Emperor Metals (CSE:AUOZ) - AI-Driven Modelling Doubles Gold Resource in Quebec

John Florek (0:00)

Hi, I'm John Florek, President and CEO of Emperor Metals.

We are in the heart of the Southern Abitibi in Quebec, Canada. We're looking for gold. We have two advanced stage projects, and I'm here to introduce this company to you with Matthew.

Matthew (0:20)

John, good to meet you. We've not met or spoken before, so I appreciate coming on the platform. Should we kick off with maybe an introduction to yourself for folks listening and watching this at home?

What have you done?

John Florek (0:32)

Yeah. Like I said, I'm present CEO. I'm also a geologist. I've been in the industry for about 35 years. First half of my career has been in exploration. The subsequent half has been in development, both underground and open pit. I worked for companies like BHP, Placer Dome, Barrick, Teck. Most recently, I was chief geologist up at Detour Lake Gold. We subsequently sold that to Kirkland Lakes over for Kirkland Lake Gold and Agnico Eagle as well.

It's now Agnico Eagle's flagship property.

They're the darlin of the gold space as we speak right now. But I'm also dabbled in the junior space. I was co-founder of a company called Entourage Metals, we name changed to Genesis, we ended up selling that to Northern Superior and they ended up selling their company to Iamgold. So yeah, I've been around in the juniors and the majors, predominantly the majors. And when I was up at Detour Lake Gold, I was chief geologist for the company on site.

Matthew (1:39)

Well, Rick, that's quite the resume. And quite a few names people have definitely heard of along the way. So I'm intrigued as to what it is that you're trying to do with Emperor. You're in the heart of the Abitibi. You're surrounded by the great and the good.

You've got your own project. What's the end game? What's the investment opportunity for investors looking at this at a high level?

John Florek (2:02)

Yeah. Very, very high level is, when we picked up these properties, started picking them up, gold was about $1,800.

And we were looking for a jurisdiction that would handle a gold price of $1,800. So we were looking at other companies that had to build a mill, they had to build a tail-and-stand. They couldn't meet their obligations and they went back. This jurisdiction was one of the mandates of the company. We wanted to find projects that was in close proximity to mills. So basically, when it came to constructing a mine, we wouldn't have to build a mill, wouldn't have to build a tail-and-stand. We would save half a billion to a billion dollars in capex costs. We would have quicker payback periods, greater rate of returns, and healthy NPVs. So we chose this jurisdiction. It's a flagship property called Duquesne West, meets all those criteria, and then 30 kilometers away, we have another advanced stage project. They're both advanced stage projects.

The second one is 30 kilometers away to the south, similar scenario that I just outlined. It also has a mining permit in place. So we're pretty excited about these two projects, and I'm happy to introduce you to it more.

Matthew (3:26)

Right, but just sticking with the high level, you know, if I look at the names that, you know, Iamgold and Agnico Eagle, and you sit between two of the first mining gold projects, Teparkay and Dequesne Gold. Is this a build and sell opportunity on Duquesne West? Can you pronounce for me? Duquesne West, yeah. Duquesne West.

John Florek (3:55)

I'll explain that. So Duquesne West, it's basically what we're trying to do right now, it's advanced stage project. More recently, we in 2020 and 2025, we announced our median mineral resource and we doubled the size of deposit from 727,000 ounces to 1.46 million ounces.

We believe that this could be from 1,000 meters to surface somewhere between 3 to 5 million ounces. And when you look lateral to, deposits lateral to us in the district, you know, they're going down 3 kilometers or so. La Ronda is down 3 kilometers. Kiana, West Dome's property, they're mining from, you know, 1 kilometer down to 2 kilometers now down. Deposits get higher grade. So with that 3 to 5 million as we think, potentially you can, you know, this deposit that we have looks like you can probably 2x or 3x it at depth. We have grades that are still very deep.

More importantly, it is in a strategic location because between us, First Mining and Stellar, you have 20 million undeveloped ounces right now. And in the middle of all that, you have the Holt Holloway mine.

So when I was looking at this originally, it seemed like potentially a hub and spoke type situation. We have the Holt Holloway mine. They have a mill, they have a tail and stand. You can expand that. Agnico Eagle owns the Holt Holloway mine. It was temporarily shut down in 2019 and was supposed to reopen in 2021 It was shut down during the pandemic. Kirkland Lake did that. But then Kirkland Lake was acquired by Agnico Eagle. So it never opened in 2021 So right now, it's on care and maintenance with Agnico Eagle. They have about probably three or five million ounces still underground there.