Company Interviews

Recording date: 11th September 2026
Olive Resource Capital Inc. (TSXV:OC), represented on this Compass episode by Executive Chairman Derek Macpherson and President, CEO & CIO Samuel Pelaez, used the post-CPI window to lay out both its near-term macro read and its underlying investment process.
On the macro side, the September CPI print came in at 3.4%, above the Fed's target band but in line with consensus, prompting a muted market reaction. With the Federal Reserve's next meeting imminent and roughly 60% odds of a hike priced in, both executives argued that current inflation, driven substantially by diesel prices tied to disruption around the conflict in Iran, is largely a supply-side phenomenon the Fed has limited tools to address directly. They are watching the US Dollar Index closely, currently at a key support level, as their preferred read on where commodity prices head next: a breakdown lower would support the bullish commodities case, while a technical bounce, potentially reinforced by a rate hike, would be a near-term headwind.
The approaching US midterm elections add a second layer of expected volatility. Macpherson described a "midterm election vortex" of conflicting political headlines, citing a proposed household payment tied to Congressional control and a same-week reversal on copper tariff policy that briefly moved copper prices roughly 5%, as the kind of noise investors should expect through November without necessarily reflecting a change in underlying fundamentals.
Despite the noise, both executives stressed their long-term thesis is unchanged: persistent fiscal deficits are debasing fiat currency over time, a dynamic reinforced by comments from US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, layered on top of two decades of underinvestment in resource discovery that has left supply structurally short of demand. They frame Olive's closed-end structure, free of redemption pressure, as a structural advantage that lets the firm buy into weakness rather than being forced to sell.
On process, Pelaez detailed the firm's portfolio construction discipline: every one to two months, the pair review every position in the portfolio, testing whether each investment thesis still holds and whether capital would be better deployed elsewhere. Position sizing scales with conviction and risk, from roughly 1-2% in binary, early-stage exploration bets up to 5-10% in high-conviction names, with the top ten holdings collectively targeted at more than half of total portfolio assets.
The clearest working example offered was CANEX Metals Inc. (TSXV:CANX), where Olive built its position from an initial 6-to-9-cent entry around the early-stage consolidation of the Gold Basin district into CANEX's Gold Range project, adding in the open market as the story progressed and continuing to participate in financings, most recently at 35 cents, even after a five- to six-times return on the original stake. Recent portfolio exits have freed capital that management is now redeploying into new positions.
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Interview with Dr. Mike Jones, MD of Impact Minerals Ltd.
Our previous interview: https://www.cruxinvestor.com/posts/impact-minerals-asxipt-advancing-scoping-study-with-10x-throughput-breakthrough-in-hand-10564
Recording date: 11th September 2026
Impact Minerals (ASX:IPT) has spent the past three years repositioning from a conventional Australian exploration company into a twin-pathway high-purity alumina (HPA) developer, and the scoping study for Alluminous, the company's 50%-owned chemical-process technology in which it holds its stake alongside two US-based institutional co-investors, is the first independent test of the economics behind that pivot.
The study, prepared by NewPro Consulting & Engineering Services, compared four development cases across Perth and the Houston area. Impact's preferred pathway stages a US Gulf Coast plant from 2,000 tonnes per annum (tpa) up to 4,000 tpa as customer qualification, offtake and funding mature, rather than committing to full capacity immediately. The case models a post-tax NPV at an 8% discount rate of A$518 million ($362.4 million), a 42.3% IRR, and a capital payback of roughly 3.8 years, on total installed capital of $74 million. Net operating costs, after crediting a saleable ammonium sulphate by-product, come in just under $9,000 per tonne. 
Management's central claim is capital efficiency: it puts listed peers Alpha HPA and Advanced Energy Minerals at roughly four to five times Alluminous's capital intensity per tonne of installed capacity, while operating costs remain broadly comparable.
Alluminous sits alongside Lake Hope, Impact's 80%-owned flagship Western Australian project, which uses a different, natural lake-sediment feedstock and completed its own Pre-Feasibility Study in June 2025 - a standalone A$1.2 billion NPV case at a 10% discount rate with a 47.5% IRR. The two projects are run and owned independently, use different feedstocks and produce different by-products (Lake Hope yields sulphate of potash; Alluminous yields ammonium sulphate), but both compete for the same downstream battery, semiconductor and sapphire-glass markets. Lake Hope's naturally low uranium and thorium content - independently confirmed below 1 part per billion without a dedicated removal step - is pitched as a specific advantage for semiconductor-grade qualification, a hurdle competitors have typically had to engineer around.
Both projects remain genuinely early-stage. The Alluminous scoping study carries a wide +50%/-30% cost accuracy band typical of FEL-0 order-of-magnitude estimates, and the study's authors note they relied on Alluminous-supplied data without independently verifying the underlying technology. The integrated process has not been demonstrated continuously at scale, batch testing has produced filtration challenges, and no binding customer offtake or project debt exists for either pathway - the model assumes 100% equity funding throughout. 
Near-term catalysts include converting the Perth pilot plant to continuous operation, further validation work with battery-technology partner C4V, a formal Texas Gulf Coast site-selection study, and the start of Lake Hope's own Definitive Feasibility Study in 2027. Impact closed a A$4.13 million entitlement offer on September 9th 2026, underscoring that further capital will likely be required as both projects advance toward construction decisions.
View Impact Minerals' company profile: https://www.cruxinvestor.com/companies/impact-minerals
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Interview with John Florek, President & CEO of Emperor Metals
Recording date: 11th September 2026
Emperor Metals is a Canadian gold exploration company advancing two projects in Quebec's Abitibi Greenstone Belt, one of the world's most prolific gold-producing districts with roughly 200 million ounces produced historically. The company's flagship asset, Duquesne West, sits on the Porcupine-Destor Fault Zone, a structure credited with over 110 million ounces of historical production, and neighbours active and past-producing mines operated by Agnico Eagle, IAMGOLD and others.
In July 2025, Duquesne West received a maiden inferred mineral resource estimate of 26.9 million tonnes at 1.69 grams per tonne gold, for 1.46 million ounces, based on a $2,300 per ounce gold price assumption. That resource is roughly double the 727,000 ounce historical estimate that predated Emperor's 2022 takeover as operator. Management, led by President and CEO John Florek, a geologist with 35 years of experience including senior roles at BHP, Placer Dome, Barrick, Teck and Detour Lake Gold attributes the growth partly to an AI-assisted geological modelling process that identified a large-scale, lower-grade open-pit envelope surrounding higher-grade underground lenses that earlier operators had not recognised since the deposit was first discovered in the 1940s.
The company describes the resource as substantially under-drilled: approximately 140,000 metres of drilling have been completed to date, which management estimates at 15-20% of what comparable projects required to reach similar ounce totals. A 15,000 metre drill program and an 8,000 metre historical core re-sampling campaign - aimed at converting inferred ounces to indicated via duplicate drilling of older holes - are currently under way, funded through the end of 2026. Management has signalled an intent to pursue a further 30,000-50,000 metre program from around October 2026, subject to financing, ahead of an eventual preliminary economic assessment once the resource passes roughly 2 million ounces.
Emperor's secondary asset, Lac Pelletier, sits approximately 30 kilometres south and offers a different risk profile: a historical resource of 227,000 ounces at 3.9 grams per tonne gold, permits valid for production until 2030, and roughly C$70 million of prior infrastructure investment including more than 3.3 kilometres of underground development. Two historical bulk samples averaged 96.3% gold recovery. Management's near-term plan is to update the historical feasibility study and evaluate a production decision, rather than to advance immediately to construction.
As of June 2026, Emperor had 194,850,005 shares outstanding (242,289,794 fully diluted) and an estimated C$5.4 million in working capital. Strategic investors Rob McEwen (7%) and Rick Rule are on the share register. On a company comparable basis, Emperor traded at approximately C$39 million market capitalisation, or C$25.28 per ounce of resource.
Both the Duquesne West and Lac Pelletier resource figures carry standard caveats: inferred resources and historical estimates do not have demonstrated economic viability and are not current mineral reserves. Neither project has reached a construction or production decision.
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Interview with Alan Carter, President & CEO of Cabral Gold Inc.
Our previous interview: https://www.cruxinvestor.com/posts/cabral-gold-tsxvcbr-operating-licence-secured-first-gold-targeted-by-september-11515
Recording date: 11th September 2026
Cabral Gold has crossed the line from developer to producer, confirming the first gold pour at its Phase 1 Cuiú Cuiú heap leach operation in Pará state, Brazil. The pour, approximately 1,130 ounces of doré assaying 93-94% gold, came in well above management's internal expectations, and arrives with construction running roughly two months ahead of schedule. For a company that only secured project financing twelve months ago, the milestone represents a rapid and largely self-executed build.
The near-term operational story is about ramp-up discipline. The dry circuit is fully commissioned; the wet circuit, covering leaching and gold recovery, is expected to follow within days. Stacking rates are being increased in stages toward a 3,000 tonne-per-day design target, monitored through a control room tracking belt speeds and throughput. Management has been explicit that no 2026 production guidance will be issued while ramp-up variables remain unresolved, but formal 2027 guidance is expected, potentially as early as January, giving investors a concrete date to watch.
The cash flow case, while based on a study CEO Alan Carter himself flagged as roughly eighteen months old, is notable: first-year production of 20,000 to 25,000 ounces at an estimated margin near $3,300 an ounce implies pre-tax cash flow in the order of $80 million before any expansion. Carter framed this against typical gold producer valuation multiples of six to twelve times cash flow, arguing the operation could support meaningful re-rating once production stabilises.
Strategically, the more interesting thread is how Cabral intends to fund its next phase of growth. A recent $45 million strategic investment from Alpayana, described as Peru's largest private mining company, gave Cabral a 9.99% shareholder and, combined with Phase 1 cash flow, is intended to reduce the company's reliance on annual dilutive equity raises, a pattern Carter was candid about wanting to avoid.
The larger opportunity sits underground. Approximately 75% of the district's known gold ounces are hosted in hard rock beneath the oxide material Cabral is currently mining. A district-wide resource update due by year-end will model six gold deposits, up from three in the last global estimate from September 2022, incorporating roughly 50,000 metres of drilling completed since. Management is also sitting on some 50 untested peripheral targets, including boulder fields averaging 90 grams per tonne gold across ten to twelve targets. A meaningful increase in the resource base would support a formal Preliminary Economic Assessment on the hard rock opportunity, positioning 2027 as a pivotal year for both production guidance and district-scale resource definition.
For investors, the near-term watch list is straightforward: confirmation of the refinery assay on the first doré bars, completion of wet-circuit commissioning, and progression of stacking rates toward design capacity. Further out, the year-end resource update and the timing of a Phase 2 PEA decision will determine whether Cuiú Cuiú's story broadens from a single oxide starter operation into a genuine two-stage gold district.
View Cabral Gold's company profile: https://www.cruxinvestor.com/companies/cabral-gold
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Interview with Tiago Cunha, Director & CEO of South Star Battery Metals
Recording date: 11th September 2026
South Star Battery Metals Corp (TSXV:STS) is a rare example in the junior mining space of a genuine operational turnaround delivering measurable results within a single year. The company's Santa Cruz graphite operation in Bahia, Brazil came close to bankruptcy in October 2025, with insufficient funds to meet payroll. CEO Tiago Cunha, then a board member and investor, stepped in, personally funding two payroll cycles before a capital raise closed in December 2025. He describes replacing effectively the entire workforce and management team, citing prior contracting misconduct and kickbacks, and crediting the new operational team led by COO Rogério Barcellos with proving the underlying asset was never the constraint.
Since the turnaround began, management reports a 60% reduction in cash operating costs, driven by straightforward fixes: renegotiating electricity from retail to wholesale rates (a 35% cut in power costs within 30 days) and changing filter-press mesh size to eliminate near-daily equipment failures. Current operating costs are reported below $800 per tonne of concentrate. Production restarted in 2026, reportedly around three months ahead of an original July target, with the company targeting 5,000 tonnes per year of capacity by year-end and cumulative 2026 throughput of roughly 1,847 tonnes.
Two distinct expansion paths are on the table. The first to 10,000 tonnes per year is described as low-capex (under $1 million) and fully financed, since the plant's off-the-shelf equipment already has spare capacity and the only bottleneck is a second filter press. The second, a larger expansion toward 25,000, to potentially 50,000 tonnes per year, is being discussed with the Brazilian Development Bank and the US International Development Finance Corporation, but rests on a 2022-vintage feasibility study that Cunha himself says is no longer reliable, given subsequent changes to the processing flowsheet.
Commercially, South Star reports a flake-to-fines split of roughly 70/30, ahead of original design, with flotation grades of 93-97% Cg and 99.95% Cg purity validated downstream. Sales are spread across multiple US buyers, with additional niche markets - such as agricultural graphite at a substantial premium to commodity pricing - cited as a way to avoid dependence on any single customer. Cunha frames the sector's core risk as Chinese pricing behaviour rather than product-specific competition, noting the absence, so far, of any floor-pricing mechanism for graphite comparable to those emerging in rare earths.
With CEO ownership of roughly 40%, funded through the company's near-collapse, and graphite's growing framing as a supply-chain security issue for Western defence and industrial policy, South Star presents a relatively de-risked near-term production story layered with a larger, currently unquantified expansion option.
View South Stat Battery Metals company profile: https://www.cruxinvestor.com/companies/south-star-battery-metals
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