Pacific North West Capital is a Canadian mineral exploration company with its head office in Vancouver, B.C. Its premier asset is the River Valley PGM Project, Canada’s largest, undeveloped PGM project. More recently, the Company has added a new, lithium division to capitalize on growing opportunities in that sector, and has five properties with prospective potential for lithium development.
When you formed this company, what made you target the Platinum Group Metals (PGM)? Was it the metals themselves, was this where you thought the Company could acquire the most prospective properties, or was it some of both?
I always believed in the store of value that PGM’s (a precious metal) held and their industrial uses, especially for auto catalysts in automobiles. PGM’s were being produced as a by-product in the Sudbury mines and there was a scarcity of the metal. Once we decided to go down the PGM road a lot of data was available for us to start our search – Ontario also had Canada’s only primary PGM producer near Thunder Bay owned by North American Palladium. It was not hard to convince the Board that PGM’s were the right metals to search for.
The Company’s premier project is your 100% owned River Valley PGM property. Could you briefly describe this project and developments on the property to date?
We have gone from an initial discovery to one of Canada’s largest undeveloped primary PGM deposits. We have made many discoveries in the last few years over the 12 kilometres of strike length and our 2015 T2 discovery which we will be drilling again in October proves that we have not seen the end of the exploration upside to this project. Over $30 million, has been spend on exploration and has resulted in five Ni-43-101 – resource calculations. Our new River Valley extension acquisition now gives us over 16 kilometres of strike length.
Pacific North West Capital has recently added to the River Valley land package. What additional property did the Company acquire, and what is its significance to the project as a whole?
We acquired an additional 4000 acres approximately 4 more kilometres of strike length to the River Valley mineralized contact. We call the new project the River Valley Extension and it has had approximately 4 million dollars spent on it with many drill intercepts hitting good mineralization.
This acquisition is significant because our shareholders now own all of the mineral contact 100 per cent. We have now extended our project from 12 to 16 kilometres. We believe our work to date on River Valley is the beginning of a new mining district which already has an excellent infrastructure and is in the famous Sudbury mining camp.
With the expanded River Valley project now encompassing the entire PGM ore body, could you describe what the Company has planned from an operational standpoint, over the near term?
Currently we continue to do our due diligence on our new River Valley extension project and we are studying the old drill records, assays, maps, charts, etc. We will build an exploration and drill program on the River Valley extension over the next 3-4 months. Meanwhile we will start drilling on the new T-2 discovery at the northern portion of the original River Valley project in mid October.
What recent financings has Pacific North West Capital undertaken, and what is the Company’s current cash position?
We have raised approximately 1.3 million dollars in the last year and currently have about $600K in the treasury.
Because of the potential size/scale of the River Valley PGM project, the Company is looking for a large partner to help move the project forward to production. Why is management confident that it will be successful in finding such a partner, as a near-term priority?
Our plan is to find a large partner in the next 12 to 18 months. We currently have an aggressive program to approach major mining companies, mine finance companies, private equity and specialty mining funds.
In the mean time we will continue to fund the projects and our programs with Equity. Over the last 5 years which was the most major turndown in junior mining history, the major mining companies also had their host of problems.
The metal prices are improving along with the major mining companies’ stock prices and they are once again looking for new PGM mining projects to develop over the short and long term.
Mines are being depleted more and more every day and major’s need to get projects into their pipeline. With the recent upturn in acquisitions we see the bigger companies getting more aggressive.
Metals price, in general, have languished over the past five years. Why do you think that the PGM group of metals, in particular, have strong upside potential?
Palladium was as low as the mid-$450’s this year and as high as $740. Platinum traditionally trades above the gold price but has not in this recent cycle. Demand is higher for both of the above metals and supply is limited. As gold improves in price so will PGM’s as they too are precious metals, but are produced in much smaller quantities than gold. The last point here is that most of the PGM’s in the world are produced in Russia and South Africa both volatile countries who could easily have supply interruptions.
PFN has added a new division and new metal to its operations, relating to its recent acquisition of a new project. Could you briefly describe this new division, and the project upon which it is centered?
PFN’s new Division is Lithium. It has 5 projects within 75 to 150Km northwest and northeast of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Our Lithium division is headed by Carey Galeshuck, an expert in Lithium and rare metals. We have decided to focus on this metal due to its anticipated demand and recent increased prices. Over the near and long term our management team believes in the tremendous growth potential in lithium’s use for the battery and energy storage industries. Canada is also a safe jurisdiction for mining and we now have 5 very good exploration projects in wide area known for Lithium and rare metals.
What made the Company decide to add this new dimension to its operations, despite the existing potential of the River Valley project?
Management and directors believe the future for both PGM’s and Lithium is very good due to their limited supply and increasing demand for these green metals. With a key expert in place to help us grow the lithium division, the rest of the Pacific North West Capital team is focused on further acquisition and financing of the projects we have to date. We think our shareholders like the upside of the lithium business and are happy to see us diversify, while continuing to focus on our more advanced core asset, The River Valley PGM Project.
In addition to its two, principal projects, what other capital assets does Pacific North West Capital currently hold?
PFN holds an Option to acquire a 100% of a Nevada Lithium project and owns shares in several junior companies.
What do you consider to be the operational strengths of PFN’s management team?
Our Board, management team and newly formed Advisory Committee has over 200 years of experience in all aspects of finance, acquisition, exploration, development, administration and production of many diversified metal projects on an international scale but this teams main focus as experts is on our PGM’s and Lithium divisions.
FULL DISCLOSURE: Pacific North West Capital is a Stockhouse Publishing client.