Interview with Aubrey Eveleigh President and CEO of Zenyatta Ventures Ltd. (TSXV: ZEN, OTCQX: ZENYF): Developing a World Class Graphite Deposit
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By Dr. Allen Alper, PhD Economic Geology and Petrology, Columbia University, NYC, USA
on 9/9/2016
We talked with Aubrey Eveleigh, who is President and CEO of Zenyatta Ventures Ltd. (TSXV: ZEN, OTCQX: ZENYF). They have found a world class and unique
graphite deposit with a potential for 1.5 million tons of 99.9% pure graphene product. The site has great infrastructure, located in mining friendly
Canada, just north of the Trans-Canada Highway. Zenyatta is positioned to provide graphite for lithium-ion batteries, fuel cells, and various clean tech
applications. They are a strong company with a great team and a world class property in Canada.
Zenyatta’s High Purity Graphite Powder
Dr. Allen Alper: This is Dr. Allen Alper, Editor-in-chief of Metals News, interviewing Aubrey Eveleigh, President and CEO of Zenyatta Ventures LTD.
Could you tell me a little bit about your properties and what differentiates your company from other graphite companies?
Aubrey Eveleigh: Sure. Zenyatta discovered a very rare form of graphite a few years ago. We were actually exploring for copper and nickel
and accidentally hit two adjacent pipes of carbon. Now, this carbon is totally different from the traditional and normal graphite you see globally, which
is termed flake graphite. There's a big supply of that type globally. This is something totally different. It formed differently. It's volcanic, versus
the sedimentary (flake type) that you see on every continent.
Dr. Allen Alper: Could you tell our readers a bit more about it?
Aubrey Eveleigh: It comes in pipe form, rather than sedimentary layers. It's very crystalline, and it doesn't have very many impurities. In fact,
for the most part, it has silica and feldspar associated with it, so it comes in a very crystalline and pure form. We can get the silica and feldspar out
using sodium hydroxide, and we're left with 99.9% or higher in purity. Of course, this is very important in today's world for technology
applications, whether it's lithium-ion batteries, fuel cell applications or graphene production. More recently, we've been talking about transforming it
into graphene, which then goes into composite materials like concrete.
Dr. Allen Alper: Sounds very good. Could you tell me a bit more about the deposit.?
Aubrey Eveleigh: In terms of size, it's quite large. Based on RPA's estimates about 1.5 million tonnes of finished product. RPA is an engineering
firm in Toronto. That would be the 99.9% pure material. If you produce 30,000 tonnes per year, which is what their projections are under the preliminary
economic assessment, then there's enough there for 50 years. It's quite large. It's easily accessible. It's just north of the Trans-Canada Highway, and it
can be accessed with an open pit.
Dr. Allen Alper: That's very good. What are your plans, going forward?
Aubrey Eveleigh: Right now, we're getting a lot of interest globally from electric car makers, battery makers, fuel cell makers, people interested
in graphene. Presently we're sending material around globally, to Japan, South Korea, Europe, the U.S., and more recently, to Israel. In Israel we've been
testing it in concrete. We are doing a lot of application testing of the graphite material along with preparation for the development at the mine, so
we're working in parallel with both.
Dr. Allen Alper: That's very good. Could you tell me a bit about your background, your team, your board?
Aubrey Eveleigh: Myself, I'm a geologist. I've been in exploration for about 30 years; worked for major mining companies; consulted for both junior
and major mining companies in the last 20-something years. I took on this project as President and CEO when Cliffs Natural Resources out of Cleveland was
involved. I brought on all of my staff from my consulting company and brought in some key directors/management.
It's probably the best team I've ever worked with, in terms of professionals with a good background, good track record. We have a great board,
great group of advisors, great management, and we keep adding to the team. More recently, we've added VP of communications and investor relations, Mara
Strazdins. Then before that, just a couple months ago, we hired James Jordan as our metallurgist.
Dr. Allen Alper: Sounds like a strong team. How about your board?
Aubrey Eveleigh: Board's a great board. Barry Allan, he's a gold mining analyst in Toronto with Mackie Research. He has a lot of experience looking
at mining projects globally. Ken Stowe is also a director. Ken used to be the president and CEO of Northgate. Northgate has put a couple mines into
production. He is a well respected professional with a lot of experience. Then Brian Davey. Brian Davey's been a director of Zenyatta since day one. He's
a First Nation member from Moose Cree in James Bay. Again, Brian brings a lot of professionalism, a lot of experience in business development.
Dr. Allen Alper: Sounds very good. Could you tell me a bit about your finances, your share structure, and capital structure?
Aubrey Eveleigh: Yeah. Presently, we have about 61 million shares outstanding. We have about 3 million cash in the treasury. We just raised that
through a rights offering. That should last us for the next 12 to 14 months. Most of the program, going forward, will be geared towards the pre-
feasibility, so we're basically scaling up the flow sheet to a pilot plant. We're also continuing with the market and business development, so we're
producing samples for testing. We're scaling up the testing with these various corporations globally. We're going from grams of material up to kilograms
of material for testing. We'll be going in parallel with both those projects over the next 12 to 14 months.
Dr. Allen Alper: That sounds very good. Could you tell me, what would you consider the primary reasons our high-net-worth readers/investors should
consider your company?
Aubrey Eveleigh: If people are looking at the trends in the world today, they see a trend towards technology like lithium-ion batteries, fuel
cells, clean-tech-type energy applications. They should start thinking about the raw materials needed to feed those various clean tech, new, trendy
applications. Everybody's talking about the electric car and the lithium-ion battery and fuel cells, but nobody is focused on the raw materials that are
needed yet.
If you're thinking about that, you have to think about the graphite that's needed, especially high-purity, highly-crystalline graphite that's
needed in the anode of the battery or the bipolar plate in a fuel cell. It can be added to concrete or plastic to make it better as well. If you're
thinking about trends and the future, you have to think about Zenyatta graphite right now.
Dr. Allen Alper: Well, that sounds very good. Why your company in particular?
Aubrey Eveleigh: Our company has something that's special; it's different. It's highly crystalline. Under the PEA the cost to produce 99.9% pure
graphite is $2 a kilogram, versus the synthetic graphite at $8-10 a kilogram. We can offer a cost advantage. It is a benign deposit, using a benign
process, so we have an environmental advantage over the synthetic guys. They have to basically clean up petroleum coke to produce synthetic graphite, and
that's pretty nasty to the environment. We have a cost advantage, and an environmental advantage.
We've been slowly, but surely showing a performance advantage. We've been testing material and getting great results. We’re in a great jurisdiction for
mining, right in Ontario, Canada. Ontario has a great track record and we've been mining for 100 years in Ontario.
Dr. Allen Alper: That is very persuasive. Is there anything else you'd like to add?
Aubrey Eveleigh: I think Zenyatta is on a path to ramp up discussions with some of the entities that we're talking to. We're presently talking to
in excess of 40. Many of them are global corporations, household names. We can't disclose their names because we're under a nondisclosure agreement, but
we're ramping up discussions with them while doing further testing.
No guarantee on agreements, but I'm expecting our collaborations will be scaled up, not only with these corporations, but also with academic
institutions globally. Whether it's in Canada, Israel, Japan, and/or the U.S. All the results that we're getting are just incredible, so watch for us in
the coming months. The reason we brought on a new VP of communications and investor relations is to help get the story out. We'll be fairly aggressive
over the coming months in telling our story and actually feeding these good results to the market.
Dr. Allen Alper: That sounds very, very exciting!
http://www.zenyatta.ca/
1224 Amber Drive
Thunder Bay, ON
P7B 6M5 Canada
Tel: (807) 346.1660
Fax: (807) 345.4412
E-mail: info@zenyatta.ca
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