In-depth with Brad Peters: Pacific Empire Minerals Begins Drilling at Pinnacle Porphyry

Trevor Hall: Welcome to Mining Stock Daily. It is Friday November 22nd and we've got an in-depth interview today with Brad Peters, the CEO of Pacific Empire Minerals. Pacific Empire sponsors the podcast along with some great other companies: Western Copper and Gold, Integra Resources, and the Association for Mineral Exploration. We have a great discussion with Brad about Pacific Empire mobilizing and beginning to drill at the PINNACLE Porphyry Project there in British Columbia. Pacific Empire trades on the Toronto Venture Exchange with the symbol PEMC and also on the OTCQB market in the US with the symbol PEMSF. Brad, good to have you on board. Drilling is now underway at the PINNACLE Porphyry project in British Columbia.

Brad Peters: Thanks, Trevor. I appreciate that. A little history on the PINNACLE -- it's a property we've had since our inception as a company. Since 2013. And since that time we've been fortunate to have two groups do partner-funded exploration on the property, most notably Oz Minerals in 2014-15. Subsequent to that, ML Gold did drilling on the project.

Brad Peters: Prior to our current RC program, all the drilling was diamond drilling. The short story is, basically, that drilling was very encouraging to us.

Brad Peters: What we've seen beginning with the first hole into the ELBOW Zone, which is right in the middle of the property, was encouraging. The first hole was drilled there by Oz and returned 94 meters at 0.34 Gold. Subsequent to that, the drilling at the SOONER target by Oz Minerals in the same year of 2015 also encountered anomalous copper over several hundred meters. When ML Gold came in and operated for two drill seasons, their drilling wasn't too much different in the sense that they drilled anomalous gold in the majority of the holes. For us, it's the presence on this property of relatively widespread gold that we've seen in drilling and in the creeks surrounding the property. Most notably, an area to the east that really indicates to us the potential for a higher grade copper center based on what we're seeing. This looks to be a very large gold halo. The question for us with the ongoing drill program is where are we in relation to this halo.

Trevor Hall: Brad, you did mention the ninety four metres grading 0.34 grams per tonne gold that Oz released about five years ago. The company's gonna focus drilling north of those drill holes for the potential of a copper-gold porphyry deposit towards the center of that potential deposit. Can you effectively communicate a visualization of where you think this halo of gold might be?

Brad Peters: Absolutely. When Oz came in, the first thing we did before they drilled was they funded three ground-based IP surveys. The first of the surveys was much further to the south at the LATER Target area, which we can talk about later. At the ELBOW Zone and the SOONER Zone, the results of IP surveys at both zones showed a significant area of chargeability. Subsequent to those surveys, we ended up purchasing additional data that was privately held to the north. In addition, ML Gold did a small IP survey in the Aplite Creek area as well.

Brad Peters: By compiling all of that IP data, what we originally saw looked like two separate and distinct chargeability anomalies. One at ELBOW and one at SOONER. Once we compiled and amalgamated all of the existing IP data, it became clear to us that they were not two separate anomalies. At the SOONER area, that would have been the western extension of a much larger chargeability anomaly. At the ELBOW, that looks to be the southeast extension of that larger chargeability field, which really extends to the north. That's where we want to be. What that appears to be causing that signature is pyrite and gold plus or minus gold. That really is the motivation here for giving us direction to move to the north. Once we assembled this larger IP chargeability field, it looked like the drilling that was done by Oz and by ML Gold at the ELBOW Zone was probably occurring on the southeastern flank of that chargeability anomaly. That's why we're moving to the north.

Trevor Hall: I think worthy to mention that the PINNACLE Porphyry project is just over 14,000 hectares in size. It's a pretty good land package. After you move north, I wonder what's the potential for stepping-out from these areas and using the RC drill to hit other targets? Are there other areas of focus within that 14,000 hectare land package that might also be targets here in early 2020?

Brad Peters: There are a number of targets. In the past, this property was exclusively helicopter-access, which makes early-stage reconnaissance drilling expensive. Over the last two to three years, there's been a tremendous amount of logging activity in the area and this logging activity has really opened up where we are now at ELBOW, SOONER, and LATER. These logging operations are going to continue moving to the north, which is absolutely perfect for us opening up additional target areas as well in terms of what we have for target areas. At this moment, we do have scheduled drilling for the LATER Target, which is approximately six and a half kilometers south of the ELBOW target area and that's available to us immediately -- very close to existing logging roads. That target is now cost-effective to drill test. You never know what loggers will do, but they are planning to do more and it looks like they will be logging further to the north of the ELBOW area into the area of Aplite Creek, for example, which is where there was drilling in the early 90s. Again, they intersected anomalous copper and gold with a porphyry intrusion. The scale and extent was limited, but needless to say it certainly was there. That chargeability field that I've described continues even to the north of Aplite Creek and that area looks like it will be opening up here next year.

Brad Peters: As the logging operations continue to move further to the north, additional target areas will be open for us there just to the north of Aplite Creek. That is still within the PINNACLE Property, which we we've had for some time. We amalgamated our land position to the north with the PINNACLE. We were up there doing some reconnaissance prospecting and seismic surveys up in that area this summer, and there are additional targets in that area that we have to further define before we our RC drill in there. This is a project really that I would consider to be a target-rich project.

Trevor Hall: Very good. Do you think comes a time with the RC drill that maybe you need to come in with some diamond core drilling to get really accurate numbers? Do you see that happening in 2020 or is that not on the forefront of your thoughts right now?

Brad Peters: It all really depends on the results we do get from our RC drilling. The nice thing about the RC drilling is it allows us to drill a greater number of holes on more of a structured grid pattern. What we're looking for are really the footprints of a porphyry system, directly. If we were to to have reasonable confidence that we're in the immediate vicinity of the copper porphyry center, then we would look at bringing in a diamond drill at that point.

Trevor Hall: And the old holes were all diamond drills?

Brad Peters: That's correct. All of Oz Minerals' holes were diamond drilling and it was all oriented core, as well, which has certainly been very helpful for us.

Trevor Hall: To play devil's advocate with you, those were pretty wide intervals from Oz Minerals but the grades -- 0.34 grams per tonne gold? Do you and Rory Ritchie, the VP Exploration, think there's a decent reason to believe that those grades can be improved upon?

Brad Peters: We do and that's exactly what we're looking for. What we've seen in the drilling to date really suggests to us that we're in the neighbourhood. The drilling to date has been in areas where we're seeing pyrite-gold and that's more typical of being on the margins of a copper center. It is that copper center we're looking for. If we can identify the area where that copper center is located, then I would have to think that the grades would be there with the intervals, as well. And that's exactly what we're looking for -- we're looking for in excess of 0.3% copper and 0.3 grams per tonne gold.

Trevor Hall: And you are a prospect generator. What is your endgame? Can you describe how much work Pacific Empire is willing to put into this project and then what else is the endgame for PINNACLE?

Brad Peters: In terms of our strategy, the way we're going about advancing projects is a little different than your typical generator where they would look at bringing in partners much earlier than we would. What we're able to do now with the drill -- our custom-built RC drill -- is special in BC. We are on the cutting edge by using it to look through the cover. When we combine that with using our passive seismometer, which gives us a depth to bedrock, it allows us to cost-effectively advance the projects. As a prospect generator, our strategy is to get the project as far along as possible for potential partners. And to keep optionality. There may be situations, for example, where we've identified a very intriguing copper system and the market gives the money to test it. Say, five million dollars to put two diamond rigs on it. We understand that not all projects and not all targets are going to work but, for those that do, we feel that we can get a certain degree of increased value for our projects by taking them much further than the traditional generator. By taking the project further than traditional generators, we have two ways to move successful projects forward: we have the option of bringing in a partner or the option to continue advancing it ourselves, depending on the cost of capital.

Trevor Hall: And what is your 2020 looking like? Will you spend most of your focus at PINNACLE or are there other projects that you and Rory might need to spend some time and money on?

Brad Peters: In the fall of this year we staked a project called WEEDON, just to the north of Prince George. It is a very intriguing target that was drill-tested but, if I'm not mistaken, they only got to within a few meters of bedrock. They didn't have seismic data, so they didn't really know where bedrock was and that hole was terminated early. We went up there this summer and did some work with the seismometers. That work indicated to us that the depth of bedrock is less than 50 meters, probably on the order of about 40-odd meters, which is ideal for our drill. And that's a project that we are going to be certainly looking at in 2020.

Brad Peters: In addition, we are in the later stages of permitting a project called the WORLDSTOCK. This is a project further to the south, just north of Kamloops in British Columbia. It is a project we spent considerable time on this year, mapping and doing some soil sampling in addition to seismic work. This is a property that I think we'll be spending a fair bit of time on next year, at least in terms of reconnaissance drill program. There has been drilling on the project. They did intercept copper, certainly, and porphyry intrusions. It checks all the boxes in terms of what we're looking for on a property. This is a property where I would have to think that, depending on how the PINNACLE goes, the WORLDSTOCK, WEEDON, and the PINNACLE will be the focus for us for next year.

Trevor Hall: Brad, I really appreciate your time. Thank you for the update. We will be sure to share those drill results from PINNACLE as they become available. Do you have any idea of the time when those assays will be made public?

Brad Peters: Based on typical lab times, we will probably be looking at relatively early in 2020 -- in the first couple months.

Trevor Hall: Thank you so much for your time.

Brad Peters: Thank you, Trevor.