that do soon um we'll then look to do some grid drilling uh on the property in the next 12 months to try and put the scale to it, down to about 200 meters.

7:49Again, really large scale project we're looking at, and then move into the metallurgical testing as well that is required to really start to prove up a rare earth project. Anything you can talk about the type of rock that the rare earth is in right now? It's all a cyanide. I'm no geologist, so I won't get things wrong on the geology by I try to get into any detail. But it's very similar to other projects out there. Norrishar being one of them up in Sweden with its large rare earth project. Mount Weld as well. Very similar. A classic rare earth mineral rock type. You do have, you know, we've gone through your two flagships right now, but you do have the other projects, uranium project, also nickel project.

8:44What else do you want to kind of highlight out of what you've taken on there at Eastport? I think we have to talk about Salibi. You just mentioned it, the nickel copper. Interesting early stage play right next to the Salibi mine, which is owned by Nex Metals. That used to be the old Salibi Pickwee. That was discovered by soil sampling over the amphibolites and then drilling. We're only seven kilometres away. Next Metals has been doing a great job there using Electromag to target and then drill deep. They've been extending the resource there. High-grade nickel, high-grade copper. We're showing very similar signs here of the beginnings of something.

9:33we'll run em over those targets this year um and drill as well so again potentially a project that could go into discovery scales that each this year along top of matsutama and obviously we've got the beginnings of that with semirula already and then foley we've already next to lesla carney lotus project there we've shown extension on mineralization they're following a trend And so we'll continue to push that slowly this year as well. So different projects. I think one thing, Michael, we're a bit different to most companies where we're not stuck on one mineral at the moment because we're early stage.

10:18And it's not costing a lot to do these early stage drillings, early stage findings and hopefully discovery. and therefore, you know, we're already considering the strategy approach, you know, what projects stay in, what projects get moved into different vehicles, you know, how do we move projects forward across the board? Do you have any particular markers or anybody that you benchmark against in terms of like how far you would kind of take large projects, take a diversified portfolio like this? You're not the first person that has kind of taken on this and then had to make a decision about right sizing.

10:58But have you seen anybody out there in terms of how far they take these things within their portfolio until they say, well, you know, this would have more value somewhere else or this would have more value outside my company? I think we're already doing that conversation internally. We're not waiting until we get any sense of control. I mean, I run companies with multiple large projects in and I know it's quite difficult. You are trying not to rob Peter to pay Paul the whole time. And, you know, that's a difficult challenge. And politically so, governments want projects to be moving along. Certainly, it's very clear already, I think, that if Semarula starts to get any lugs under it, it has to move into its own vehicle.

11:40Probably with or without Foley. Foley may go somewhere else. having a uranium company trapped away inside and diversified is is difficult for investors to see the value of it um more likely to would like to see that in its own vehicle or you know potentially with a rare the rare earth vehicle rare earth vehicle a rare earth company is different to run than a base metal company very clearly i mean i'm a director of a rare earth company um and you kind of look at that and the approach is different. So I wouldn't say we benchmark ourselves against anybody, but I think we're already saying, hey, we've got to be sensible here.

12:19What we don't want to do is try and hold on to things as though, you know, we're the only ones that can deal with it. So this is about adding value and, you know, creating that value through finding, but also not diluting and try not to be all things to all people. what's your current treasury right now and what are you budgeting um we reported i think 1.8 on our last quarter um you know we're working on budgeting at the moment for the next year uh potential fundraise we're an exploration company always you know when will be the answer to that one i mean you know we can because we're doing things like geophysics, Michael, you know, it's not costing us a lot.

13:08You know, those, those programs don't cost a lot yet. They do deliver a lot of work and they save you money ultimately, as you can appreciate, you know, you don't want to be trying to find everything using a drill bit. Let's do a lot more work first and then consider drilling when it's time. Lastly, Daniel, what's going to be the news flow over the next 12 months? What are going to be kind of seeing the key pieces of news that investors should be paying attention to? yeah as i kind of alluded to in the in the projects is going to be staging through on various geophysics for the the base metal projects leading into drilling uh later on um on samarula more on some of the metallurgical side now we've got samples coming out mineralogy trying to figure out okay where to now with that and then follow that on with drilling later as well.

13:59So moving all of these projects forward across the board, all with an intention either to expand them out on resource like Samarula or take them to discovery in the case of Matsutama and Salibi. Daniel Major, thanks for speaking with Mining Stock Daily. It's an absolute pleasure. Thank you very much.

14:20Daniel Major: The information presented should not be considered investment advice. Mining Stock Daily and its affiliates are not responsible for any loss arising from any investment decision in connection with the material presented herein. Please do your own research or speak with a licensed financial representative before making any investment decisions.