Hello, and welcome to Flagstaff TV. Today, we are joined by Brad George who is the CEO of Orosur Mining. Brad, thank you so much for joining us today.
Catherine, always a thrill.
Thank you. Can you start by telling us a little bit more about your recent announcement? It does appear to be a major change in direction for you.
Yeah, it does seem that way, and I understand that rationale, but it's not the way things work. I mean, this is really the result of probably 18 months of work, and probably 3 years of thinking about it. Things like this do take some time. We really looked at lithium three years ago when Louis and I first began. We wanted to look at this space, but we looked at South America and the Andes and Brazil, and we just couldn't afford it. It was. We lacked the balance sheet to really play in that space, so we sort of walked away from it. I guess beginning of last year we sort of looked at Nigeria again, largely because, you know, I know the place well. I worked there for years.
Has Louis. We began to see data, geoscience data coming out of the government-backed NIMEP program, which I was involved in at the early stages. We began to recognize that a lot of the areas that had been blocked off as part of that NIMEP program were going to come available. We sort of, you know, began to speak to our partners in Nigeria and begin the process of examining options. It's a long, drawn-out process. Nigeria is not an easy place. It's a complicated place. We think as a result of that we've got ourselves, you know, a group of prospects now that we think are really highly prospective in what has become quite quickly in the lithium space, the place to be.
Now, you say you have some background in Nigeria. Can you elaborate a little bit further on that?
Yeah. It's not something that everyone can boast. I mean, Louis in a past life was the CFO of an oil company there for about three years. So he knows the oil patch and Lagos very well. Going back pre-Orosur, I was, me and a few mates, we ran a small consulting firm here in Perth, and one of those partners was a bit of an old Nigeria hand. He'd worked in Nigeria, oh gosh, 10, 15 years ago I suppose, with the World Bank when they were flying the entire country with airborne geophysics. He lived in Nigeria with them. He interpreted the whole country. In 2017, I guess, we were called back in by some people there in the government there to essentially restart the mining sector. We worked there.
My partner went and moved there. I've spent quite a long time sort of working in Nigeria with these sort of government programs, mapping and sampling and then moved on to Orosur. I've retained a lot of contacts there in the mining space at the government level, the bureaucratic level, and logistics level. When we wanted to go back in again and look, we knew exactly how to do that and how to go. It isn't a place that newcomers can go easily, but for Louis and I, it's really almost a walk-up start.
Is this something that you've been thinking about for a while then?
Look, it is. It's not. You know, you don't walk in and grab projects like this, you know, off the shelf. This is a long, complicated process. We've made a point of, in the other projects in South America, of going back to basics, going back to core principles of geology. You know, what do we want to find? What do we look for that will indicate that those things exist? Knowing that what we did, that this data were becoming available, we went back to understandings of what the lithium pegmatite controlling factors were. We looked at the data. We probably spent a good year just assessing data, understanding geology, and getting a sense at where we wanted to be.
That led us to areas of what we thought were key potential, and then to begin the process of trying to negotiate a way into a land position. Nigeria is not quite walk up and first man, best dressed. It's a complicated process of really understanding where you want to be and knowing how the rules work. Yeah, this has really been the result of 12 months of work. It isn't just a knee-jerk reaction to go off piste to a new commodity. It's a long-term idea we've had and you know, we're quite pleased to at last be at the point where we can begin work.
I'm sure you are. When do you think you will start working on the project?
Oh, tomorrow. I mean, that's part of the deal is that, you know, we have this team in place through old contacts, relationships. We've got geologists, vehicles, trucks, tractors, drill rigs. We'll have guys on site this week, doing the preliminary work. We'll be starting sampling programs and, you know, things. You know, starting from scratch, but we have a lot of government data. In the lithium space, things do work a bit faster. The nature of the beast and the nature of how things, assays work, we're not gonna face the same delays we've had in the past with labs in South America, so we can get numbers back fast. You know, all going well, we hope to be drilling hopefully early next year. You know, this is a.
You know, this has been a long time coming to the point where we can now run fast.
Well, good luck with all of that, Brad. Finally for today, could you tell us about the other projects that you have going on at the moment?
Yeah. I guess the perception is, are we leaving other projects? No, we're not. This is in addition to, not in replacement of. The other projects are there and they're going along as planned. We have crews in El Pantano now sampling and mapping, just a low-key, slow, low-cost way that we always have. They're working there. Brazil, as I mentioned in the last webinar, we've had some assay issues. We sent a sample to the lab. As always, the labs promise and don't deliver, so we hope to get numbers back from the labs, you know, touch wood, this week. You know, we shall see. Colombia remains Colombia, so, you know, nothing to add there. We remain in a situation where we are confident we'll get that back. We're moving forward slowly.
You know, while we wait for that to happen, we're going to new projects. Nothing has changed. We have the funds in place. We have the skill set. We have the people. We have the expertise. This is one more, I guess, string to our bow. Everything else, South America continues as before.
Brad, thank you very much for your time today.
Always a pleasure.
Thank you for watching Flagstaff TV.