Happy Creek Minerals Ltd. (TSX-V:HPY, OTC:HPYCF) CEO Jason Bahnsen talked with Proactive about the company’s recently announced $3.2 million financing and exploration plans at the Fox tungsten project.
The funds will be used to launch a 10,000-metre drill program focused on expanding the current resource, which Bahnsen noted already stands at about 1 million tons with a combined tungsten grade over 1%.
The drilling aims to grow the resource significantly, targeting the 3 to 5 million ton range to establish the Fox project as a substantial tungsten deposit globally.
Proactive: All right, welcome back inside our Proactive newsroom. Joining me now is Jason Bahnsen. He is the CEO of Happy Creek Minerals. Jason, it's great to see you again. How are you?
Jason Bahnsen: I'm great. Good morning.
Good day. Happy Creek—and you're happy obviously this morning because you've announced a $3.20 million private placement and obviously money to move your project forward. So first off, let's talk about that part of it. You're seeing some good demand for the capital raise.
Yes. Well, what we announced today is we have a lead investor, Waratah Capital, and also Power One from Toronto was involved in the story. So I think we'll be closing it relatively quickly. And it's great to have some long-term shareholders on board, institutional shareholders, and yeah, it's a great time to really get this story going.
And I'm sure that you've heard some feedback from both of those entities about why they want to support the company.
Well, they see tungsten as a real critical metal for the future. And given the state of the world these days and the demand on the military applications side is very important. This is one of the highest-grade undeveloped tungsten projects in the world. It's got scale potential. So I think this is why they've done their homework and they're in for the long term.
So this capital gives you the funds to institute a 10,000-metre drill program at Fox. Tell me a little bit about the plan for the exploration season and what it is you're trying to do.
Yes. Several years ago, the company announced an initial resource of about a million tonnes over 1% in terms of the combined grade of tungsten. The plan now, with this financing, is to kick off the 10,000-metre drill program we announced several months ago and get a good portion of that completed. The focus is on expanding that resource and taking it from the current sort of million tonnes to something much more significant. The geology is well situated to really expand the resource. We have drill permits in place and are talking to contractors and getting ready to go.
When you say expanding, are you talking about expanding what you have right now and confirming certain things and moving it from one category to another, or stepping out from where you already know? Or a combination of both?
Well, the current resource is half indicated and half inferred, which is already, for our initial maiden resource, a very high degree of confidence. This translates to our understanding of the geology being quite straightforward with these horizons. We have thick horizons of the tungsten-bearing mineralisation, the scheelite. So we're expanding on the known model, which we've already proved up in terms of structure and grade, and now trying to add tonnes to this resource. If you move this into, for example, the 3 to 5 million tonne range, it starts to become a very significant tungsten deposit globally.
Lastly, where are you located in the Cariboo district of British Columbia? That allows you really quick access to getting all this stuff put together.
Yes, it's in a great location. It's about four hours’ drive from Vancouver. We have access to power infrastructure and road infrastructure and good relationships on the ground there as well. It's 100% owned. The project is not an option. These are our licenses. We own them 100%. So this is what the investors saw—the merits of the underlying assets here. Given where tungsten is going and the grade of this, it just makes sense.
Quotes have been lightly edited for clarity and style