Here’s a green energy, electric vehicle metals play worth getting to know…
now. Metal Energy Corp. (
TSX-V.MERG,
Forum) is a high-potential exploration & development company focussed on high-quality nickel projects in Canada’s prolific Athabasca Basin supporting the supercharged nickel industry…buoyed by the exploding EV revolution.
In this exclusive Stockhouse video Q&A, Dave Jackson met up with company CEO James Sykes to get our investor audience up-to-date on all things Metal Energy Corp.
(CLICK IMAGE TO PLAY VIDEO)
TRANSCRIPT BELOW:
SH: To start off with, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and the history of the company?
JS: Yeah, myself, I've been in the uranium exploration and rare earth exploration in Northern Saskatchewan for the past 15-16 years. I've made a number of discoveries in the uranium and rare earths space, and I've kind of been building up my career towards supplying the metals that are required for energy demands. That's where my thinking really goes. So when this vehicle, Metal Energy, was brought to my attention by the Ore Group, I jumped on it. It really made a lot of sense, especially with what you said; nickel being incorporated into batteries but it's not even just for electric vehicles, we're looking at wind turbines or any kind of renewable energy are going to need battery assistance. So anything battery-related nickel is just going to boom. The forecasted demand for nickel is going through the roof. It all came together in November 29th of last year (2021) when we listened publicly. We’re a very young company and we hope to hit it hard over the next few months, drilling on our two projects.
SH: Can you update our investor audience and your Metal Energy shareholders on any important new company developments…especially any updates on your drill plans for Q1 2022?
JS: The Strange project we should be having the drills turning by Monday, January 24. A very exciting time, especially considering that Strange is a theoretical concept but everything that we've seen and by the project vendor really makes sense. We think that we will find the right rock types this drill program, which is a very simplistic one, 1500 meters in two drill holes, both drilling vertically. Obviously, the goal would be to find nickel mineralization but you have to start somewhere. So we're looking for just the technical success right off the bat in which we would hope to hit komatiitic basalts mixed with the sediments from the Mid-Continent Rift. There's a global deposits model for what we're exploring for, but closeology would be Lundin Mining’s Eagle Mine over in Michigan. They're on the States side of the Mid-Continent Rift and we’re on the Canadian, Ontario, side, but same strategy, same type of geological model. And then shooting around late February to early March, we are hopeful that our Manibridge project, which is under the under CanAlaska as operators, will start drilling where we've got about 3000 meters planned for that program around the old mine workings with high-grade nickel, high-tenure sulphide nickel;3000 meters in about seven drill holes and we’re very excited to see what will come out of that one.
SH: You’ve recently announced some new corporate management appointments. This may be news to many investors. Can you unpack the benefits of these moves?
JS: We just recently hired Mike Sweeny, who is a 30-year nickel professional. He's our new VP of exploration and development. Absolutely great guy, really enjoy working with him. It's only been about a week or so but he's a guy who can just take the ball and go with it. His breadth and experience in the nickel industry is amazing and it's exactly what the company really needed. As I mentioned, myself, I'm basically a uranium and Rare Earths guys for the past many years, but bringing somebody like Mike into the company who has made discoveries from surface exploration, underground exploration, and he’s seen discoveries go into production, which is a very rare thing to find in any geological commodity that you're looking for. A lot of people can make discoveries, but to see them go from discovery to production is one thing that I don't think a lot of people have experience with, but Mike does and that's value that we definitely want to see brought forward, especially when we consider Manibridge, which was a past producing mine. Mike's input and knowledge base will be able to really help us move Metal Energy forward.
SH: The Company looks set for strong growth in 2022. How are you placed to expand operations to meet demand?
JS: Well, we are cashed up. We've got a nice cash balance right now, 7 million in the bank and with two projects that we will continue to drill. Again, Strange being a theoretical concept. We'll hopefully see what we're looking for there. If we're hitting the right technical target then we will continue to drill that in the summertime. Maybe not as aggressively as Manibridge, as Manibridge is a past-producing mine, but Strange is something in which we want to make a potential discovery on it. A lot of the focus on what we plan to do throughout this year, that we hope will lead to supplying nickel demand, would be Manibridge being a past-producer where they mined 1.3 million tons between 1971 and 1977. Average grade was about 2.5% nickel, which is extremely high, and they still had about 0.3% copper credits. It's in Thomson Nickel Belt, which is highly reputable nickel district and the fifth largest in the world. From what we've seen is there's a lot of nickel at Manibridge, lot of high-grade nickel that was left outside of the old mine workings. So this is something that we really want to push forward. If we want to help supply the world with a growing nickel demand, Manibridge will be the first priority for us to do that.
SH: What separates Metal Energy Corp. from the competition in the nickel exploration space and makes your business model unique?
JS: Well, I think that being part of the Ore Group of Companies (https://oregroup.ca/) itself, which are six different companies, all helmed by Stephen Stewart, he's the chairman and CEO of a number of these companies. It really sets us apart from a lot of our peers. There's a lot of benefits with the Ore Group, just being able to share a lot of technical expertise, a lot of management and administrative personnel, and we've got a very strong overall technical team that we share information with and be able to grow. But also, I think with Manibridge, is every time I look at that, I just keep thinking: “this is going to be a mine, this is going to be a mine.” Obviously, that's me saying it. I can't verify that but everything that I've seen throughout my geological career where I've been part of a number of discoveries and seeing something like Manibridge really makes a lot of sense. So I think that having something that could hit the market in hopefully the near future, 5 to 10 years, let's say, cause obviously we'd have to drill it off and come up with a resource, but having something like that, I think really distinguishes us from our peers.
SH: Now, your stock has nearly doubled in value since you went public in September. What can you tell our investor audience regarding the current valuation of your stock and why you think it’s still a good buy right now?
JS: It’s a fantastic value and we haven't explored yet, and that's the beauty of it. We just listed November 29th, 2021. We're not even two months old and we are just getting around to drilling our projects; Strange within the next week and Manibridge within a month to two. So as we start getting drill results and showing that these projects have the merits to grow, I think those will help push our stock forward. I think we've got a lot of room to grow and our main goal obviously is for shareholder wealth, shareholder appreciation with increased share price. We will really push it hard. We've got the finances do that with 7 million in the bank. I think this is a great entry point for anybody who's interested in the nickel space. We've got a successful team. We've got the guys who know how to make discoveries, a guy who knows how to put things into production, and we've also got just great financial and administrative backing behind us. It's a very sound company, very strong, and we'll push the envelope going forward.
SH: What’s the long-term strategy for the company moving forward and what should retail and institutional investors be looking out for?
JS: Explore and develop, explore, and develop, explore, and develop. However, in saying that, right now, we're basically focused on nickel but that's not what we are limited to knowing the whole electrification of the world, which continues to increase almost on a daily basis. It's phenomenal just the amount of electrical demand that will continue to grow, so we are also positioning ourselves to get into other commodities, other metals that are required for this looming and huge electrification demand. Things like lithium, vanadium, cobalt, even rare earths. These are a lot of things that we are starting to look at and could potentially incorporate into the whole Metal Energy strategy.
SH: And finally, James, if there’s anything I’ve overlooked, the floor is all yours.
JS: Thanks. As I said, I think it's a great entry point opportunity for any enthusiastic investors but also to keep watching Metal Energy. I think we've got of lot of success coming down the road. Manibridge is something that we really want to hit hard. The whole idea behind Manibridge was that is similar to our sister company, Quebec Copper and Gold and their Opemiska deposit in which they took a past-producing historic copper mine, they saw the copper market, they saw a lot of mineralization around the area, and attacked it with a whole new strategy. Now, if you look at Opemiska, it is a massive deposit with great potential to become a near-term open pit copper mine. So that was the exact same idea moving into Manibridge, that there's a lot of high-grade mineralization there.
In a lot of jurisdictions, grade is king. A lot of commodities, high-grade is king. But at Manibridge, there's also a lot of lower grade between 0.6 and 1% nickel that's near surface and quite widespread. If we can take that same Quebec Copper and Gold Opemiska idea and turn Manibridge into this high tonnage, open pit nickel deposit, and this is something that we can move forward quite rapidly. I think that as we learn more at Manibridge, and also at Strange with any potential discovery there, but with Manibridge being our flagship, as we continue to drill these out with ten thousand meters minimum planned for the summertime, we're going to push hard for trying to get to a resource estimate on Manibridge as quick as possible. I think the next 12 to24 months are going to be extremely exciting for Metal Energy, and I think we'll have the results to back it up.
For regular updates, visit
metalenergy.ca.
FULL DISCLOSURE: This is a paid article produced by Stockhouse Publishing.