Two Mines in Lapland: Why Valkea Thinks New Discoveries Will Have a Buyer.

0:00Thank you.

0:30Resources, which holds a 350 square kilometer in the same belt. In September, Valkia completed drilling at Kari, its first new target, and put a base of till rigged work across its wider Pana property. You can find a new website with lots of updated information at valkiaresources.com. With me is CEO Thomas Credlin. Thomas, welcome to Mining Stock Daily. Hi, Michael. It's good to be back. Thomas, your deck talks about turning over ground quickly while making timely and thoughtful decisions. You've drilled five holes at Kari, three showed disseminated sulfides. What can you judge from the core and what are the assays going to be telling you?

1:15Well, it's always hard to tell until you get the assays. But, you know, I guess when you're looking for a gold deposit, you're looking for, you know, good, suitable, I use pathologies. you're looking for deformation and uh we know that there's gold nearby at uh on about here west so um we're kind of looking for you know that a sort of situation where you have all three of those things coincide so i think that there's there's definitely some some interesting new sort of anthologies there which have potential to host um you know orogenic gold so we'll wait and see what the assays alike but it's it's one target of 24 so it's early days uh carrie also gave you a chance to uh drill test uh the regional musa sure um one two three carrie also gave you the chance to drill test the regional musa shear uh why do shears matter for the kind of gold deposit you're looking for and what did you learn well you're always drilling around these big regional structures because often they're the conduits for goals.

2:19So you're looking for deformation and looking for setups where you may see bigger deposits. But what we can see from some of the new data that we've been gathering, we've got a new Heromag survey, is that there's areas of structural complexity to the west of Kari. So as we cycle through sort of our targets, I mean, there's 12 potential targets on the wider Pana property. So, you know, I think it's important to know that Kari was a target that we could access in the summer where often you have wetter conditions. But really, we expect to kind of build activity levels up from November when the diamond rigs come back and we can access some of these swampier areas.

3:11So I think it's a bit of a proof of concept in terms of our workflows and our understanding of the southern part of Paranad. But really, the exciting bit will probably start in November. Now, in your September 22nd news release, you also said that preliminary metallurgical work is underway. Why are you starting that work now? well we have um almost 15 000 meters at the iron of our kia west property there's a known gold mineralization there but we're very keen to understand um everything we can about our our our projects and um i think given that you know we treat on about kia west as a as an advanced um exploration target and so it's important to get everything that we can from that 15 000 meters or so of drilling that we have there.

4:05It's also important to recognize that in this district, you often have refractory gold mineralization as evidenced at the Kittler mine. So again, we're trying to understand everything we can about our assets. And so the MET test work we're doing on Arnabag here is designed to sort of really understand whether we have a Kittler-style mineralization or if it's kind of more plain vanilla like Ikari, which is the thing that the deposit that Agnico has just bought with the Rupa acquisition. Your deck compares Arnabukia till anomalies to Kittola with values up to 10 ,600 parts per billion. You're also retesting that same historical sampling.

4:55Why are you doing the retesting? And what, yeah, why are you doing the retesting right now, Tom? well we there's we've we know we've we understand there's a huge variability in terms of some of the some of the historic data set um so one of the things that we did at rupert was to really dial in those basic till rigs so you want to be sampling the um an area right above the the um the bedrock surface um if you have a if you have a data set that's too shallow you'll be you'll be sampling glacial till um which is kind of uh given the you know the number of glacations that have been through this this um this area it's really not that effective if you're sampling till versus basic till um to sort of really vector in on a on a deposit so um you know it's it's very at the beginning of the program it's very very important to understand uh what your till thickness is and to make sure that you're getting to the right the right depth.

5:53Otherwise, you can sort of, you can obviously, that means that otherwise your base of till, your data set could be invalid. If you don't have a rig that's powerful enough, it's not hitting the base of till interface. What are you doing right now in terms of assays? And what are you seeing in terms of a turnaround? As noted at the top of the interview, you do have Agnico, which is quite active in the area. Yeah, I think lab turnaround rounds are looking pretty good at the moment um i think i think um four to six weeks is kind of is fairly typical um for labs uh uh you know you know in um in lapland so um we have a good lab um in in the region and then we also using um contracted labs elsewhere in europe so that so lab turnaround this time of year is typically pretty good um it's once you get into the into the peak drilling season in uh from december 3 february that you may maybe see slower turnarounds but again if you if you have targets you can drill now like carry then it's a good time to good time to get stuff done because you can get stuff to do that quickly so um when you think about that that sort of range that you're probably looking at the lower end of the the four to six weeks at this time of year and probably at the higher end when you get start getting towards january uh uav and aeromagnetic surveys were flown in september uh did this change any of the ranking of the targets that you want to, targets you want to approach?

7:21I think it was very, it was confirmatory, actually. I think if you look at some of our, if you look at that September 22nd press release, you can see a new structural insert for the partner property. And I think that this new AeroMag has given us better resolution of those structures. So I think it'll certainly help in the planning stage of our base until. So you obviously, you're limited to how many basic till points you can get done in a season. So the kind of the more accurate you can be with using new Aero Mag, I think the better. So I think it's been confirmatory. I think it definitely uses better resolution.

8:01So if you think about Hickory, its kind of footprint was sort of about 800 meters of strike by kind of 100 meters width. So that's the kind of size target you're looking for. so anything you can do to help you with resolution is important. 60 or 24 targets include copper, nickel or base metals. Is this genuine optionality? It is genuine optionality. I think Pana is more of an orogenic gold type target. There is opportunities, well, it's obviously opportunities in the district as evidenced by the Kibitza mine and Anglo-Americans Ciccati project. so I think the focus this year is really on gold and at Parna which again is historically been mostly a gold you know a gold domain but you know we are not you know I think as we get into the sort of wider regional exploration you know we are looking for base metals targets as well and we have that expertise in the business with you know our VP of exploration Chris Bonson who's worked on some of those sort of Lapland-based metals deposits.

9:16Thomas, can you talk about your current capital structure at Bokia? Yeah, I think it's really interesting. I think we've got about 85 million shares out at the moment, and post the financings we did in the summer, we had reported cash at the end of June of over$10 million. So we're well funded through this winter and to achieve our objective of drilling up to 10 ,000 meters of five to 10 targets over the winter. And then also build an inventory of about 6 ,000 points of base of till. I think I just draw each of that cap structure as well. I mean, I think at the point of discovery, Rupa probably had about 160 million shares out.

10:04So we're well short of that at this point, and we're well funded really for the next year. So I think it's an important distinction to make. Agnico Eagle is committing to a major drill program. Of course, they came into your region in a big way in April. What have you seen developing at Agnico? What are you following in terms of their own drill program? and what is going to matter to Balkia? I think it's a really exciting time to be in the district. I think if you look at the consolidated transaction that Adnico did with Rupert, B2 and Orion Resources, I think they paid about$800 in reported resource outs in aggregate.

10:56So that's a pretty decent amount to pay for a discovery. So, I mean, their obviously focus is to make that place, is to extend Ikari and to make other discoveries, which we can feed the Ikari mill and also Kitala. So, you know, there's a big budget, and then there's obviously an experienced team with, you know, and they'll have acquired some of the, probably the Rupert personnel as part of that transaction as well. So the combination of budget, additional land, and a bit of know-how means I think that we will start seeing discoveries in the region. And it may be Agnico, and hopefully it's going to be us.

11:41But I think there's a bit of a zeitgeist moment in Lapland at the moment. And I expect there to be new discoveries made in the next couple of years. and obviously as part of the reason the next two years is really exciting and important is because obviously Agnico will be permitting the Ikari mine so we'll have good visibility on permitting and any discovery that's made in the next couple of years has the potential to be wrapped up into the sort of regional plan for mine development in the region. So I think it's a very good time to be making new discoveries. And obviously you hope that you discover something that's big enough to have a life of its own.

12:31If not, there's obviously a precedent transaction and an understood value for new discoveries in this district. And there will be two operating mines in the mid-2030s. So there will be a value for new discoveries. Thomas Gretlin, thank you for speaking with Mining Stock Daily. Thanks for having me, Michael. Thanks. The information presented should not be considered investment advice. Mining Stock Daily Yen's 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.