Equitorial Exploration (EXX.V) has appointed a new president and CEO and he plans to diversify the company’s area of business.
Patrick Power takes the helm after Jack Bal, now a director with Equitorial Exploration, resigned Nov. 23.
“Power is a seasoned venture capitalist and financier with over 20 years experience as a stock market professional and director of public companies,” Bal said. “Power’s wealth of experience contributes to his success as a savvy deal-maker, adept financier and results-driven leader of dynamic public companies.”
Equitorial says it’s aggressively developing its four wholly-owned, high-potential lithium projects in North America. Those projects include: Little Nahanni pegmatite group in NWT, Cat Lake lithium property in Manitoba, the Tule Valley lithium brine project in Utah, and the and Gerlach (San Emidio Desert) lithium brine project Nevada.
Equity Guru chatted with Power about the past, present, and what the future may hold for Equitorial Exploration as the year ticks over from 2018 to 2019.
Equity Guru: What were the reasons for the CEO shake up?
Patrick Power: Well, Jack is a friend of ours and he had his hands full with some other companies. (A lot of us have some fairly sizeable positions.) And we had some ideas that we put in front of Jack, but he didn’t have the time to really get involved in those. So, he totally agreed that we should step in. I’ve got some friends involved in the brokerage side that are large shareholders, and their clientele hold a very significant percentage of the company’s shares. So, we felt, it was time to do something. Jack was very willing and happy to make that happen.
EG: Looking ahead, why should investors be excited about Equitorial now that you’ve taken over?
PP: We’re going to take some of the existing assets, and some new projects, and we’re going to assemble them and raise money. I think the real key here is that we’re going to put a lot of money into the ground to find out what we have. I think we’re going to have some good results with it.
The lithium project in Manitoba, Cat Lake, has produced world-class results. It needs further drilling to paint a better picture of the resource, but it’s there. The drilling needs to be done and it will be done.
We’re also looking at several other opportunities. One of my associates is currently in Australia looking at some opportunities there. We have some interesting things at hand that I can’t really disclose, but they’re good. They’ll be good for shareholders.
EG: What kind of challenges do you see ahead for Equitorial Exploration?
PP: Some of the same challenges we’ve already been facing with minerals. The mineral market has been terrible the last few years, so that in itself is a massive challenge. But there’s other areas, such as the cannabis space and other spaces, that aren’t mineral connected that we think we could do quite well in right now. So we see some great opportunity. We have a good team looking at all these opportunities and we want to do something incredibly quick here.
EG: Cannabis? What can you tell me about that?
PP: We’re looking at that space very carefully, because we’ve got some good [people with] experience in it. We’re also looking at some non-cannabis related things, all non-mineral, that could do well. We’ve had a lot of things on the table the last two months, so this is a process that started a while back.
EG: Let’s talk about Cat Lake. Assay results up to 3.57 percent Li2O were reported in August. What can you say about your lithium property there?
PP: Cat Lake is an interesting property in Manitoba. It’s built on a road that was built for a lithium mine about 20 K’s (away). And it’s got a processing plant on it. The infrastructure’s great; it’s in Canada; it’s in Manitoba; it’s on a road. The results are world-class. They are really good results. We just have to put more money into it. That’s the bottom line. It has to have more drilling. It’s right beside another mine that was in production in the ’50s for a very short time. It’s got all the earmarks of something special.
We’ve got the right team—it’s all about team.
—Patrick Power, new CEO and president of Equitorial Exploration.
EG: You also own lithium brine projects in the U.S. In Utah, the Tule Valley project consists of 26 placer claims covering 4,200 acres—with the possibility of expansion. In Nevada, the Gerlach project consists of 89 claims covering 1,780 acres. What can you tell me about these massive lithium brine projects?
PP: They are interesting. They have some really good upside, but I’m not as familiar with them. However, we are evaluating them. Buddy Doyle, who’s a director, is taking a look at those right now. He’s going through them very carefully. We’ll understand those a lot better, probably in a few weeks. The brine (projects) are interesting, but it’s just slightly too early to talk to you about it, because I just can’t say what I want to say. But there’s some good things happening.
EG: We can talk about the brine projects later then.
PP: Yes! We should talk about them later, because one of the things we’re looking at definitely involves lithium brine.
EG: If you could say something to shareholders and potential investors right now, what would you tell them?
PP: Stay tuned. We just got a hold of this. There’s work to be done and assessment to be done of what we’re are dealing with. We have lot of things on the go and we’re looking at quite a few things that we think could add a lot of value to Equitorial.
We’ve got the right team—it’s all about team—and so it’s all about getting it done and raising the money. The projects that we have now existing in Equitorial are really good, but we have some other things that could add a lot of value to (EXX). They key is financing. Financing is everything.
Full disclosure: Equitorial Exploration is an Equity Guru marketing client.