1. What is the investment case for Canadian Platinum right now?
CPC is a tightly held public company under new management with a good track record through several decades of mineral exploration and mining experience. Insiders and close associates own 50% of the outstanding common shares and are highly motivated to make things work. There has been very little work carried out over the last couple of years and little effort put into PR. The new management group wants to change that and with the stock trading at, or near, the 52 week low, there is good upside potential.
2. What sets you apart from the competition?
The current board and management have an established track record of discovery and development, including production. They also have a track record of implementing vertically integrated business strategies, which could be an option in CPC’s future. On the property side, there aren’t many companies out there that control one of the largest mafic/ultramafic complexes in North America known to host significant PGE mineralization.
3. You have just announced a project acquisition in Nevada. Given that the major commodity is copper does this mean a change of strategy for Canadian Platinum?
Not really, CPC has had base and precious metal projects in its portfolio for several years. Craig Lake is a massive sulfide property still in our project portfolio. While not a priority right now, it is situated within 1.5km of the former producing Westarm Mine at Flin Flon, and exploration to date has resulted in some compelling deep geophysical targets. Also, some porphyry copper systems can also be enriched in platinum/palladium and that has never been investigated at Copper Hill.
The overriding strategy of the new management team is to focus on North American projects that are important to green technologies. Platinum, copper, and graphite all fit into that strategy, as do a number of other metals. Using Tesla and Panasonic as an example of “green” manufacturing moving to North America and looking for domestic sources for materials, I think that is just the start of a trend to becoming self sufficient through the whole supply chain in manufacturing alternative energy products, and reducing our reliance on foreign sources.
4. Copper Hill sounds like an interesting project. What attracted you to this property?
Firstly, it’s a nice place to work when it’s winter in Canada! It’s also in an historic mining area with a large number of former producing mines and old workings scattered around the property. Exploration for gold in the late 1970s noted that the mineral alteration over a large portion of the project area was consistent with that of a porphyry copper system. One old drill hole bottomed in 100 feet of copper mineralization averaging 0.13%-so very significant.
But because they were looking for gold, it was never followed up. Other subsequent work including mapping and geochemistry outlined the possible porphyry system as well as a large unrelated gold target. It would be a shame to not adequately drill test this property. And it can be accessed by paved highway.
5. How did you become aware that it was available?
I was involved with some of the past exploration work, and I’m involved with the private company that ended up owning the claims.
6. You say that there are some active mining and energy project developments going on in the vicinity of Copper Hill. Can you elaborate?
Yes. Immediately adjacent to the northern part of the property is a producing gold mine operated by Nevada Mining and Milling LLC. In the central part of the property immediately to the east, a 24mW solar farm was recently installed. In fact some of the panels touch our easternmost claims. Then 40 km to the northeast the first phase of what will be a 392mW solar farm has been completed.
7. What do you hope to do with this property?
The near term goal is to complete an induced polarization-or similar-geophysical survey over the suspected porphyry system so we can get an estimate to the depth of the mineralization, and a better idea of its size. Then we’d like to drill test to see if it is indeed a porphyry system and assay the rock to see if there is the potential for economic mineralization. A secondary goal is to investigate the large mobile metal ion gold anomaly in the eastern project area-which is over 6,000 times background-to see if there might be a deeper source for all the gold-bearing veins in the area.
8. Can you give us an update on what is happening with your Peter Lake platinum project in Saskatchewan?
Right now we are taking a step back on Peter Lake and re-evaluating the vast amount of geophysics that has been carried out over a very large area to see if we can better rank the known anomalies as to their likelihood of being mineralized. We have also contacted geologists/mineralogists with an expertise in platinum group metals in mafic/ultramafic environments to look at the analytical data from historic mapping, assays and metallurgical work to see if we can identify good exploration targets. It’s hard to overemphasize how big the project area is and the fact that there is very significant platinum-copper-nickel mineralization present. What we want to do is maximize the value we get from further exploration by zeroing in on the best target areas.
9. Can you also give us an update on what is happening with the Brabant Graphite project?
Brabant is dormant right now. There is a group interested in optioning the property once they get funding and CPC is keeping that dialog open. Brabant is not a near-term priority.
10. Can you explain how copper fits into your green technology strategy?
As I mentioned before, I view copper as necessary for green technologies. A typical automobile now contains about 50 lbs of copper, whereas a Toyota Prius contains about 64 lbs of copper. Future hybrids and electrics are expected to contain even more copper as they get bigger and more powerful. I think it’s prudent to develop domestic sources for these critical metals, rather than relying too much on foreign sources. Political risk can’t be underestimated.
11. How much cash does Canadian Platinum have right now?
Right now about $25,000. Everything I’ve just discussed is not possible without obtaining additional funding.
12. Do you plan to tap the market for financing in the near future?
Yes. We haven’t been too aggressive yet in looking for funding, but we will be ramping up that effort in the near future.
13. What are the company’s goals for the balance of 2015.
While we do what we can with limited funds, the main focus over the next few months will be to secure additional funding to achieve our near-term exploration goals, primarily at Peter Lake and Copper Hill.
FULL DISCLOSURE: Canadian Platinum is a client of Stockhouse Publishing.