Kodiak Copper Corp. (KDK) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

I'm Ellis Martin, join me now for a conversation with Claudia Tornquist, President and CEO of Kodiak Copper Corp., trading as KDK on the TSX Venture Exchange, KDKCF in the U.S. and 5DD1 in Frankfurt. Kodiak Copper's most advanced asset is the MPD copper-gold porphyry project in the prolific Quesnel Trough in Southern British Columbia, Canada, where in 2020 the company made a high-grade discovery at the Gate Zone, which is part of a zoned copper-gold enriched envelope of significant size. Kodiak also holds the Mohave copper-molybdenum-silver porphyry project in Arizona, near the world-class Bagdad mine. Both of Kodiak's porphyry projects have been historically drilled and present known mineral discoveries with the potential to hold large-scale deposits. The company's Chairman is Chris Taylor, the CEO of sister company prolific in the gold space, Great Bear Resources. Ms. Tornquist was formerly General Manager at Rio Tinto, working with their copper and diamond operations. She also held the position of Executive Vice President of Business Development for the streaming company Sandstorm Gold. She's a Director of Silver One Resources and former Director of Kennady Diamonds, leading the $176 million sale of the company to Mountain Province. Claudia, welcome back to the program, nice to visit with you today.

Great to be here. Thanks for having me, Ellis. It's a pleasure.

Copper, copper and more copper. And in a market like this where there is, let's face it, a downturn right now, the best thing to do is not panic. If you have a little bit more money on the side, then consider putting it into potentially a company like yours and like mine, because I'm a shareholder. Kodiak Copper, let's discuss why that strategy potentially is a good strategy.

We are certainly seeing a terribly weak market. And if I look at our share price, it's frustrating. Although I think we're probably holding up better than many, firstly, because we have a very supportive shareholder base. That's the result of many years of work, and I'm very grateful for that. But most importantly, we are fully financed. We financed in March before the market took a downturn and raised almost $10 million, which means we are fully funded for all of this year's work well into next year. We are drilling and are executing on our strategy. And it's those companies in a downturn who are able to work and still build and generate results that will come out with an advantage at the end. So I think that's the way to look at it. That's how I look at it. And the work is certainly going well and a lot of results coming and lots of news for our shareholders.

It's a really tough time for a lot of juniors in the mining space during a downturn because often they have to look over a property, they have to do a consolidation or maybe do a JV they didn't want to do with a partner. But you're not even in that space at all. Like you said, you're fully funded for this year and into next year. You've got a great copper-gold porphyry project with MPD and the Gate Zone has been doing very, very well. So what's the next step? What can we see during the next 6 months?

Well, we have the biggest ever drill program going on, on the property at MPD, started in March. And we have so far mostly drilled at the Gate Zone, where we made the discovery, and just now are moving the drills to other new targets. And that will be particularly exciting because those targets, they have equally as much discovery potential as the Gate Zone. And what we're drilling is for one or more discoveries for our shareholders, and that could generate significant excitement in the market. Even in a poor market, discoveries are still rewarded.

I was looking at my Twitter feed this morning, which I rarely do, but I decided to do it today. And one of my friends in the space, one of my peers, Jeb Handwerger, referenced the fact that he pulled a 100x with your sister company that was acquired by Kinross recently, Great Bear. So in this market, it's definitely a good time to hammer down. I want to talk about the correlation between Great Bear and Kodiak Copper and reference your Chairman, Chris Taylor.

Yes, Chris is a very important part of Kodiak's success. He is the Founder and Chairman of the company. And he is very creative and a smart geologist who leads our technical work. And it was his ingenuity, just like it was at Great Bear, he saw the potential at MPD that many others before him hasn't seen that led to our discovery. And yes, he is an important part of our success. And at the end of the day, you're backing a team when you're investing in a junior mining company. And Chris certainly has excellent credentials. And as I said, he is very key to our success.

No matter what happens with regard to the economy and an economic downturn or a downturn in the market, the fact remains that the electrification of North America and the world is continuing, it's not slowing down. There's certainly not enough copper in the supply chain to take care of the demand.

That's well said. I just read a report by Wood Mackenzie, they estimate to incentivize new copper productions to come onstream, new projects being explored and developed to be $4.75. So quite a lot higher than the price we are seeing now which means, in the long term, if we want to keep buying and producing electrical cars, buildings, wind and solar, energy, et cetera, more copper will be needed and the higher copper prices will be needed. There is simply not enough production that we have currently visibility on to fulfill that demand, and that will mean higher copper prices.

Claudia, tell us about the share structure of the company, please?