Graham Harris. How’s it going? Excellent. very much. You’re very welcome. Glad you’re here. We’re at the rule investment 2024 rule investment symposium. How’s the, uh, how’s the vibe out there and how’s the traffic, uh, foot traffic and that sort of thing?
The vibe is pretty upbeat. Um, you know, I think Rick’s made some great comments at the opening, you know, and My space, I’m in the lithium space and it’s in a bit of a downturn and nothing that his investors haven’t experienced before.
And he was very astute at pounding the table to get people back into uranium a couple years ago. And when that was, you know, having its downtrend and that’s working out well for all his people. And so I think, uh, now it’s a great time and thank you for having me and to be able to talk about lithium and our company.
Yeah, absolutely. Let’s start with a 30, 000 foot view with, if you would, with lithium. Um, for the last couple of years, it’s been such a great, if you would, sector and asset to own. We’ve had a downturn, I want to say, you know, this a lot more than I do in the last, uh, probably last 12 months, if you would.
It’s really gotten beaten up a lot, but that’s where you really want to look at or places I want to look at, uh, being a contrarian. So comment about that, about just a 30, 000 foot view on lithium and the outlook for that. Yeah.
I mean, you gotta be careful. I mean, when some things are in a downturn, uh, if they’re in a downturn for a reason, but you know, in the case of lithium, we, we know that the longterm demand is there and that’s, what’s really important here is this wasn’t just a little blip and it’s over.
Um, you know, we, we know that, uh, EV growth is. It’s flowing, but it’s still growing at 25 percent a year. Okay. It’s not growing at 50 percent and then all the headlines you read are, Oh, EV sales are down. Well, they’re not down. They’re actually up and up 25 percent sequentially a year over year. They’re just down from the expected 50 percent growth rate that people were, were, you know, climbing onto originally.
So, you know, the, the sector itself is in, is in great shape. Um, you know, we’re at a million tons a year. Uh, for lithium, uh, demands expected to grow to about 4 million by 2035. So there’s a lot of good projects that need to come online to meet that demand. And as you know, and I’ve said this before, uh, you know, the cure for low prices is low prices.
Because in this environment, um, companies are putting off expansion. Uh, they’re not getting the capital to bring the new projects on. And your investors, I’m sure, are very aware in this business that, uh, they’re You know, mining takes some kind of time. You just don’t magically put a mine into production and everything works magically well.
And it’s actually quite the opposite. So, these delays are going to further exacerbate the supply demand equation. So, I think it’ll come back into, you know, into parity. And I think we’ll see the lithium prices rebound here in the next year or so. And then, um, that should be good for people who want to invest in lithium stocks.
Yeah, excellent. So let’s talk about the company itself. Uh, give us just an overview of the company and, um, yeah, and the projects that you have right now.
Okay. Uh, Surge Battery Metals. It’s, it’s interesting. Um, what’s, what’s really interesting about this. I was involved in a company called Millennial Lithium, which I founded in 2016 and, uh, started that at absolute scratch.
And, uh, we sold that to Lithium Americas in 2022 for half of a billion dollars. Um, so. After that sale, you know, instead of riding off into the sunset and doing nothing, we, what I realized was that over those six years of building, uh, Millennial Lithium, the key to me was the team. And I really wanted to, I enjoyed working with the team, I trusted the team, and I really wanted to keep that team together.
And so we set about looking for another lithium asset. And lo and behold, we, we, we identified one called, um, Surge Battery Metals, their main assets, the Nevada North Lithium Project in Northeast Nevada. And at first blush, uh, we didn’t really believe in the, in the story because the grades were just too good to be true.
It was like, okay, well, how come nobody else is figuring this out or it’s not getting the love that it should have had at the time. And the bottom line was they didn’t have any lithium experience, no lithium management. And unlike other, other parts of mining, uh, copper. You know, iron or gold, whatever you’re looking at.
It’s more of a chemical engineering process, lithium extraction. So you really need a lot of expertise. Uh, and fortunately enough, I was able to have our team look at this project and sure enough, the grades held up and we’ve been proving that ever since I moved the millennial lithium team over to search battery metals just about a year ago, actually.
And, uh, we’ve been advancing the project from there.
Excellent. So let’s talk now about really. What I’m most interested in as a retail investor is how you’re going to be looking out for me and protecting me. Tell me about the share structure of the company. Um, how many, uh, shares outstanding if you are fully diluted, if you would.
And then, yeah, um, what’s your process, if you good in expanding the project and growing the project and also protecting me from dilution, if you would. I don’t mind dilution as long as it’s going in to build the company. But so talk about that.
Yeah, that’s a great point. I mean, I think it’s important to remember, like, I’m a shareholder too.
Right. So I share the same fears that every other shareholder would face. Um, you know, there’s no magic formula that’s, uh, you know, I can protect my shares versus anybody else. But, uh, we’re well aware of, um, you know, wanting to, especially at this point in time when the stock’s down, you don’t want to see us do a financing.
I was able last year to take advantage of a good market, raise enough capital that’s going to allow us to get through this year’s program. And by the end of this year’s program, we’ve had some substantial, uh, progress in terms of We’re going to have an increase in the resource, and we’re going to come up with the PEA, and I’m hoping by that time the lithium market, it seems to have bottomed, will be turning, and if we have to do any, uh, any capital raising, it won’t be at such diluted prices, and I, I share that concern.
Excellent. How many, um, what percentage of the company is owned by insiders, such as yourself, um, as opposed to retail investors, from what I would be?
I would say on a fully diluted basis, we own, uh, management owns and controls about 20%, somewhere between 15 and 20%. Um, our other large shareholder is American Lithium.
They came in for 10 percent of the company last year. Once I brought my lithium team on, it’s funny enough, they’ve been looking at this project for quite some time and also didn’t trust the asset because they didn’t have any lithium people. So once we moved our team in place, uh, they gave me a call and they came in for 10 percent of the company right away.
You beat him to the punch.
Dragged him along with me.
Right, right. Okay, yeah, if you would, what, what were the final thoughts if you would, you’d like to leave investors and why should they be investing in, uh, in the company?
Well, I think there’s a very, uh, smart man. I think his name was Warren Buffett.
Never heard of him.
You know, his, his motto is be, be greedy when others are fearful and fearful when others are greedy. And right now, uh, the, the lithium market is full of fear. I smell opportunity. I think there’s a great opportunity in, in this company, um, as a proxy for, for playing the lithium space. We have the best lithium asset in all of the United States of America, and I think that’s going to be borne out through the, through the work we’re doing.
And just trust all we can do is as a management team is de risk this project, keep de risking and keep de risking it and the value will rise to the top. And I think, uh, fortunately for us having this interview today, if we. Talk again in a year’s time. Hopefully the lithium market will have turned and I think people will be well rewarded by, uh, investing in search battery metals.
Excellent. So, if company, or if people wanted to research you, get more information about you, how would they do that? And also, if they wanted to buy your stock, uh, where would they buy it and what’s your stock ticker?
Okay, we’re listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, on the Venture Markets, um, TSX, uh, V, symbol is N I L I, And we’re also listed on the OTCQB down here in the States, so you can buy here either U.
S. or Canada. It’s very liquid. It’s not one of these things you have to make an appointment to go buy a share. It’s, uh, we were trading up to 5, 10 million shares a day last year when we put out our results, and it’s, it continues to be quite liquid. So, you know, as far as, um, you know, investigating the company, there’s a lot of, a lot of research out there.
We’re covered by Sprott Capital, the sponsor here. We’re covered by Roth. Uh, you can access all that, uh, information on our website and I encourage everybody to do so.
Oh, excellent. Graham Harris, Surge Battery Metals. Thank you so much. I
appreciate your time. Thanks much. Really appreciate the opportunity.
You bet.
