Volta Metals’ Springer Combines a Top 10 Rare Earths Deposit with Emerging Gallium Potential

[music] >> Today I have the pleasure of speaking with Kerem Usenmez from Volta Metals. Kerem, congratulations on your latest updates on gallium. Where do you want to start? >> Well, we are pretty pleased about gallium results. It keeps, you know, coming with high-grade numbers and uh but the rare earth also accompany that obviously it's a rare earth mine, but um also securing additional claim along strike as well as the remaining 20%. Now we have the 100% uh interest and um those are really, really positive things as we move this forward. >> Let's talk about the your flagship Springer rare earth and gallium deposit that you just announced the closing of the acquisition for the remaining 20% interest. So, do you own 100% of this now? >> We don't, but it's we have a path. So, at the latest next June, June 2027, we are going to own 100%. Um at this point we had the 80% option. Now we have 100%, but there's a couple of things that we need to do. Uh it's financial related, so and um we are we are we are going to do that probably accelerated rate. >> Let's understand this project a little bit better. Your announcement, according to Jack Lifton on Investor Talk this morning, was exceedingly unusual, exceedingly. And that's because you have gallium found in rare earths. Can you explain that to our audience? >> Absolutely. Gallium being the most critical element going into semiconductor chip circuit these days, we don't have any production out west. 99% global production in China with restrictions. You can't get China gallium out. Now, what is unusual with this deposit is having high-grade rare earths, yes, but having gallium on top of that because gallium normally resides in bauxite aluminum mineral. You process that rock for aluminum, gallium comes out as a byproduct. That's how it's been done. Having gallium alongside with rare earths, that is the unusual part at a high-grade level puts us in a different level. But we're what we're looking at here with our next resource update for the rare earths, it's not only going to put us in potentially top five because we're right now the seventh largest for rare earths, we are going to be the only ones that has a gallium resource on top of the high-grade rare earths we have. >> When we spoke, for those of you that are going to Volta Metals rare earths top 10, uh what we're talking about here is you are now considered like number seven if I recall, uh best rare earth deposits in North America. Isn't that correct? >> Largest. Um seventh largest. >> And this was extraordinary news that you put out during PDAC earlier this year, um after your deposit surged tenfold. Can you hit some of the highlights from that, please? >> Absolutely. We drilled more than twice as deep as previous drilling before we acquired. They they drilled down to 200 m, we went down 465 m before running out of rods, drill rods, and that came back with full mineralization. With that resource update, um it it went over 10 10 times and put us in the seventh largest. That gallium is not included in that um consideration, but what we found was we were still in mineralization on all directions. So, we went back and drilled again, and now we're going to do another update. But what's interesting is that full mineralization, very consistent numbers, and our cost to increase the tonnage was 2 cents Canadian dollars per ton. 2 cents. That was our cost to increase tonnage. So, it's a very low cost exploration. We are very low cost uh company because testament to our team, of course, but testament to the location that this project is at. >> You've been at this a really long time. You're a veteran on every level. Uh PDAC board of board of directors. Um gallium, as we all know, is an extraordinary critical mineral. Would you like to share with the audience, for those who are new to, what is gallium? What it is and why it is so exceedingly rare. Thank you. >> So, gallium is a very next to aluminum on the periodic table. It's a It's a metal. It's an element that has very low melting points. It melts in your hand. It's 29 some degrees, 29.3, I think, uh it melts at. So, it is highly conductive when it's uh used as gallium nitride or gallium arsenide, which is predominantly used in new generation semiconductors, the chips that are making AI possible to do fast stuff because it's 20 times faster, those chips, gallium nitride chips, are 20 times faster than conventional silicon chips. So, that you can appreciate the demand increase. Previously, by byproduct from aluminum smelting was enough for global demand. Right now, the demand is increasing. China is going to have the uh stronghold on that because they produce 98, 99% of global global production at this moment. So, having a resource here and demonstrate that we can actually produce a concentrate or even the the the product for premium magnets is going to be very big and we are working on that at the moment. >> Your milestones and accomplishments for shareholders are regularly announced on your website, but share with us for a second, Karam, what are you looking forward to announcing in your next quarter? >> So, right now we drilled and we're waiting receiving drill assays as we go. We drilled 13 boreholes, so three out of those have been announced and more to come. With that, we're we might go and drill again, but what we're doing is with this drill results, we are updating the resource again. So, now seventh largest, it's going to be maybe in the top five, if not bigger. Um that's going to be rare but with this, because we are doing advanced metallurgical work as well, we're understanding more and more how much we're going to recover the gallium. So, once we demonstrate that by the end of this summer, we are going to have the updated resource for rare earths, but we're looking to have a gallium resource as well. Because the high grade wide intercepts consistently of the gallium on top of high grade rare earths, I think that's going to put us into a different different level, different league. So, those are the main ones that are coming and immediately after that, we are going to start doing the PEA, pre-economic assessment, which is going to map out our path to production, the cost, the timelines, how were the most optimal way to mine it, um and so forth. So, that should come, with everything considered, probably early in the year, January, maybe February at the latest I can imagine. >> For all of you critical mineral investment bugs out there, for more information on Vultan Metals and to make sure you're getting timely updates, please go to the following website. Thank you, Karim, for the update today. >> Thanks for having me.