CUPANI Metals End of Year Review

0:04 Hello everyone and thank you for joining us for another live Kupani Meadows event. Remember this event is being recorded and you can submit your questions using the chat feature. We do want this to be an interactive session, so if you have any questions, please feel free to submit them. You can find the chat button in the bottom right corner of your screen. Brian, welcome back. As we close out 2025, what would you say were the most significant accomplishments for Kupani this year and which developments exceeded your expectations?

0:30 Yeah, thanks Kyle. Thanks for everybody to come and either see this live or watch it later And I think most people will watch it over the holidays I'll start by saying when I had on January 1st I had a full head of hair and no bags under my eyes, but man, it's been a year for sure.

0:50 Everything's changed for the better. I'll say that probably the single biggest that you can measure is we've been in the right commodities, Copper, Platinum, Palladium, they've all ripped to the upside. And they all have structural deficits coming for them that look like they're going to continue to run for 10 or 15 years. And then another big thing was it's very clear that the world is splitting into 2 sources of material, right? You're either sourcing things in the Chinese sphere of influence or you're sourcing things in the Western sphere of influence. And if you're sourcing in the West, there's not enough material. So You might end up with even higher prices. As we saw for a while, there was almost a 20% difference between the US price for Copper and the UK price for Copper because one was more domestic.

1:42 That was great. And then I would say the other big things that happened for us were we added Daniel Giovanazzo to the board and Daniel then brought us Jacques Gauthier as VP of Exploration. And the 2 of them have made an immense difference for the company and for shareholders. First of all, they're both experts at what they do. You know, as I like to say about Chuck, 80% of the mines are found by 20% of the geologists. And he's already found 4, so he's definitely in one of the, he's one of the 20%. And then when he came up and spent his first week at camp with us in August, him, myself, the geos of the team, Danielle, you know, he turned the whole geological theory of how things were created by Mother Nature there on its head, and he supplied the proof, he brought the receipts to back all that up.

2:42 And so I guess I have to say that's the most significant accomplishment, is we went from not truly understanding how Mother Nature laid down these deposits that were drilled up by somebody else in the 1980s to now knowing how they were created and what that means about where to go next to look for more of them. And of course, that's for an exploration company, that's exactly the key thing. So when you learn that in any year, that's your biggest result for the year. Well, let's talk about where to go next. The September announcement, there was 1 in September that identified 1.5 kilometer by 12 kilometer high potential corridor with fertile ultramafic subvolcanic conduits. Can you explain what makes this discovery a game changer and how it compares to similar deposits in the regions like the Raglan Belt?

3:33 So first let's spend a minute on ultramafic, sub-volcanic, magmatic corridors. Let's just try and turn that into something everyone can understand. So I'm not a geologist myself. I'm originally a finance person. And I spend a lot of time trying to take that jargon and explain it in ways that everyone else will understand.

3:59 That's what I have to do. My proxy idea for that is the following. Everyone's familiar with the Mississippi River. It takes sediment from the Rocky Mountains because it starts up in the Rockies, and it flushes it out to the Atlantic Ocean in the Gulf of Mexico. It's what rivers do. And along the way, the heavy items that it's carrying from the Rocky Mountains, at a moment where the river maybe has to go up an incline for a little bit or into a pool or a pond or a lake or the river loses its energy, that heavy material falls to the bottom of the river and it accumulates on the river bottom. Sometimes it's a sandbar, sometimes it's, you know, whatever it's going to be.

4:45 Now, all of that geology we just talked about, right? Ultramafic, subvolcanic, really what we're talking about is either near surface or just under the surface, 1.9 billion years ago, There was a river of lava slash river of magma Okay, and it came up from somewhere and it traveled to somewhere else and when it came up it brought nickel platinum palladium and copper with it Okay, and the land that the river was traveling over already had copper and sulfide in it. Okay, so when it passes over sulfides and coppers, there's a chemical reaction that makes all the metals that were already in the lava bond with the sulfur, it makes it heavier and it starts to fall out of the river to the bottom of the riverbed.

5:42 Right. With me so far? Yep. Okay. That's how the deposit in a generalist, you know in a way that people can understand that who are not jealous That's how the deposit was made. It's it's the reason why we have 9 lenses in a row or lined up in a in a in a direction is because those lenses are the bottom of the Mississippi River sediment buildup of heavy things. And in our case, the heavy things are copper, nickel, platinum and palladium. So, very good. Now that we understand that,

6:14 we now know that we should go follow the rest of the riverbed, which has never been either well explored or in some cases never been drilled at all. And that is what is 12 kilometers long and what a kilometer and a half wide. It's part of a 15 kilometer stretch. And the first 3 kilometers has already been drilled, and that's what's given us the historical tonnage. So what Jacquelin has figured out is how it got there, where we should be looking next, what theory and environment the laydown happened in 1.9 billion years ago. And furthermore, he's figured out that the riverbed for the next 12km, and again I'll call it a riverbed but it's a sub-volcanic, ultramafic, is basically flat.

7:00 So you've got 15km or 12 that have been unexplored where you can do shallow, easy drilling, get to the bottom of the riverbed and see what's there. That's what we're going to be doing. And so you ask what he's done for us, that's an immense, that's a huge thing already. So this riverbed, was this revelation before or after Kupany completed the substantial 5,000-line-kilometer airborne electromagnetic survey in 2025, or are you finding more rivers with that survey? What have the preliminary results revealed and how will this data guide your winter 2026 drill program? Okay, so we signed up for and started that helicopter survey long before Jacques came to camp. So that started first.

7:48 The helicopter survey doesn't exactly show you rivers. It shows you magnetic responses and electromagnetic responses. But that works because if you think about what we just described right the sediment at the bottom of the river.

8:02 If your sediment has a lot of nickel, copper, platinum and palladium in it, then when the helicopter passes over and it's sending a charge into the ground, you know, for a millisecond of time, and then it turns off the charge and it measures the response coming back. If there is that kind of a lens of magnetic and electro-conductive material, it'll get a response. So that helps us find, It doesn't help us find the riverbed. It helps us find the sediments, you know, the deposits, right? So that has happened simultaneous to this whole idea, okay? And then we got super lucky in that in the year 2011, this what is now 15 kilometers, 1.5 kilometers wide that we're talking about.

8:54 That used to be a claim block that belonged to a huge company called Anglo American. And they did the same helicopter survey in the year 2011. And we already have that data. So yes, the data we did has already helped us find at least 2 new

9:11 places of mineralization visible at surface and that may well turn out to be more magmatic rivers of lava. There's a lot of work to figure that out. And those are miles away in a different direction from our historics. So those are an entirely new field of investigation found first by the helicopter survey. So it's already paid for itself. But we're using the data from the survey done by helicopter in the year 2011 by Anglo American to help guide us go drilling in the 12 kilometer river. I mean, Anglo didn't do any follow-up. They didn't have the entire region under claim. They only had a small section of it and they clearly didn't have the historical deposit.

9:58 So they were kind of working from behind the 8 ball in the first place, right? They didn't have 4.4 million metric tons of mineralized material. And so Jacques has been the first geologist with the benefits of having the entire land package, all the data from Anglo, all the data from our helicopter survey, all the drill logs from the 1985 to 1988 drilling, the core is still in storage in Chicoutimi.

10:30 The Quebec government has done surveys for copper in the lake beds. That was published in 2015, wasn't available to Anglo in the year 2011. So, you got to bring it back, I've kind of gone down the rabbit hole here. Has the helicopter been worth it? Yes. Yeah. Okay. A lot of work done in 2025, but that work requires money. And the company successfully raised 4.5 million, right, through private placements. How will proceeds specifically support the winter drilling campaign and other operational priorities in the coming months? Let's begin with the best thing, which is that we're operating in Quebec. Quebec is a very pro-mining operation province. It's a very pro-exploration province.

11:21 If we spend $100, if we spend it on drilling, we get $45 back from the Quebec government because we're drilling for critical minerals in the north.

11:32 And then they take that concept of government assistance or taxation reduction and they turn that into something called flow through. So we take money from people who want to reduce their taxes, as long as we spend that money in the field on exploration, then the loss we make on exploration, because we don't have any revenues, flows through to their income tax report, right? It increases their income tax. So that's how we're able to raise this kind of money. And yeah, look, helicopters, surveys, geological teams, all of that money spent in 2025 came from flow through raise, or a lot of it did.

12:20 We have money left over and then we've just closed another 2 and that will be the main support for the drilling program we're getting into. We're going to start the mobilization in January. Drills will be turning in

12:32 February, I guess, and then we'll leave them running. So there's a lot to do. Everything costs money. We're hunting for elephants, right? Like these deposits are worth a lot if you find them. There are a lot. So, you know, it's the old adage, it takes money to make money. We were fortunate that we can get the money in because we have a credible team. We have a great project and. That's how we have to do it. No. Yeah, helicopters cost money, but you haven't mentioned a significant investment you made in an AT44 Arctic expedition vehicle, right? How will this equipment change Kupani's operational capabilities and reduce costs compared to the traditional helicopter-based exploration?

13:17 Yeah, it's one of a bunch of ideas. But the basic thing boils down to this. Our exploration site is 65 kilometers away from the mining town of Shefferville, Quebec. Shefferville, for the historians in the crowd, will know it was built in the 1940s by the Iron Ore Company of Canada. It has open pit iron ore mining that's been running almost continuously since. Today those mines are owned by the Tata Steel Company. And there is a railway that for 70 years has taken iron ore from Shefferville down to the Atlantic Ocean and there's a handling port there called the Port of Setyl and they sell their iron ore to the world from there. So

14:04 yes, in the summertime, the quickest way to get from Shefferville airport or Shefferville town to our exploration site is helicopter or float plane. But, you know, float planes are a little bulky for big items and helicopters can only carry about 2000 pounds. So when you want to bring in fuel drums or generators or drill rigs or things like that, you need to start to think beyond the helicopter. And I've been pondering this beyond the helicopter issue for almost 2 years now. And this upcoming winter, we get to put things to the test. So we're looking at tracked vehicles to drag things out over the land or over the ice. We're looking at wheeled vehicles, which is the one you're citing there. I found a company out of Iceland that makes research and military pickup trucks that are deployed in Antarctica.

15:02 And they have big fat tires and they can do all kinds of great things. So we're gonna try one of those, see how that works for us. And the plan is to be able to move equipment, supplies and people with far less helicopter and float plane bill over the course of a year. So that's really good for shareholders. If you can get the same exploration done without spending 7,000 bucks a day on a helicopter. And remember, you got to spend that even when it's rainy and cold and you can't use the helicopter. Cold, not a big deal, but rainy. Or if it's nighttime, you can't use the helicopter, but a truck or a track vehicle you can use. So Yeah, this is a part of a...

15:47 It's not the main event for what we're doing. Obviously, exploration is the main event. This is one of the things that we're doing to make the project a lot more financially exciting, right? If you can cut it in 0.5, the cost of mobility, then you can get a lot more done for the same dollars raised. And that's what we're chasing. Now, when you talk mobility via land vehicles, how important is the community engagement for Kipwani's operations? And what does the relationship with indigenous communities look like? Super important and it works out great for us. First of all, our project is on the land of the Nisgapi Nation.

16:33 The Nisgapi have a community just next to Shefferville. They have been there for time immemorial and they are very financially sophisticated and I'll cite you some examples. They own a portion of that railway I was just telling you about. So they're making money every time a load of iron ore leaves Shefferville and goes down to port. That's a railway that is underutilized And so it's a fixed asset. They want to see more throughput on there. So conceptually, they're all for more operations, right? More money, more operations, because it's going to put more load into the load capacity of the railway. That's one issue. Another one is, like I said, they're financially sophisticated. They and the, and 3 partners, 1 being the Micmac in Nova Scotia, another being the Cree of Northern Quebec, the fourth, I can never remember. They just bought, and I mean, Kyle, they bought the Quebec City Hilton Hotel and Conference Center.

17:37 They operated it. Right. And so that shows you a level of sophistication, which is fantastic. And then I'll point out that earlier this year, they bought a 5% equity stake in an exploration company a little more advanced than we are and it's Rare Earths and Scandium. So the company is called Scandium Canada, it's publicly listed. They bought 5% equity And that shows you that they're thinking long term. And, you know, they've got a, it's not my story to tell, but they've got a plan for how to get things to and from the Scandium site. And all I will tell you is that our place is between town and the Scandium site. So, you know, whatever they're gonna do, we're gonna benefit from.

18:25 Excellent. Okay. As we wrap up here, we're looking at the multiple zones across here, what is it, 680 square kilometer property, which areas show the most promise for near-term discoveries and how will you prioritize exploration efforts? Yeah, so the, I think it was a year and a half ago, we had such a large land package, we were describing it as ABCD&E. So we came up with sub zones or zones, right? And each one had a starting letter that was ABCD&E so people could keep it straight. And the area that we've described as the high priority corridor, 12 kilometers by 1.5 kilometers, that's pretty much in the Blue Lake zone. So it starts in the Blue Lake zone and it moves into what we would have called the Cancun zone or still calling the Cancun zone. But that zone, the Blue Lake zone is closest to camp. It's got the historical tonnage. It's the same magmatic river that we've just spent 5 minutes talking about. That's clear in the high priority zone.

19:30 And we're gonna find probably more of those rivers elsewhere, but we're going to start with the one that is near surface and flat lying, and that's the high priority zone in the blue, sorry, the high priority corridor inside the Blue Lake Zone. So that's where we'll drill first. As we look ahead to 2026, you have a winter drill and expedition planned. What are your specific goals for this campaign and what milestones should shareholders watch for the coming year? Yeah, Kyle, you always give me open-ended questions and I speak too long. So this one I'm gonna be super short and super succinct. My goal is for the company to learn and relearn the logistics lessons of 1985, right?

20:16 Moving over land, moving over ice, keeping costs down, getting things accomplished with the least helicopter use or the least expense. And Jacques' goal is to prove the magmatic theory and find the results of that theory, which we're hoping is going to be more mineralization at depth and economic. We'll see. Those are the 2 goals. Excellent. Paul, I hope that answers your question in the chat as well. But Brian, Thank you so much for this year in review live event. I'll pass it back to you though for any closing remarks before we call it for 2025 here. Yeah, Kyle, I'll ask that when you put this out, You know, we've been doing meetings and sometimes, you know, Jacqueline and I go on and explain the whole story for an hour in online meetings.

21:09 And I think you've managed to get your hands on a link to one of those. So as soon as you're ready, take the geology talk section and put that into something for people to click on and watch. I think that'll be super helpful to not just hear about the financing or the company direction, but to hear from the geologist himself, what he sees, what he thinks, where he's going to go next, and the why of all that, the proof of all that. That's super important. Yeah, no problem. We'll definitely have that in a follow-up email here, so keep your eyes out for that. If you're watching on YouTube, make sure you subscribe to Kupanyi's email list. But Brian, thank you