Surge Battery Metals (TSXV:NILI) (OTC:NILIF) is an exploration company engaged in many aspects of developing battery metals deposits, the company is fully funded and focused on its summer drill program at its flagship Nevada North Lithium project – Nevada is the state with the highest lithium production potential in the US.
TMH: Welcome back Greg. Can you update our listeners on the progress of your Nevada North Lithium discovery, where are you at and when will you be back on the property?
Greg Reimer: Well, our Nevada North discovery of course is in Northeastern Nevada near Elko. We’ve been very successful the last year with surface exploration and our fall drill program last year. We returned some significant anomalies in terms of the count of lithium in parts per million with in excess of 3000 parts per million at a 1000 parts per million cut off in our 2022 drill program. So, in terms of where we are with the exploration project currently and when we’re going back in the field, we actually are in the field today. This week we have geophysicists in the field doing some analysis that’s going to help us determine the size and depth of the of the discovery.
TMH: We can see from your recent news flow that Surge has added several lithium company builders to the Surge board of directors, who are they? What are their backgrounds in the lithium sector and what are their career highlights?
Greg Reimer: Yes, that’s a good question. We’ve been very fortunate we’ve attracted two kind of lithium titans I would say to our board. The first fellow is Graham Harris. Graham’s got a 40 year background in corporate finance with companies like Canaccord but most importantly for us, he was the founder and chair of the board of Millennial Lithium and Millennial Lithium was sold to Lithium Americas for $490 million. So we’re really happy to have Graham on our board. As well, we’ve added a gentleman named Iain Scarr to our board. Iain’s got 29 years of experience with Rio Tinto and he’s a geologist and he’s now leading our geology side of our business, the strategic side. Not only does he have a lot of time in the business, but he’s been part of three successful lithium projects in the past, including Millennial Lithium. So we’re really fortunate to have these guys on the board and the key thing here is in a relative sense lithium is a new commodity kind of building because of the demand of electric vehicles and whatnot worldwide. So the number of people available that have lithium expertise and knowledge is small and we’re very fortunate to have these two folks join us.
TMH: Ok, so you’re attracting some significant company builders in the lithium space, you are located in the epicentre of many lithium exploration and development clay projects in Nevada State and I also noticed that Nevada State was just voted the world’s most mining friendly jurisdiction in the world. How do you see this effecting Surge?
Greg Reimer: The Nevada State won that position on the Fraser Institute annual review and all I can say about that is I think it’s kind of well deserved for Nevada State. I mean all of the interactions that we have with folks in Nevada is fantastic but more importantly the folks at the Bureau land management that we deal with are extremely professional and so I can sure see why they won that award you know, have that top spot and we look forward to continuing to work with everybody in Nevada as we move this project ahead but in particular with the folks in the regulating business we’re really happy with and looking forward to continue to work with them.
TMH: So, specifically Greg, what are your company’s plans for this season’s drill plans and strategies?, We see from your news flow you look very prepared for your next eight holes but what’s beyond these next eight holes?
Greg Reimer: We will likely be in the field towards the end of June early July with our drill program. So we’re very excited to begin that project. We are of course planning that program right now, the geophysics that we’re gathering and that the data that we’re gathering this week from the geophysicists will assist us in terms of locating the strategic point for those drill holes and so we’re really excited. We had such good results last year. We see no reason why we can’t build on those results this year.
TMH: How does Surge Battery Metals look with respect to working capital, looking into the second half of 2023?
Greg Reimer: Well, it’s always expensive of course to be an exploration company and to build what you’ve found in terms of a discovery and we’ve had a couple of private placements, as you’ve mentioned at the beginning of the program and so we’re well funded to get through to the fall in terms of what we need to advance the programs that we’ve got scheduled right now. So we’re in good shape.
TMH: So Greg, there’s quite a trend going on in the battery metals space. Auto manufacturers and other lithium producers are purchasing 9.9 percent equity interests in companies similar to Surge Battery Metals. At the same time it would appear global lithium prices appear to have bottomed in recent weeks. Do you feel that Surge is at the right place at the right time?
Greg Reimer: Well, absolutely. I think that we’re in the right space, the metals business for battery metals as electric vehicles and other types of batteries take off around the world. So we’re in the right metal space. We’re in the right jurisdiction with a friendly mining jurisdiction and yes the results that we’ve had with our maiden drill program have raised a lot of eyebrows around the world. There’s a lot of people that are looking at Surge and looking at it with interest in terms of what we’re doing and we’ve attracted a lot of attention. So we’re having a really good time with moving from where we were in January with our final drill results to where we are now with all the work that we’ve done preparing for the drill season and to further kind of delineate the resource that we have.
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