Dear Shareholders
2020 was quite a year due to the pandemic and its widely felt effects. However, for the mining industry and exploration sector the year turned out to be remarkably positive given the circumstances. There has been growing awareness of the need for metals such as palladium and nickel that will be critical in global efforts to mitigate climate change. Palladium primarily to reduce harmful auto emissions and nickel in batteries for electric vehicles. As a company we want to take advantage of the opportunity we have to be part of the global effort to decarbonize in a socially responsible and sustainable manner.
Early in 2020 we were extremely fortunate to add Dave Peck to head up our business development and exploration at Grid . Dave has unique business experience and a technical background uniquely suited to the opportunities in front of Grid Metals. He will enable us to be laser focused on mineral exploration that if successful will be highly impactful to value of our Company.
The price of palladium has remained very strong and this is providing an excellent backdrop to our East Bull Lake Palladium Property exploration program. We are attempting to make a significant palladium discovery at East Bull and after completing twelve drill holes that delivered a lot of smoke we had our first “discovery” intercept in our thirteenth hole. Drilling has now commenced to follow up on the results in hole 13 and test at least one other priority area on the property. We control about 85% of the total area of the East Bull Lake Intrusion which is highly prospective for palladium dominant deposits.
Nickel is another highly intriguing metal that looks to have a bright future for its use in batteries for electric vehicles. We have two assets of note. Our Makwa Mayville project in Manitoba has a significant NI 43-101 resource of good grade nickel, copper with associated platinum group metals (again mostly palladium ) and cobalt. We are looking at cost effective ways to enhance the value of this resource including exploration to add resource, metallurgical work to improve recoveries and trade off studies. We believe that we can improve the metrics of the project that we laid out in the 2014 PEA.
Our Bannockburn Nickel Project near Timmins has strong similarities geologically to the Dumont Nickel and Crawford Nickel deposits. In addition the historical exploration on the property has produced very encouraging exploration results. The Companies that hold similar projects to Bannockburn have much higher market valuations that does Grid so this presents a significant opportunity for us to leverage our exploration efforts.
We look forward to going forward to address the challenges ahead of us and working with all of our stakeholders to effect positive outcomes in all areas of our business. We thank our business and community partners and our employees and shareholders for their continued support.
Robin Dunbar
President and CEO
