Thor Energy (LSE:THR) — Project Update

0:01 Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the THOR Mining PLC Investor Presentation relating to the project updates. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen only mode. Questions are encouraged. They can be submitted at any time using the Q and A tab situated on the right hand corner of your screen. All you need to do is just simply type in your questions and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question received during the meeting itself. However, the company will review all questions submitted today, and we'll publish those responses on the Investor Meet company platform. Before we begin, we would like to submit the following poll. And if you would, give that your kind participation, I'm sure, the company would be most grateful. And I'd now like to hand over, if I may, to managing director Nicole Cutaway Walland. Good morning. Thanks, Mark. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining THOR's investor meet company webinar.

0:48 As some of you may know, I've recently returned from The US visiting our uranium assets in Colorado and Utah. So I thought this was a great opportunity to give you an update on the project, particularly as we're drilling at Wedding Bell and Radium Mountain projects in The US

1:05 and also give you an update on THOR's corporate strategy. So whilst I'm giving a presentation, I'm gonna switch my camera off so you can see the slides a little bit clearer. And then towards the end when I address the pre submitted questions, I'll switch the camera back on.

1:26 Over the last few months, THOR has really targeted its exploration focus. So we're looking at our near term highest value projects, and this is particularly our US uranium opportunities as well as our multi element focus in Western Australia. So over in The US, we have 300% owned projects, Vanadium King, Wedding Bell, and Radium Mountain in Utah and Colorado within the Eurovan Mineral Belt, which is a proven mining jurisdiction. Uranium has short and long term favorable fundamentals. I think it's a great to be exploring for uranium. These are really being driven by global energy crisis, climate change initiatives, electrification, and then the bonus is actually having a US uranium projects.

2:21 And this is primarily due to geopolitical security of supply. As mentioned, we're currently on the ground drilling at Wedding Bell and Radium Mountain. Over in Western Australia, we have, highly prospective grounds exploring gold, nickel, copper, and lithium targets. We've just completed drilling at our Kelly's copper gold prospect and, great, alteration and sulfides visible in the chips, and we have to have those results out to the market shortly. Exploration is looking at improving our structural understanding and really unlocking the significant resource potential of this underexplored area. Just a quick corporate snapshot. We are dual listed on the AIM and the ASX.

3:13 Market cap sitting at about 10,000,000 with about £1,200,000 in the bank. We're in a strong corporate position to really focus on advancing these two projects towards discovery and development success, creating shareholder value. I've just got a photo over on the the right hand side of your screen, and this is just a head frame from one of the historic workings at our Colorado projects, uranium projects, which is just typical of the area. There's lots of historic workings in this region. Most of them stopped mining not because they ran out of material, but because of the drop in uranium price. So one of the real reasons for focusing in on our uranium projects is our board experience.

4:06 We have Alastair Clayton, based in The UK with uranium experience, myself, a geologist with over thirty years experience, and I've probably spent about a quarter of that exploring for uranium. I was involved in the discovery of the Sand Fire uranium deposit in South Australia and progressing that, which is an in situ recovery project towards the first trial. We have Martin Goff also based in Australia with a huge depth of experience who is with THROR ENERGY and was involved in the discovery of this uranium deposit in WA. So when we had this uranium asset come across our desk, we felt it was a bit of a no brainer based on our depth of experience. And now having been over to the project, I'm even more bullish, if anything, about the project.

5:00 So if we move into the projects, this is just a photograph taken, across the the projects in particular. And I just wanted to highlight that these are just very simple sedimentary sandstone, siltstone, almost horizontal horizon. So it's spectacular country, but it's very easy to explore in.

5:24 As mentioned, uranium has some favorable fundamentals at the moment. We've got Bank of America, for example, predicting, you know, a price increase of up to $70 US a pound by early twenty twenty three and others predicting, you know, a real bullish market. The key reasons driving this is the global demand, electrification, decarbonization, net zero carbon emission targets. We now see nuclear energy as a green energy, and we know that we have global energy crisis. So we need, you know, an alternate or baseload power and then infrastructure. So if we look at the supply chain, geopolitical uncertainty, we know in The USA imported almost 50% of its uranium derivatives from Russia and Kazakhstan.

6:20 And with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we saw a spike in the price of up to 20%. The price is currently sitting at a just under, oh, sorry, just over 50. I think it's about $53 US a pound. The share price graph is over two years, up to September 30. And you can really see the huge, increase in the prices we move forward. When uranium turns, it really turns quite quickly. So it's very much into that bullish market. If we tap into The US component of our assets, one favorable, geopolitical reasons, The US want national security.

7:05 It's the largest consumer of uranium, so it wants a domestic supply. I've talked a little bit about nuclear now as being a green energy. It's a carbon free baseload source, so it's twenty four seven. The deposits we're exploring for in the Eurovan Mineral Belt are high grade sandstone hosted shallow targets. They're in a proven mining jurisdiction, both Utah and Colorado, and as mentioned, an experienced board and management team with success, full track records. The projects themselves are within the Eurovan Mineral Belt on the border of Utah and Colorado. We have Wedding Bell and Radium Mountain basically, adjoin one another, and I often just refer to it as Wedding Bell, but they're, over 200 mineral claims.

7:57 And then we have Vanadium King in the Utah. These are a 100% owned. Very good infrastructure in the region, including White Mesa processing facility owned by ENERGY PLC in Blanding, which is a trucking distance and has the potential to toll treat any uranium ore. Having been over there, the towns are all very connected with the uranium industry, both the mining as well as the processing. They're very optimistic and very encouraging and really keen to get companies back in having success in the region. The, claims themselves have been mined up until the, twentieth century, so the nineteen sixties, nineteen seventies.

8:45 So they really haven't seen any real modern exploration. The province itself produced over 85,000,000 pounds of uranium with grades averaging about 25% uranium, which are really high grades. THOR's exploration, we've done some due diligence, identified grades up to 1.25% uranium, 3.4% vanadium, a long strike of some of the historic workings. Our focus at the moment is on our Colorado projects and that's where we're currently drilling. These are sandstones, salt wash style deposits. So a salt wash is really just the name of the host rock that they're in.

9:31 They're sandstone filled paleo channels, of Jurassic age. So, basically, the historic or old streams, they accumulate with vegetation, they become stagnant, they go into a reduced low oxidation environment and the uranium precipitates out and then forms into these siltstone and sandstone layers. I've just got a series of photos just to give you an idea of what, the region looks like. Another photo of just the topography of these layered sandstones. We've then got a zone of uraninite and kaufinite replacing some fossilized logs essentially. There's a photo of myself at the entrance to the Rimrock Portal, which is a historic, mine.

10:20 You can see at the top of the photo, there's these yellow oxidized sandstones, and then you move into the gray reduced sandstones. And then the photo over on the eastern side is underground at Rimrock, showing the room and pillar style of mining. And you can see the dark gray unit, which is the high grade uranium that they were targeting.

10:46 These are stacked systems. They're fairly narrow high grade systems, but I think what's amazing is the lateral continuity. I read about this continuity of the mineralization being continuous over meters to kilometers. But having been on the ground now, being fortunate enough to go to energy fuels, LaSalle operation, and also, Western uranium vanadium Sunday complex. I was just blown away by this lateral continuity. We're talking, you know, nine, ten kilometers of this continuation of this uranium mineralization. So it's very impressive. Most of the uranium is in uraninite and kaufinite, but there is a lot of, carnitite or oxide uranium sitting on the surface.

11:37 We're targeting the shallow, salt wash sandstone. We're currently, drilling rim rock and ground hog and Section 23. The area itself, in Colorado, the project, there are a lot of historic workings that warrant follow-up, but we decided to pick three areas to do our our first drilling program. Rimrock and groundhog are a long strike of historic workings. So we're targeting those zones of mineralization. And then Section 23, there's no historic drilling, and there's no historic workings in the vicinity. However, when you look at the photos, so the photo shows is taken at Section 23 looking across towards, groundhog.

12:23 And based on the lateral continuity, we believe that we will intersect, the salt wash, reduce sandstones, and potential uranium mineralization. So upper groundhog, as I've called it, we should target in less than, you know, 30 to 50 meter deep depths and then lower groundhog around a 100 meters deep. We've, just finished finished section 23 drilling. The rig's having a small break, and then we're moving into drilling at rim rock and groundhog. With uranium, you at the end of your drilling program, you drop down a gamma probe, and this gives you a uranium value almost instantaneous. The geophysicist processes it, so we have the results basically in two to three days from taking those readings.

13:14 We will also, as this is our first program, be sending some of the lab results to the lab just as part of an orientation and due diligence. So, look, I'm really excited about this project, You know, getting on the ground and actually partaking in some of the targeting, doing some mapping has really, you know, made me a lot more excited and optimistic about the project and looking forward to following it through not only this drilling program, but moving forward, next year and following up on some of these areas and looking at the resource potential. So if we move over to our Ragged Range project in Western Australia, this is located in the East Pilbara Greenstone terrain. It's Archean in age.

14:02 I think it's one of the best jurisdictions to be exploring for gold and lithium. We've, got a 100% control of the Greenstone Belt. We're in close proximity to large scale gold deposits. We've got Calladus just to the north, at Waruna project, 1,200,000 ounces. And then Degray is not too far to the Northwest of us. We also in the Pilgrim have two of the world's largest spodumene hard rock lithium deposits, Wodgina and Pilagan Gora. So from a prospectivity point of view, we're in close proximity to large scale deposits. We've got favorable host rocks, favorable structural settings. So really optimistic about this greenfields play.

14:52 If we zoom into the tenure, we can see on the Western side, we've been focusing in on our sterling gold prospect. This is a 13 kilometer gold corridor identified on a thrust fault contact between the mafics and ultramafics. Identified through stream sediment sampling and soil sampling identifying up to 2.2 grams per ton gold, 74 grams per ton in panning. We have done a little bit of drilling and identified some anomalous gold and we're continuing to understand the structural settings so we can identify the source of this gold. Just to the south, we have our nickel Krona prospect where we have a nickel Gossen extending over one kilometer.

15:42 We've done one drill hole into, the Gossen identifying 66 meters at point 2% nickel, from 81 meters. This is really encouraging as a first pass drill hole. It looks like we just touched the edge of the electromagnetic conductor, and I'll talk a little bit more about that. So looking forward to getting back on the ground to follow that up. As mentioned, we've, just completed drilling over at our Kelly's Copper Gold area in the Northeast. This has been historically explored for copper with very little assaying on the gold front. In the North, we have our lithium targets focusing on the split rock super sweet and the contact around that.

16:31 So if we look at the Kelly's Gold copper prospect, this is a little bit different to Sterling. It's located on the contact between the euro basalts and the Babina porphyry. But, traditionally, it's focused on copper, and there's some historic workings around the copper pro the Kelly's prospect itself. But we've identified this 1.5 kilometer solidified contact and we rod chip identified 15.5 grams per ton gold up to 535 grams per ton silver. And doing a little bit more investigation, we found a historic drill intercept

17:13 underneath this ridge where they reported 1.5 meters at 23 grams per ton gold. So we've done two drill holes beneath this intercept as well as a few other holes along strike of, that intercept following up the rock chips. And then over at the historic copper workings, the workings are fairly shallow. So looking at the copper carbonates, the malachites. So we've done some drill holes to look at the extent of the mineralization at depth, for primary copper sulfides, but also it was never assayed for gold. So looking at if there is gold associated with the copper workings. So we finished drilling.

17:58 We've expediated the samples to labs. This time around, I've prioritized the gold, and we will get the gold results a little bit before we get the base metal results so it doesn't take quite as long to get news flow to the market. The mineralization the sorry. The chips that I've seen to date, some interesting intercepts of serocyte alteration, sulfides, as well as huge zones of silicification. So I'm really excited to be getting those results back from the lab as soon as possible. If we zoom in a Corona prospect, as mentioned, we've got a nickel Gosson. There's a lovely photo of this Gosson that extends over a kilometer, 200 meters wide.

18:46 We're the first company to explore this Gosson. We did a field ground EM survey or electromagnetic survey looking for EM conductors, which may indicate nickel sulfide mineralization. We identified a conductor, and that's what we drilled into. Unfortunately, the drill hole dropped. So instead of it being at minus 65 degrees, unfortunately, it dropped 10 degrees, and it looks like we just scraped the edge of that conductor. We've done some downhole EM, and that's identified a conductor to the side of the drill hole. So we'll be going back into this area to put three drill holes and trust me, they'll be going smack bang into the middle of that conductor and there'll be no room for error.

19:36 So also on the nickel, we've done some assaying for the platinum group elements, which are often associated with nickel sulfide deposits. So we'll be following up on those hopefully soon. From a lithium prospectivity point of view, as mentioned, we're obviously in the world class jurisdiction with Wodgina and Pillegrand Gora close by. They're all associated with the split rock super sweet. It's not the the granite or super sweet itself. It's actually where the, pegmatites radiate out from this, granitic unit and into the adjacent host rock, which in our case is the Euro basalts. So we're exploring what we call the Goldilocks Zone, which is a five to 10 kilometer radius around the Split Rock super suite targeting the lithium, cesium, tantalum, pegmatites.

20:31 So now that we've completed drilling, we'll be back on the ground following up, looking at these priority targets that we've identified.

20:42 Yes, we do have other significant assets. Our focus, as I mentioned early on though, is really focusing in on our uranium exposure, as well as our ragged range project. In South Australia, we have interest in three copper projects, two through our 30% equity in Enviro Copper. You may have heard recently Enviro Copper at their Kapundra project have received 2,500,000 investment funding from Aus Minerals over the next eighteen months with the idea of really aggressively pushing the in situ recovery progress and getting it to a mining lease phase. Obviously, this will benefit the Alfred project where we've got some nice, drill holes, 73 meters at 1% copper from six meters below surface, 80 meters at 2% copper.

21:37 So although we are continuing to progress, these areas ourselves, we are seeking a joint venture partner to really accelerate the resource extension and progress that project. In the Northern Territory, we have our tungsten and molybdenum copper project. This is an advanced project. It is essentially at development phase. We completed a feasibility study back in 2018. The project itself has major project status, and this is primarily due to the tungsten being a critical mineral in Australia as well as The US. So we're now seeing quite a bit of interest in the project from national security, both Australian and international.

22:27 Most of the world's, tungsten is produced from China. I think it's 80%, with The US only producing 3%. So from a geopolitical reason, this project is attracting quite a lot of attention. So we are seeking a joint venture partner to drive that project into development and hence production. We have a few parties doing some due diligence, so hope to have some news flow and updates out to the market on that shortly. So just looking at, the projects, we're on the ground actively exploring in The US at our wedding bell project. And then over in the Pilbara, we've completed the drilling at Kelly's, should have some results through from that shortly.

23:17 We'll be following up with drilling at our nickel project prospects, sorry, as well as regional exploration. You do need to get on the ground to have discoveries, and that's exactly what we're doing. We're busy on the ground actively exploring. So just in summary, I think we have, great opportunities with our US uranium assets. Uranium has, as mentioned, extremely favorable fundamentals, particularly a US asset. At the Pilbara, we've got high value multi commodity exposure. These projects are both based in proven mineralized terrains. We've got a strong pipeline of targets to follow-up.

24:03 Divestment opportunities, which I've touched on briefly, and an experienced board and management team. We have quite, a lot of news flow coming up. I think first off the rank will be our drilling results from the uranium wedding bell Radium Mountain project, in particular, the Downhole Gamma. We'll have news flow from Kelly's prospect, our drilling results. As mentioned, we'll have the gold come through first followed by the multi elements. And then at Kroner Nickel, we'll have our platinum group assays coming through. And then I hope to have some divestment opportunities, some updates on Molly Hill and Alfred East to the market, in the coming months as well.

24:51 So, look, that draws me to a conclusion on the presentation. So I'm happy to now answer any questions that people may have submitted. That's great. Nicole, thank you very much indeed for updating investors this morning. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions using the q and a tab just situated on the right hand corner of your screen. Just while we give Nicole just a few moments to review those questions that you submitted already, I'd like to remind you that recording of this presentation along with a copy of the slides and the published q and a can be accessed via your investment company dashboard. Nicole, I'm just gonna bring your camera up for the q and a. Okay. If I could just ask you to open up the q and a tab on the right hand side of your screen. You see you received a number of questions throughout today's presentation, and there there are a few that pre submitted. So if I may just hand back to you on where appropriate, if I could ask you to read out the questions and give a response, and then I'll pick up from you at the end.

25:44 Okay. Thanks, Mark. What are your priorities for the remainder of the year, and what is being planned for the first half of twenty twenty three expiration? So the priorities for the end of this year are our drilling at Wedding Bell and Radium Mountain uranium projects in The US and the news flow from that as well as the news flow from the Kelly's drilling project. Moving into next year, there's a lot of, targets to follow-up at our Pilbara project. And over in The US, we've been focusing on the Colorado side of things. We'll continue to, be reviewing some of those historic workings where I mentioned, mining ceased not because they'd finished the the resource, but because of the uranium price. So we'll be reviewing those to look at the potential for establishing job resources, and we'll be also moving over to look at our Utah project.

26:45 What is your view on the 2020 program and how it's gone so far? Can you provide a business outlook and a view on the current macro environment? Look. We've had a busy 2022. We haven't had a major discovery like, I would have liked, but we have made, I think, very, positive, exploration progress, particularly at, our Pilbara project and, obviously getting on the ground, with our drilling permits, and being now drilling in The US at our uranium project is also positive progress. Look. The market, I think, is very bullish about uranium, and that's where it's great to have a uranium asset. Some of the other commodities are also fairly bullish such as lithium.

27:34 We have seen a downturn in some of, you know, across the board, share prices. I think we're completely undervalued, and we'd like to see, you know, as we start to get some positive results out to market that we see an, you know, an increase in that share price. Do you have any plans to offload certain projects? I think I've touched base briefly on the divestment opportunities, in particular, Molly Hill project. We would like to maintain an equity interest, but we wanna see that project move into development and production phase. And the best way to do that is through a joint venture earning partnership. What are your plans, for Alfred East?

28:23 Look. Again, we'd love to get a joint venture partner in so that we can keep momentum and progress on that project. We've made some great progress, particularly on the in situ recovery as well as the three d modeling and targeting in on higher grade copper mineralization. So, again, I'd like to see that momentum stay, you know, up and hence having a partner come in and help us with that.

28:50 Any progress on the potential joint venture? Again, I've touched base on the joint venture opportunity at Molly Hill, and I hope to have some news flow out to that shortly. What is the latest progress on EnviroCopper? I have touched briefly on that. We now have Aus Minerals investing 2,500,000 into the project over the next eighteen months, and I think we're going to really see some progress on the in situ recovery front driving that project to a mining lease and trials in place. Given the size of the company, the number of projects, how does the company ensure it retains its key people?

29:37 I think that the the the obvious question into that is that we're a very enthusiastic driven team. We like our projects. These are exciting projects to be following up. And, you know, technical people are driven by challenges and milestone successes, and so that will keep the key people. You seem very optimistic. What do you think will be the next milestone we should look for validating your views? Look. I think it will be a news flow out of our US uranium project, in particular, Wedding Bell and Radiant Mountain, and also news flow from the drilling at Kelly's. Look. I am optimistic.

30:24 Like I said, getting on the ground in The US just reiterated, I think, the opportunities of that project. Looking at the regional context, looking what I saw on the ground, I am very bullish, and I like, you know, that project. And I think, you know, there'll be the initial news flow from the results of the drilling. But I think moving forward, we have the opportunity to move towards resources at some of the historic workings fairly swiftly. So, you know, I'm looking forward to to seeing that come through to the market in due course. Can you speak oh, well, thank you. Can you, please speak to the dismal sterling drilling results, that came out yesterday?

31:12 Look. You know, gold is where gold is. We can have the most, scientific logical approach to our exploration strategies, and I think that's what we have done. We've systematically worked sterling. It hasn't been explored by other people. We're the first company to get on the ground and drill. We have a lot to learn from each of these drilling campaigns. We, did intercept anomalous gold. Yes. It wasn't to the tenure that we anticipated, but it has identified key areas of alteration. And like I said, anomalous gold. So we'll be using that information to come up with understanding the structural settings, targets for the source of the gold. We know we've got a lot of gold on the surface, so we need to understand and identify the source of that gold.

32:06 That's great, Nicole. I think I might just jump in on the basis of every question from investors you've taken and you've answered. So thank you firstly to everybody for their engagement this morning. And, Nicole, thank you for your time, this morning and updating investors. I know investor feedback is important to Nicole, and I'll shortly redirect everybody on the call to give you their thoughts and expectations. But I wondered if I may just ask you just for a few closing comments, and then I'll give investors the opportunity for their feedback. Yes. Look. I'd really like to thank you all for joining me this morning or tonight wherever you're tuning in from. I hope to have some positive news flow on uranium assets as well as our Pilbara project in the coming weeks and look forward to to seeing, you know, some really positive progress with THOR and seeing the share price move forward in a positive way. Thank you very much. Nicole, that's very kind of you. Thank you for updating investors once again.

33:01 Ladies and gentlemen, please ask you not to close this session as we'll now automatically redirect you for the opportunity to provide your feedback in order that the management team can better understand your views and expectations. This will only take a few moments to complete, but I'm sure it be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team at THOR Mining PLC, we'd like to thank you for attending this morning's presentation, and I wish you all a very pleasant afternoon. And good evening to you, Nicole. Thank you.