Stillwater West Triples in Size and Pivots Toward Development

Trevor Hall (0:16)

In this episode of Mining Stock Daily, we're going to get a corporate update on some critical minerals developments in the Stillwater district of Montana with Michael Rowley. He is the CEO of Stillwater Critical Minerals. They trade on the venture exchange with PGE, and also on the OTCQB with PGE-ZF.

I will admit, Mike, you and I don't do these updates nearly enough. But the project, the district is increasingly, seems like month by month getting more and more important. Just where policy, domestic critical minerals policy has been heading over the number of years. But first off, congrats, thanks for joining us on the podcast. How was the first day here?

Michael Rowley (0:54)

Oh, it's been excellent, and it's very good to see you again. And you're absolutely right, we don't do this enough.

Trevor Hall (0:57)

Yeah, so maybe for people unfamiliar or need to revisit Stillwater, give us that 30,000 foot view.

Michael Rowley (1:05)

Oh, you bet. Yeah, glad to. We had the very good fortune to acquire half the Stillwater complex. We share that with Sabanier and their producing mines and their smelter refinery complex in Columbus, Montana, just off of the complex.

That's immensely beneficial to us. We have no connection with them. But the fact that it's a pro-mining area and a producing district, it's also produced historically. It's worth noting that the chromium mines of America were there, and they were subsidized by the US government in the 40s and 50s.

All we're doing really is bringing in mine models from South Africa to a layered magmatic system, Stillwater complex, that's not in Africa. It's third largest in the world. The other two are in Africa. Bushville. Ivanhoe's Platte Reef project is a good example of where we want to go in terms of costs. And we've actually brought two senior people from that project to Montana. They're right now. Then we brought in Glencore. They've written three checks in three years for a 13% equity position. So we're growing nicely, as you noted, and I'm happy to talk more about the district and what comes next.

Trevor Hall (2:13)

Well, maybe let's talk about the recent news. That was a new resource. August 27th, you put up a resource update. More than double the inferred resource. Maybe walk us through those numbers and everything contained. I know because of the polymetallic nature, the matrix of this, everything seems like nickel equivalent. But if you could break down what the equivalent actually comes into that.

Michael Rowley (2:37)

Sure. Yeah. And it's a harder sell in the retail crowd, but polymetallic is the wave of the future. And the biggest mines in the world are polymetallic. You know that. They're at least copper gold.

That gives you the kind of flexibility through commodity cycles. Size we have for days. So we've brought together, you're absolutely right, we put out an updated resource estimate, August 27 We engaged Danny Grobler, Albie Britz, our two Ivanhoe Fellows together with the Mine Tactical Services team that did the Ivanhoe Platree resource models. So that's huge and that's part of what resulted in us tripling the tonnage.

We now have 805 million tons in the inferred category and 29 million tons in the indicated, which is the first for us. Shows where we're going. Five billion pounds contained nickel, copper, cobalt in that. 7.7 million ounces PGMs and gold. Within that, you've got a 0.35% nickel equivalent cutoff, about half those amounts. And then further, 0.5% nickel equivalent, highest grade cutoff within that, and further reduced contained metal. But it shows that we're open to mine models here potentially. And that's what comes next. We're pivoting. We're now big enough.

Oh, you feel like you're big enough?

Trevor Hall (3:55)

Yeah. Yeah.

Michael Rowley (3:55)

I mean, you'll see us grow it a little bit, and in the middle of this year's drill program, you'll see us pivot from growth to upgrading.

That's what comes next. Wrap a PEA around this. Wrap our neighbor. Continue discussion about our neighbor's infrastructure and the broader district and what's possible. That is a forward-looking statement. There's nothing agreed to, nothing talked about. But it's kind of obvious from what's there.

Trevor Hall (4:20)

Well, you started doing, you started moving more into indicators. Is that correct? Yeah, we did. Is the maiden numbers an indicator?

Michael Rowley (4:28)

29 million tons.

Trevor Hall (4:29)

Very good. One of the metals in the matrix that I want to kind of pinpoint is the rhodium. Yeah. I mean, there's not very many. I think I could count as many projects that have rhodium, and less fingers on my right hand, right?

Michael Rowley (4:44)

Yeah, there are two resources in North America that I'm aware of. And we're the biggest by far, and we're in a district that produces BGMs. The other one's Canada, right? Yeah. And it's not in a producing district.