Sparton Resources: A Strategic Growth Opportunity

0:04 So welcome everyone to today's event, Spartan Resources, a strategic growth opportunity. Thank you for joining us. Before we begin, just a few housekeeping items. Please feel free to ask questions throughout the conversation at any time using the chat feature in the bottom right corner of your screen. Also note that this event is being recorded and will be available for view and afterwards. So if you need to reference it for any details or share it with friends or fellow investors, feel free to do so on our YouTube channel. I'm pleased to welcome Lee Barker, President and CEO of Spartan Resources. We have an excellent set of questions lined

0:35 up covering everything from the Pence Critical Minerals Project and its recent encouraging assay results through the upcoming Cloudinated Drill Program with Quebec's growth through finance infrastructure and the key catalyst people should be watching in 2026. Without further delay, Lee, let's dive into it. With nearly 60 years in the mineral industry and involvement in over 15 discoveries, including the VIX, you've seen countless market cycles. What makes this particular moment at Spartan Regus is exciting for you? And why should investors be paying attention to what you're building here? Well, thanks, Kyle. It's good to be back. You know, the cycles of the last number of years have all had various things that created them. This cycle now is in fact, to some extent, influenced by the trade situation around the world and the supply chain for various commodities And also the investment side of it, of course, for precious metals is still a factor that drives the pricing and the buying and selling of these things. But this particular cycle with the emphasis on critical metals, of course, has permitted us to get involved in critical metals projects and raise funding for those projects that allow us to perhaps hopefully discover something new and make the company a much more valuable asset for investors because we're in fact looking at new and undeveloped

2:06 and undiscovered things that I haven't looked at before. Excellent. Now, the event is titled A Strategic Growth Opportunity. Can you paint a picture for us? What's the strategic vision for Spartan? And how do the pieces of your current portfolio fit together to create value that's greater than the sum of its parts? Well, our growth strategy involves sort of 2 facets. We do own a hard asset in the VRB Energy share ownership that we have. And VRB Energy is in the process of evolving into an international company, building large-scale flow batteries that can be used for grid applications and this market Despite the fact that there's been a re-emphasis on the fossil fuels and various things Because of the Trump administration's Support of these is not going away. There's huge investments going on all around the world in energy storage.

3:06 And these units that we've supported and are owning now a share of a major industry that produces them, we believe are going to continue to be valuable in the future. We're looking forward, we believe, in the coming year to a way to liquefy our asset base for the

3:27 VRB energy share ownership and give us a treasury that will allow us to do other things. The other side of it is, of course, the critical metals thing, which I just mentioned, the fact that we are invested and exploring several new critical metals projects that historically have had work on them but have never actually been taken to fruition because number 1, markets. Number 2, the previous explorers were posting stamp, piecemeal exploring the general area that we're in and looked at things individually rather than in the bigger picture of trying to put together a comprehensive pattern of what's going on geologically and where the targets are. And we have many branded targets there. We're actually drilling 1 at the moment. And plus we do have a gold project which is tied in with the critical metals situation in the Oakes project near Natachama.

4:24 And we've tried to emphasize project generation and target selection in areas close to infrastructure. We're not off in the blue docks where things are going to take millions, billions of dollars to develop. In years, of course, the permitting situation we hope is going to get better in Canada with the emphasis on new projects being supported by the federal and provincial governments for fast-tracking. But we're close to infrastructure, our costs are much lower, and we can test a wider variety of things at a lower cost than people that are off in the far north away from roads and away from any infrastructure that will really support their activities.

5:08 Let's dive into the Pence Critical Minerals project. You've just received encouraging assay results from the Vierre Gagne zone showing copper, nickel, zinc and notably your first cobalt values in the area. You're also about to start a 1000m drilling program. What's the geological story here and what are you hoping to prove up with this drill program? Well, the geological story we believe is similar to some deposits that have very, very similar geological parameters in Finland, where there are same rock types as we've been finding in our work, plus the same rock types that were found in earlier work, which we confirmed, and the fact that these deposits were, and a couple of them are still, are world-class deposits.

5:57 And we don't believe that the previous explorers in our Pence-Montreux area, It's a project that's on the Quebec-Ontario border. Right now it's up to about 10 or 15 square kilometers of claims now, with multiple targets, many of which have never been tested or even located before. And we believe that based on that, you know, any one of these things could develop into an ore body, and I won't say there are any ore bodies there, but we hope there are, that could be world-class or could be large enough to have commercial production. And the fact that we're dealing with these critical metals like copper, zinc, nickel, and in fact now cobalt.

6:37 There's a smelter within 60 kilometers of where we're working, which Glencore owns in Orlando, Orlando. And that's very important, too, because once again, we're not off in the boondocks. We're in an area where if we do find something really good, we have a market for it. We're almost next door. Now, you've drawn comparisons to Finnish deposits like Otukumpu. Otukumpu, yes, and Kalavari and Talavari and Kibitsa. And the geological parameters of these are very similar to what we're dealing with in our PENSS situation. Well, for people that aren't familiar with these deposits, Can you explain what those similarities mean in terms of... Well, geologically, these deposits were discovered well over 100 years ago actually, and we're in production. In fact, 1 is, well, 3 are still in production now.

7:32 There are 2 kinds of deposits. There are smaller high-grade ones with massive sulfides that contain up to 2.5% copper, 1-2% nickel, some silver and about 0.5% cobalt in some cases. They're zoned, they vary in metal content between different deposits and in some cases they've been mined underground. In the case of the lower grade ones like the Aldovari and Kvitsa, these deposits are as big as 50,000 tons a day operations.

8:05 And the resources that the Finnish government and Boliden, a very large Swedish mining company, hold in those lower-grade ones are up to 1 billion tons or more. So, these are serious deposits. We believe that they were relatively unrecognized in the area we're working in. Being right on the Quebec-Ontario border, it's a little bit never-never land for the survey work that was done in the past, the geological work. We have one particular company out of Quebec in 1997 did do work in the area. And they located some small mineral showings similar to what we're doing, you know, showing now, that have these parameters. But nobody really picked up on this and nobody's ever done a comprehensive airborne job like we have with modern technology.

8:58 The last airborne survey, we believe, was done previously, would have been in the 1970s or 1980s. And that would have been older technology and it wouldn't have been as definitive as what we've done now. So, by finding these new targets which are previously unrecognized, you know, it's

9:18 a gamble which ones are good and which ones are bad, but by testing them all, at least you have the opportunity of 1 or more of them coming to fruition. Right. So, critical minerals, copper, nickel, cobalt, zinc, all are essential for electrification and the energy transition. But you're on the Canadian exchange, there's many exploration companies out there. What differentiates Spartan's approach? And why do you believe your projects and team offer better risk reward profile than other opportunities in the space? Well, I think number 1, we're looking at a new, relatively unexplored area. That gives us, I think, an advantage that we're not looking at things that have been beaten up and looked at dozens of times in the past. So we do have this opportunity in the sense that we're looking at new things in an area that's relatively under-explored.

10:09 Number 2, we are in an area with existing mining infrastructure and we don't have to expend huge amounts of money on logistics or transportation. We will get more bang for our buck for exploration costs in testing these things in this area. And we're dealing with commodities that are involved right now. And, you know, over the course of the future economically we believe that the prices are going to stay good for these things. The electrification of everything, as Mr. Greenwood said, is going to continue to make demand for these things very consistent and we're not going to end up with something that is going to be out of favor or out of need by the future commodity business. So we believe we have a good series of projects and we're in the right space at this moment.

11:02 Now the reason for this call is because you have a half 1 million dollar financing that is offering investors 3 alternate units of shares and warrants. I note that you recently closed on our first tranche, 210,000. Are all 3 categories still open to investors? Why don't you take the time to talk about what you're offering? Yes, they are actually. All 3 are still available, although we expect to close on a large tranche for the national float room in the very near future. And we have closed a small amount of hard dollar financing last week actually. And we're looking forward to be able to close the whole thing in the coming 10 days to 2 weeks with hard money as well as national flow through. The last one that we closed was a combination of Quebec vulture and some hard dollars as well.

11:54 But we expect to close on the remainder within the next 10 days to a week. And That's going to give us a treasury that will allow us to test all these targets that we've developed and hopefully make some of them come to fruition to generate more news and more value for investors. Higher share price and the need for ongoing work, of course. No, definitely. And these Quebec flows through shares

12:20 with tax advantages for Canadian investors, the price at 3 and a half cents with warrants at 8 cents. Can you walk through the investment structure and why you believe this represents a compelling entry point, given where the company's positioned and what's ahead? Well, tax-driven investments by people, you know, are the way the Canadian junior mining industry has financed itself for about the last 4 years. And Quebec has always been a little bit ahead of the other provinces by giving a different advantage, a higher write-off for projects that are based in Quebec for investors that are paying Quebec taxes. So because of The fact that half of our project is in Quebec, and

13:05 the area is, as I said, full of a number of untested targets. And that gives us a good chance initially to raise Quebec's float through. But the other side of it is it's in Ontario, which is for national floatroute. And because it's for critical metals, there is an additional discount write-off for shareholders that buy national, what we call national floatroute shares. So in Quebec, it's 30% more write-off. In Ontario, it's 15% more. And these are certified critical metals projects, so we get that advantage. And that lets taxpayers basically, who are using this method of saving tax dollars, paying less than half of the price on the open market for the stock.

13:53 And there's a four-month hold period on the shares, of course, which everybody probably knows. But by the time that 4 months is up, we expect to have some positive results and the share price should be able to sustain itself and perhaps go higher if we have success. Right. So we're on this call here, December 1st, 2025. As you mobilise drills to site and prepare to test these EM anomalies, What would success look like in 2026? What are the key catalysts and milestones investors should be tracking as you advance this project forward?

14:27 Well, 2 things. Obviously, because we're starting to drill now and we will drill up until close to Christmas and then begin again in the new year. The results of those programs which we will get out as soon as we can and if they're positive, you know, we'll try to get fast track the asset results and all those things. That's a catalyst that should support our share price and hopefully enhance it. On the other side, we're looking forward to some new news from VRB Energy and the development of the VRB USA assets for production of these large-scale flow batteries for international markets. And those 2 things together were, of course, very hopeful, will support the StairPrice, enhance it, and show that the company has more value for existing shareholders and new investors.

15:16 Lee, thanks for the update. As we close off here, for the people attending live and that are going to watch the replay in a timely manner, who are interested in participating in this financing, what's the best way to reach the company? Contact me directly through my email address or if anybody wants to call me on the telephone at 416-716-5762. I'll be more than happy to discuss that with them, give them details and explain everything and hopefully if they're serious about it, then we can do some business. Excellent. Thank you for pitching us the company and we look forward to having you on again once the money's in the bank and your boots on the ground. Thanks Kyle. Well, boots are on the ground now. If there's any questions that are coming out right now that people want me to answer, I can try that or I can answer them later on.

16:09 Just give me a direct reply. Don't be shy people. I'll stay on for another 60 seconds here. Just if you have questions, feel free to submit them, but no questions in the chat just yet here, Lee. Okay, thank you, Kyle. No problem. You have a good one.