Corporate Update from Pacific Empire Minerals: A Fresh Look at Worldstock

Trevor Hall: Welcome back to Mining Stock Daily from the Association for Mineral Exploration Roundup conference here in Vancouver. I'm now joined by Mr. Brad Peters, who's CEO of Pacific Empire Minerals. Pacific Empire trades on the TSX-Venture as PEMC and on the OTCQB market as PEMSF. They are also a sponsor of the podcast. Brad it's always good to see you. Welcome back to Mining Stock Daily.

Brad Peters: Good to be back, thank you Trevor.

Trevor Hall: We've got a couple things to chat about quickly. The main thing is drilling that was finishing up at Pinnacle. I know you can't really share much of the results yet because it was not publicly released. Brad Peters: I don't know them yet! Trevor Hall: Please give us a rundown of what you were seeing at Pinnacle and what the game plan is there as we move into 2020.

Brad Peters: Thank you, Trevor. We finished up the year with a small drill program at the Pinnacle property where we had a few areas that we'd always wanted to test. Specifically in the area of the Elbow zone, where previous operators had drilled gold consistently over a fairly wide area. The area is a swamp and really the only way to get into that area was during the winter months. The Elbow target area and the Sooner target area were our priority for our fall winter drill program. We got in there and found that the forestry company, at the same time, was laying out and building road -- approximately 10 to 20 kilometers across the property. When we learned they would be covering the Sooner area this winter with the road, we basically decided that instead of drilling the Sooner target area, which would have required significant mobilization, we worked the Later target area to the south of the property. That was the second target area that we tested. We put two holes -- fairly wide-spaced holes in each target area. As a result of that, we elected to send two of those holes to the lab for analysis. We're currently awaiting the results of the laboratory analysis on those holes.

Trevor Hall: You're not sitting around waiting for those results. Are you mobilizing the RC drill to somewhere else on the property or to another project?

Brad Peters: We're making plans for 2020. Prior to drilling the Pinnacle last year, we started using a passive seismometer with the drill in order to determine depth to bedrock. That helped us eliminate holes that we should never drill because we never hit bedrock. Once we had that down, it became part of our secret sauce for lack of a better term. The calibration numbers that we'd refined from using the drill with the seismometer allowed us to go out into certain areas in central British Columbia and do cover fairly large areas with the seismometer. As a result of that work, we were able to identify and then further confirm a couple target areas that we've really been interested in here over the last number of years. That resulted in the acquisition, through staking, of the WEEDON property, which is just to the north of Prince George. In addition, we were very fortunate last year to acquire, through an option agreement, the WORLDSTOCK property, which is a property north of Kamloops -- about 100 kilometers north of Kamloops. That area has been, for the most part, locked up for over 20 years. Through another company's misfortune we were able to get it. I think they may have forgotten to file work and keep the claims up-to-date. The ground that we'd wanted in that area came open, so we were able to acquire that through an option agreement. What we've been doing here over the last couple of months here is putting together all the data on those projects, in addition to the Pinnacle.

Brad Peters: What we'll do here over the next month or two is continue to refine targets, see what we get from the Pinnacle, and rank the targets for priority in 2020. As it currently stands, geography plays a role and the location of the WORLDSTOCK is a property that is on the top of the list because it is so far south and what we see on the ground and in historical exploration programs on the property.

Trevor Hall: What is some of that data from the WORLDSTOCK that is appealing?

Brad Peters: Most importantly for us is the presence of a mineralized porphyry at surface. This is something that's not typically common on projects. It's not uncommon to have copper mineralization at surface, but it is somewhat uncommon to see that copper mineralization directly associated with a porphyry intrusion. In the case of the WORLDSTOCK property, for example, it was close to the mining town of Kamloops but was heavily forested. It wasn't really until the late '90s that it was opened up with logging operations that the discovery of the the WORLDSTOCK showing was made by a prospector. Immediately following that, a company called Christopher James Gold Corp did an option agreement, put together the land position, and conducted exploration for a number of years that included trenching and diamond drilling. The trenches intersected that mineralized porphyry about three or four meters under cover. The subsequent diamond drill program they did, again, confirmed the presence of that mineralized porphyry. They only did 888 meters in seven holes, I think it was. They did a very short drill program. Unfortunately for that company, changes were made to the I guess the internal structure of the company and they decided that they were going to pursue other opportunities. Subsequent to that, the property was then acquired by a company named Gunpoint and then the property was purchased by another company, Jiulian Resources. They did a tremendous amount of work on the property over a period of probably four years -- geochemistry, geophysics, stream sediment sampling. A very detailed sampling program. All of this work really confirmed what led us into the property, originally. On a very, very broad scale, when you look at the regional stream sediment geochemistry in southern British Columbia, there is about half a dozen very, very large prominent copper-gold-molybdenum anomalies that represent the footprint for porphyry deposits. Those are represented currently by Copper Mountain, Highland Valley, Afton, Ajax, and Harper Ranch which is 800 million tons at around 0.3% copper. All of these large anomalies are represented by known mines or deposits. The only one that wasn't was the WORLDSTOCK, which ranks up there in the top three I would say in terms of size and scale of anomaly. That's what brought us into the property and kept our eyes on it for the last decade -- it was the work by the operators over the last number of years that really confirmed for us that this was a very substantial anomaly worthy follow-up drilling from the drilling in the early 2000s.

Trevor Hall: Brad, we have just a couple minutes left but can you talk about the strength of Pacific Empire as being agile and really being able to mobilize quickly from project to project. When you moved into Pinnacle, that move happened pretty quickly. Now as you're awaiting results from Pinnacle, you continue to be agile and can start transitioning into WORLDSTOCK. It seems that's a benefit that most companies junior mining companies do not have if they're holding only one project.

Brad Peters: I think that's a strength of our company. Our portfolio turns over. We do not keep properties in the portfolio that we feel do not meet expectations or just don't deliver the results that we need to keep going on a property. We're not afraid to drill and kill. We understand this is a numbers game and if we want to reward our shareholders to give them the maximum upside in terms of exposure to discovery, then it's critical that we are able to drill at an early stage to identify the projects that are the winners. As a consequence of that, we're going to have to kill projects. You can't fall in love with projects. If it doesn't meet expectations, you have to make sure the portfolio has attractive targets to drill but, at the same time, you can't fall in love with projects and will them into being a mine.

Trevor Hall: If projects do get killed, do let the claims lapse? What do you do there?

Brad Peters: It depends. For example, we had some smaller targets in the Bulkley like the SAT project that we optioned and then put 10 holes into. Prior to our drilling, there was mineralization in drilling, but we really stepped out on all sides of the target and drilled. We weren't able to replicate prior results on step-outs, so it was very clear to us that although there was copper mineralization on the project, it didn't have the scale we need.

Brad Peters: On a project like the Pinnacle, for example, where we can step-out 800 meters or 3-4 kilometers or even up to 6 kilometers and continue to drill gold, then that's different. That's still intriguing for us, although we have yet to find a copper center. Although we feel that project is not an immediate target for us, we're not willing to let that drop because we haven't hit the copper center.

Trevor Hall: Brad, let's wrap things up here at Roundup. As we move on to the next conference in the season, what do you want investors to know for the next few months?

Brad Peters: I think it's important for investors to appreciate that we are really in it for discovery. We believe discovery is possible. We believe that drilling is the only way that effectively expedites the process of discovery. You need to chew through a number of properties and in order to do that we need that we need to find a cost-effective method of drilling. As a prospect generator you don't have an unlimited budget. No companies in this business right now have an unlimited budget and that was the real challenge for us, I think, in the first year. By combining passive seismometer technology with XRF analysis and then modifying our drill, we've got our approach dialed. Shareholders can look at us as a company that is always conscious of making sure the money's put into the ground and the treasury is respected.

Trevor Hall: Brad, thank you so much for your time. It's good to catch up with you and actually see you in person this time!

Brad Peters: You bet. Thank you so much Trevor. Appreciate it.

Trevor Hall: That's Brad Peters, the President and CEO of Pacific Empire minerals, which is traded on the TSX Venture Exchange.