Categories: Precious Metals / Mining Stocks
Topics: Gold Stocks / Copper Stocks

Capella Minerals (TSX-V: CMIL) CEO Eric Roth on Solana IOCG Project, Spain, Plus Broader, Multi-Project, Drill-Driven Discovery Portfolio Across Scandinavia

 

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the president & CEO of Capella Minerals Ltd. (TSX-V: CMIL) — Mr. Eric Roth. Eric, you’re new to our audience. It’s a pleasure to have you on. How are you today, sir?

Eric Roth: Hi, Gerardo, and thanks very much for the introduction. Great to be with you today.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, listen, you picked a heck of a time. You couldn’t have scripted it any better. We have record-high gold prices sitting near $5,300/oz. Silver is around $113/oz. Copper is flirting with $6/lb once again.

I just got back from the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference, and from Roundup at the Metals Investor Forum — and the turnout at both conferences was unlike anything I’ve ever seen. It was upbeat, optimistic… with a lot of people feeling pretty intelligent.

But I’m really glad to have you on because Capella is at the stage where I like to introduce companies: tiny market cap, well-funded, catalysts all year, drill-bit-driven catalysts — all against the backdrop of record-high metals prices.

For those not familiar with your background, can you talk a bit about it to introduce yourself to the audience?

Eric Roth: Sure thing. I’m a geologist by training, and I’ve been in the business for 35-plus years. People who’ve followed us over the years, Gerardo, will have noticed the exploration successes — particularly greenfield successes — that we’ve had.

We’ve been involved in quite a few world-class discoveries over the years. Going back the last 10, 20, and beyond, we’ve had a lot of success.

Some of your listeners may be familiar with Mariana Resources, where we had the Hod Maden discovery in northeastern Turkey. We sold that to Sandstorm in 2017, and today it’s essentially a mine that’s being built.

Before that — and I should mention we’ve had a lot of success specifically in precious metals and base metals — which is what we do well and what we plan to do well at Capella.

Hod Maden was one of our big successes. Before that, we had Extorre Gold Mines, which had a high-grade gold-silver discovery in Santa Cruz, Argentina, that was bought by Yamana.

And before that, there’s a very long list of discoveries we’ve been directly involved in. The key thing is that we know what needs to be done, and we know how to do it — and that’s important for what we’ll be doing with Capella going forward.

Gerardo Del Real: Hod Maden was just a beauty of a project. For context, can you remind folks what that was sold for?

Eric Roth: Yes, we sold that for almost US$200 million, though we had a minority position. When we started drilling in 2013, it was on the back end of the last boom, and there wasn’t much appetite in Canada for exploration projects.

So we partnered with a Turkish group that took 70% and we kept 30%. It was the right idea and the right project — a very high-grade copper-gold resource unlike anything I’ve seen in my career. It really set the bar extremely high in terms of size and grade.

Gerardo Del Real: Anytime you discover a billion-dollar project, that’s one heck of a resume-builder. That brings me back to my original point — I love introducing stories early.

It’s getting harder in this market to find value. I’m preaching to subscribers to be really selective. As Rick Rule likes to say, it’s easy to confuse a bull market with brains. On that note, what’s Capella’s market cap right now, roughly?

Eric Roth: Right now it’s about C$9 million — and even that’s higher than it was a few months ago. One of the key things to remember about the portfolio is that it’s focused on precious and base metals where we’ve had a lot of success. Our business model has always been to look for early-stage assets with potential for high-grade discoveries.

We like high grade for two reasons: cash flow once in production and because those projects can often be taken to production if needed. Our sweet spot is discovery — building resources, doing initial scoping and pre-feasibility work. Historically, that’s the point where we’ve been taken out.

We focus on assets that are high grade, relatively low CapEx, quick paybacks — and that leads directly into why we’ve chosen the Capella portfolio.

Gerardo Del Real: Let’s talk about that portfolio because for a C$9 million market cap and the expertise you bring, it looks like an absolute bargain in this market. Walk us through it.

Eric Roth: Yes, the portfolio focuses on precious and base metals. We stick to what’s worked for us. We have gold and copper assets in the Central Lapland Greenstone Belt in northern Finland. 

We’re actually drilling the first of those as we speak. It was an old Anglo-American target generated about 15 years ago with very high copper and gold geochemistry. This is the first-ever drill program there, and it’s underway now.

We also have high-grade massive sulfide projects — copper, cobalt, zinc — in Norway. Those will be drilled mid-year. Permits expired late last year, but we’re renewing them now.

Importantly, all drilling in Finland and Norway is fully funded by our JV partner, Tümad. They’ve committed to drilling a minimum of 12,000 meters this year across those two projects.

And then there’s Solana in southern Spain — an iron oxide copper-gold (IOCG) project. It’s not in a traditional mining belt and hasn’t seen serious work for about 100 years. It’s a district-scale opportunity with high-grade veins, but more importantly, a potentially large underlying system that could interest a major.

So there’s a lot happening this year across copper, base metals, and precious metals.

Gerardo Del Real: That’s a lot of drill-bit-driven catalysts. I want to dig into Solana a bit more. The signature there is massive — over 50 km of cumulative strike mapped so far. How do you prioritize drilling in a system that large?

Eric Roth: There are two target types. First are the high-grade iron oxide veins — and I’ve honestly never seen anything quite like them.

This is a district-scale project that hasn’t had serious work done. We’ll start around the old mines — the best place to find ore is where you know you had ore — but we’ll also be testing many of those veins.

The big focus is identifying the deeper source system. These veins had to come from somewhere, and there are a lot of them. We’ll use quick geophysics early on to define deeper targets.

About 10 to 15 km west is the Alquife iron ore mine. When you zoom out, the scale is incredible. We’ve picked up ground no one recognized before, and we’re the only ones there.

Gerardo Del Real: So you’re drilling, drilling, and drilling some more in 2026.

Eric Roth: Exactly. We’ll finish the Finland program in Q1 into mid-year, move to Norway mid-year, and then Solana later in the year after initial geophysics. We expect drill-driven news flow throughout the entire year — and that’s the exciting part. Discovery is what this story is about.

Gerardo Del Real: Eric, the timing is impeccable. It’s a beautiful time to introduce the story to our audience. Thank you for your time, and I look forward to having you back as assays start coming in.

Eric Roth: Likewise, Gerardo. We’ll keep everyone updated. I think this will be an exciting year for Capella Minerals.

Gerardo Del Real: I appreciate it. Go enjoy those record-high metals prices.

Eric Roth: Thanks, Gerardo. I appreciate it.

Gerardo Del Real: Cheers.

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