Tectonic Metals Inc. (TETOF) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

The motion is carried, and this meeting is now terminated. Was there anything else, Oliver or anyone else in the there?

I think that's it for agenda items, nothing else to cover. To proceed, I assume we're going in camera with the Board for a presentation. Or did you want shareholders on that.

No, we're doing Yes. No, we're doing -- sorry, the shareholder presentation. So for all those in attendance, we do have an update -- and I would like to give you somewhat of a brief formal presentation. And then there'll be some more questions. If there are any questions, you can put them forward as well. But this is now -- the AGM has officially ended and we're just going to give you an update and a special thanks for those that are in attendance here. So Tom, if you can put -- yes, sure. That would be great. And if you could put the presentation on the screen.

Well, I think it might make you host then you all have to share, but I'm happy to share as whatever works for you. SP1 I can share. Thank you Okay. Your, let me just 1 second here right.

Okay. Again, thank you, everyone, for taking the time to attend the AGM to vote as well. I can tell you as a director, an officer or an executive that it's always reassuring and comforting and humbling when you see both in excess of 95%, 98%, definitely a strong vote of confidence that we're doing our job. And for those -- as a reminder, our job ultimately is to create value for our shareholders. We are shareholders ourselves. But at the end of the day, it's about creating that value for our shareholders. So with that being said, we'll jump right into the presentation here and then there'll be an opportunity for those of you that want to ask questions, you can do so. Just want to make sure, if Tom or can you just give me a nod that the screen is being shared and everyone can see this in here, Okay, great. Okay. So the year is not over yet, but there has been some achievements to date for the 2026 calendar year. On that front, we did kick off the year with a very strong capital raise that was $92 million that was announced and then closed in March. We did have excess demand. And for those that recall, initially, we announced a financing of $40 million. That was upsized to $80 million. We had in excess of $120 million, $150 million at one point and we decided to close the books at $92 million. That was raised without a warrant and at a $2.15 share price and although that number is obviously very humbling and heartwarming. The other aspect was that we were able to bring in some very large sophisticated new shareholders and also our existing shareholders continuing to support us. So when you have an existing shareholder come in at a lower price point because we were trading at a lower price point, say, 2 years ago and then again and then again and then again, it's a great vote of confidence that we're executing doing our job and that they still see the share. They still see the value. And so existing shareholders came in a very big way and the new shareholders, large, sophisticated, well-known respected resource funds giving us the capital to execute what is now our largest drill program to date. On that front, on the drill result front, I should say, we have announced some drill results from the Black Creek intrusion target, roughly 5 grams over 21 meters. I don't think you can ask for a better follow-up hole. And for those who don't recall, Black Creek was a new target that we drilled last year and announced, I believe, off the top of my head, 4.8 grams over 48 meters, and that was followed up this year and the result was 5 grams over 21 meters. There was also some 17-gram per tonne material in that interval. We have 6 holes pending from Black Creek. Next up was our Chicken Mountain drill results, which we announced a few weeks ago. One of the highlight holes was about 1.5 grams over 40 meters. So 4-gram per tonne material as well in that interval. And that drilling also extended the width on the southern portion of Chicken Mountain. And to date, we have over 3.3 kilometers of drilled strike, 700 meters in width in some areas and depth -- vertical depth to 300 meters. And what I will say about those dimensions or both the drilled mineralized strike or with is that it is still open in every which direction. A lot more drill results to come on that front as well. The other big significant achievement and push this year is to expand and grow the team Eira Thomas was appointed as Chair of this company. She is a co-founder of Tectonic Metals, has been with me since day 1 and served as a strategic adviser and now back in the seat of chair. And so having her in that appointment is just phenomenal to have that -- someone of her pedigree sitting in that position, leading the Board and advising the company and management as we proceed to more continued growth. With that capital raise and also with more meters going into the ground, we had to expand the team. And I must say that the expansion of the team, especially in the competitive market that we're in, is not always an easy endeavor, but we were able to secure what I think is best-in-class professionals. On that front, Peter Cleasby is our existing Vice President of Exploration transition to Chief Geological Officer, playing a very pivotal role but mainly focused on the geology, which is Pete's sweet spot. And then Maggie Lehman coming in as Vice President of Exploration and also another executive appointment, Karen Young, coming in at Vice President, Investor Relations. As I said, very respected, established, proven executives and not only on the executive or on the Board front, our team has grown immensely. And so I have to give a special shout out to all of the Tectonic team and the personnel up a camp, flat. Currently, there is in excess of 65 people up at site and then our management team, whether it's geologists data, you name it, we've doubled and tripled in size and very proud of the team we've assembled. We've handpicked each one of these individuals. It wasn't necessarily hiring out of necessity. It was about finding people that can support us and take us to the next level. And I think we have executed on that front as well. So with the $92 million of capital that we raised, I think the next question that needs to be asked is what are we going to do to create value this year. And on that front, we've taken multiple paths forward here. So the existing Chicken Mountain drilled footprint. If you recall from last year, it was 3 kilometers in length, yes, 700 meters in width, but we had multiple high-grade drill hits that were completely open and warranting expansion. The added zone, for example, we drilled their 4 grams over 30, and within that was 8 grams over 3 . We had a fantastic hit in the southern portion of Chicken mount 12.5 grams over 15 as well, and Alpha Bowl, 3 grams over 40. So these were all hits that needed to be expanded on. And so expansion drilling is a key component of this campaign, not only where the high-grade drill results were, but also expansion along strike, depth and width. The second objective was to continue to make new drill discoveries and expand that Black Creek drill intercept. So as you know, we have not just one intrusion target, i.e., Chicken Mountain. There is currently 6 in total, and these 6 targets have the potential to be their own deposit, if you will. And so we want to make sure that we're keeping that discovery pipeline healthy and active and then covering the value in a very quick and succinct orderly fashion. So we have some meters dedicated to that front. Also, we want to make sure that we're continuing to advance the project on the development side. Tectonic is not just playing the short game. We do view Flat as a mining opportunity. And in doing so, our actions need to reflect that. And we don't want to take our foot off the gas pedal and just focus discovery. So to that end, significant camp expansion, you'll see some pictures that speak to that. We're investing in the infrastructure. So that's field trucks, just trucks, vehicles in general, heavy machinery, improving the airstrip, expanding the roads, improving the existing roads. All things that are necessary to allow for year-round operations and a more, I would say, safe and healthy work environment and also a reduction in the cost to drill per meter. We are also moving towards engineering. So environmental baseline work, geotechnical work, hydrological work, metallurgical test work. These are all huge derisking very important items. And given that we do believe that Flat has the potential to be a mine, we want to make sure that we're moving those initiatives forward. And the last objective, which kind of ties everything together and obviously, very important, one of the key objectives if not the most objective is to produce our first ever mineral resource estimate. And that is targeted for Q1 2027. We are on track with that objective and feeling very comfortable and excited about the prospects. What I will also say, we did announce in our news release that we were targeting 40,000 meters. We want to be very transparent and say, we don't feel -- we don't believe we'll meet that 40,000-meter target. We're in September. We do believe we'll have in excess of 30,000 meters. That being said, we do expect to meet all these objectives. So that's the good news or the silver lining is that all these objectives, we're confident we will meet. We did have issues with drilling personnel and productivity and weather delays. And so to that point, we will not meet our 40,000-meter target. It was a target. Maybe it was a bit ambitious target, but nonetheless, we will meet those objectives and still believe that we'll be able to execute in a very meaningful accretive way this year. Highlighting the progression of where Chicken Mountain was and where we're going and to further emphasize the resource potential as well, you can see on the left is our geology slide. And what I will say about the Chicken Mountain on the bottom left here, if you can see my cursor where the black dots represents the drill holes that have been executed to date. You can see the orange represents the monzonitic intrusive rock. In layman's term, that is our gold host rock. And so although we have 3.3 kilometers of drilled strike, the host rock that's carrying the gold is at least 4.5 kilometers by 5 kilometers in size. So a lot more host rock that needs to be tested. This is what gives us the excitement that this thing has the potential to grow significantly. On the outer rim of this is this brown-shaded rock, which represents the horn. It's a rock unit that has not been tested at Chicken Mountain, but actually was tested at Black Creek. And that was -- the big drill result that we announced last year or earlier this year, the 4.5 grams over 50 meters was actually mineralization and hosted in that rock unit. And that opens up the paradigm or the opportunity to test other horn cells or test the contact between the monzonitic and the rock. So that -- we see that as prospective as well. And if you look at that entire Chicken Mountain unit, based on geophysics, let's just say, which highlight it, you're looking at an anomaly that 6.5 kilometers by 6 kilometers in size. So we're just in the early days. And you can see also on the right, the progression of the soils. Those contour colored shading, that represents gold and soil anomalies. And historically, there was 7,000 meters of drilling done on this property. You can also see the historical -- the soils and the transition of those over the years. And you can see how much in 2026, how many soils or how many drill holes we've executed to this date. And again, although there's a lot more black dots, we're still just very much at the early stages of fully identifying or exposing the potential of this target. A different perspective. On the left, the progression of drill holes from historical to current and then on the right, you can see the long section at Chicken Mountain. The bottom image is where we have the 3.3 kilometers of drilled strike, but you can just see just how quickly and succinctly and systematically, we've advanced this from historical drilling right through to where we're at. Now 60-plus percent of these holes have ended in mineralization and over actually, 100% of them have hit gold mineralization. You can also see that mineralization starts literally at surface, and there's little to no there's a little to no overburden. And so we -- the third point I would say you can also see that the mineralization is working in tandem with the surface. So we envision a very low strip ratio here, a lot of depth potential strike extent with extent as well. I mentioned how we're investing in the long term to facilitate year-round exploration, to reduce our drill cost per meter and to advance us towards some of that engineering feasibility-type work that may come down in the future. You can see the airstrip, the improvements that we've done there are greater in the top left. Also, the -- in the middle and some of the other images, that is our Hercules plane. That airstrip can accommodate the largest cargo plane available to man. It's about 45,000 pound payload. You can see the machinery coming out of the back of that airplane. For those that don't know, Hercules is just slightly smaller than a Boeing 747. We have landed over 15 of those planes just this year on our property. You can see a fuel truck on the bottom left coming out of the back of that. This is a huge and in the middle, just to continue with that. This is a huge advantage to have that capability on site. Most projects cannot tout that type of airstrip. So a key to us bringing in heavy machinery and again, operating efficiently. Another big win this year, I would say, was the installation of a weather station. Doesn't necessarily warrant a news release, but nonetheless, this is a huge advantage to allow us to land planes more effectively, more safely. Also when there's low ceiling clouds. This gives us the ability to do that. And you could see some of the images on the bottom that show the camera that takes pictures of the airstrip in various portions of the property and sends them back to people that are not on site, some of our team members, but also to some of the airline carriers as well. So they have a sense of what the conditions are before they take off. So those are huge wins as well with the advancement of our project. Another key thing is we got a lot of questions about why can't you add more drills, why can't you do 6 or 7 or 8 gills? Well, one of the reasons is people. And you need to have the permits in place to allow for -- every drill is about depending about 12 to 13 people. So if you have 6 drills, you can do the math, you can see that we're -- that's over 70-plus people, close to it. So you need to build the infrastructure. Infrastructure also includes cabins, these commercial kitchen, things of that nature. So we're advancing the camp expansion before and after. Before is on the left, the after is on the right. And what I will say is that camp is still growing. And we want to facilitate 100-plus people in the subsequent years going forward here. So we need that infrastructure. That will give us the ability to run larger programs. And that is a significant investment as well. On the -- again, on the same theme, you can see here our new -- brand-new core that we built you want to drill more. Well, you need -- you're going to get more and you need the facilities to store that. On the right here is our -- is Darius Kamal, our Senior geoscientists, very astute very astute strong geologists, structural geologists as well and explorationist, critical person to our team as well. And then some of the other infrastructure investments. If you came last year to site, we didn't have necessarily a truck to pick up in. Now we have several Ford F-350, we have a passenger van. On the top right, those are fuel tanks. Again, you want to have more drills, you want to have more people, you need more fuel. And so we have a bit of a fuel farm, if you will, and then some machinery in the bottom right as well. This is all a result of that huge capital raise that is allowing us to move very aggressively here as we transition from exploration into development, at least at Chicken Mountain. The team, again, 2, 3 years ago, 30 people. Now we have over 65 people and continuing to grow that. So what's next on the docket for Tectonic. If you saw our last news release, we did announce that there was close to 100 drill holes that are pending. Those holes are actually at the lab and they're from various parts of chicken Mountain, 6 holes also pending from Black Creek. So no shortage of news flow between now and the end of the year. We also have our heap leach column test work that is still -- that is pending. Those results will be coming out here in fall of this year. And then the final target would be the 2027 MRE. We do expect on the heels of that -- working towards a preliminary economic assessment to attach some additional meaning to that mineral resource estimate. But between now and the end of the year, we'll have no shortage of news flow and the drills are expected to be turning right through till the end of October. Possibly even later, but it is going to be a full-on season here. So with that being said, I will open the floor to any questions or comments that anyone may have, and we'll try to do this in an orderly fashion, if possible. And so I have the participant list here and don't need to ask any questions, but if there is any and you'd like to put forward for the question. I do have with me today also before we jump into the questions, for those that didn't get a chance to hear our hear who's in the room right now. On your screen on my left is Oliver Foeste, our CFO; Tom Gaston is our Controller. John Armstrong on the right there is Tectonic Director. And also online here, we have our other directors, Mick Roper, Joseph Perkins. Unfortunately, Eira is -- could not make issues in Africa, attending to some other matters and Allison as well. So we do have some of our geos also on the line today that have come out to support us and our other team members. So with that being said, if you do have a question, a raise of hand or meet yourself and feel free to put it forward. Okay. Well, for those that I don't think we have any questions going forward, but what I will also mention is that -- my personal e-mail is tony@tectonicmetals.com. We also have a sign-up page on our website if you'd like to sign up for new and new an e-mail updates from tectonic -- we also have our info@tectonicmetals.com for any questions or comments that you want to put forward at a later point in time. So if there are no questions, we will adjourn the meeting. Thank you, everyone, again, for the opportunity to learn a bit more about Tectonic. Thank you for the support as a shareholder or an interested party Stay tuned for more drill results and more exciting news on the horizon for Tectonic. We will be at various conferences throughout this week, Beaver Creek Precious Metals Summit. For those of you that will be there, we will have attendance there. Also at the Zurich Precious Metals Summit conference there, the Swiss Mining Institute Conference and also the Alaska Miners Association Conference in November. There will be some marketing that we'll be doing outside of those conferences. So if you're in any of those areas and want to drop by and say hi, please do so. So last comment.

Toni, do you want to do a quick in camera at the end? Or are we going to wrap the meeting with this?

We can do a quick in camera, sure. Okay. Thank you, everyone. Have a great day. So we'll release everybody that's not a Board member otherwise on the attendee list here. If they don't drop off.

Oliver, it's Karen. I just had a quick question for you before I drop off, but we'll just wait for everybody else too. For sure, we can keep the executives.