Big Copper Project in Argentina, But Can it be Permitted on Time? | Argentina Metals CEO Interview

**Antonio** (0:00)
This video is sponsored by Terrahutton, who makes the invisible, investible. Today, I'm going to CEO BBQ Copper and Gold Exploration in Argentina's Andean Porphyry Belt, together with Argentina Metals. But if you're short on time, subscribe to our free newsletter, and once a week, we'll send you a five-minute summary of all interviews we put out, resourcetalks.com for a free weekly newsletter. Now, although this company has not paid us for the production of this video, you should still understand that we are not financial advisors, and this is not intended as financial advice. It is a broad, general, and impersonal piece of information intended only for those who know and understand the risks of junior mining, of which there are many. Before moving on, read the company's official filings on Sitterplus.ca and do your own due diligence. Pause the screen and read all the disclaimers I've shown you because your capital is at risk. If this isn't clear, go to the last section of this video for a longer explanation of the risks and biases. And do not consume this content if you don't agree with everything said therein. Moving on, Argentina Metals is an early stage explorer targeting copper and gold on the Argentine side of the Andean porphyry belt. Its flagship asset is called La Estrellas, and it sits in the Malargue Western Mining District of Sutter and Mendoza, which when it comes down to exploration, at least, is a province in growth, or at least so it looks like from the outside. Not that many companies are active in it already, but we'll touch upon that later on as well. Their project sits roughly 250 kilometers south of the city of Mendoza itself, and it's immediately north of Kobrea Explorations El Perdido target, which already had some results on it earlier this year.
The target for Argentina Metals is a porphyry copper system, and the surface sampling and ground magnetics have outlined anomalies and structural features which they think are worth following up on and which I hope I can get some more color on later on in the conversation. Current work is still at the target definition stage though, so there's remote sensing, drone surveys happening. There's also machine learning integration being used to rank priorities across the package, while the team works through the remaining permitting steps. So there's still some permitting that has to happen, needed to get a rig turning and we'll touch upon that as well.
The most immediate catalyst for the company is the start of drilling on La Estrellas itself, which they expect to begin in the second half of 2026 Once again, access and permits and approvals are secured, which is also something I'll be asking about later on. The rest of the land position consists of roughly two dozen additional early stage copper projects in the same district, the bulk of which came as a portfolio acquisition from a Canadian listed company called Mirasol Resources. One of their board members also owned the board of Argentina now. They also did, I believe, two smaller private deals.
Now, for some of the numbers and a bit of the details here, Argentina Metals is listed as VLLC, which apparently is an acronym for Viva La Libra dot Carajo, which I'm guessing is a hat tip to President Malay. But yeah, VLLC on the TSX-V in Canada, where the average daily volume over the last three months has been about 76,000 units. Though that number might not be entirely accurate because the company has not been trading for three months. It's actually just gotten listed. 52-week highs, 35 cents, 52-week lows, 17.5 cents. Again, though, keeping in mind that there's no 52 weeks of trading data and the stock has only been trading for less than a month, actually, now.
A little over 72 million shares are outstanding and Market Cap is $20 million, making this a 28-cent stock today. There are not a lot of options outstanding or warrant. Well, together, representing about a half a percent of the fully diluted shares, so barely anything as of yet. The last time they raised money was in mid-April when they closed the first tranche of a non-broker private placement for about $600,000 Canadian dollars. That was done at 20 cents per share. How much money have they got right now, though? How far is that money going to get them? What does it buy them? And how are they going to be raising money to drill the projects? Those are all questions that I'll be asking later on in the conversation. But for this to actually become a conversation, though, I will finally have to shut up. And Raymond, I'll give you the word here. But first of all, thank you for sitting down with me today.