Tolga Kumova’s Aston Minerals (ASX:ASO) started out as a gold junior when the company hit significant nickel mineralization. Kumova was behind Syrah Resources, an African graphite company, which now has a valuation north of $600 million. The company recently signed up Tesla for an offtake agreement. Aston Minerals Edleston project is located about 60 Km south of Timmins, Ontario. The company announced 163.5m at 0.52% Ni & 0.016% Co from 186.5m at its Boomerang target. Kumova is executive chair of Aston.
Toga comb-over led graphite focus your resources in the last decade. And now has a market cap of over 600 million. The company recently signed an off take with Tesla. Now Toga is a leading Aston minerals and pursuing that other hot, hot battery metal. Nickel us welcome to case. Thanks. Michael, thank you for listening.
But now Toga, uh, Aston mineral started off as a gold play. Maybe can explain what is Mount Keith and how that led to a change in direction at Aston. Yeah. Yeah. So I started off with a gold play where, um, we picked up about 300 square kilometers in Ontario. Canada was about 150 kilometers north of them.
There was some break which has produced, I think about 50% of the Wells and nickel for about a hundred days. Elephant country there. I'm also Timmins. As most people would know large gold camp and, um, we're about 30 kilometers south of there and we picked up his license specifically for, um, for golf. Well drilling for gold.
Um, and there's a, there's a NOx looking gold project there, but as we're, um, as we're drilling, we're Alok singly, sulfides, and thinking what's, what's, what's going on here. It's probably not gold bearing, but where my XRF, they are the holes where we're picking up Nico. So we went away. I did a little bit of homework.
Going into the entire, the mines department looked at all the, um, the available public data and a couple of holes have been drilled in the 1960s by, um, a couple of Canadian groups. And, um, we said it was kind of interesting. It was, there was a whole layer where the grade kicked up significantly from 0.2 0.3 to 0.6 0.7.
And the whole ended in mineralization. This was drilled in 1959. Um, so we're like, we really need to have a look at this. And we, um, we patented a couple of holes. We've drilled. Uh, think about eye holes into the nickel structure at the moment, the first toll came back with 297 meters of 0.3 nickel. Then we, um, we angled the rig a little to the staff and we hit, I think it was a 53 meters, the 0.49, plus the cobalt.
No, we haven't got the last 40 meters of that hole, but that hole also ends in mineralization. We then angled the whole, the rig, another five degrees to the. And we hit 163 meters at 0.5 to Nicole plus cobalt. And, um, the last item made us that was 0.6, six Niko plus point pastor's cobalt as well. So it's still in mineralization.
We haven't been harder to draw through it. It's a large, what seems like it's going to be a large, uh, Nicole intrusive Ole buddy, but, um, it's very early days. We've only got a number of hours in there, but it's exciting times. Now we understand it's early days. Let's just go back to that reference. So the Canadian, the geologists that years ago that molded out, they said there was some similarities to Australia's Mount Keith.
Yeah. So Mary Kay has been operating for, I think about 60 years. That's a, the leading asset for BHPs Nicole. Um, right now, I think their resources are 200 million, 230 million tons of 0.5, two, Nicole. Um, so it has very, uh, good similarities in terms of its great and potentially its size. I mean it's early days for us.
Um, but it is exciting. So yeah, it's been one of the leading Batman. Kate has been when a lady nickel produced in Australia for over 50 years. Give us some basics on, uh, Nicola Toga. Uh, what's a good grade. And what type of rock do you. Yeah, well, it varies. It depends on what type of structure and what system we're in.
Um, with. We're in an intrusive or body. So majority of BHP is assets, uh, in intrusive structures that big, you know, a few hundred million tons at somewhere between 0.5, 1.6%. Nickel is the M is a typical body for them. Then. Hi, great, uh, projects where, you know, you've got three to five to 10 minutes of wide vines where they're mining two or 3% legal.
Um, and this is, this is not, we haven't discovered that yet. Not saying it's not there. Um, but what we are targeting is the much larger scale. Sort of deposit that's, uh, that's in between that 0.5 to 0.7% range at the moment. And I mean, again, I'll qualify it. It's mother nature. It's geology, it's early days.
Um, but what we've seen so far is incredibly exciting. Why is the nickel demand gonna rise still though? Uh, electric vehicles, batteries, lithium ion batteries. It's um, I think it's about 60% of the white of the, um, of the lithium battery. So it varies. I mean, depending on what application you're using the battery for, it depends on the chemistry, but, uh, at this point for electric vehicles, the Tesla is the new, um, you know, general motors, all the cars that are coming out at the moment they're using, um, Nico based cobalt based, uh, um, uh, CA.
Now battery metals companies have just been on fire in Australia, Toga. Um, you notice that there was a bit of a, how would you say an arbitrage opportunity when you came to Canada and with the battery middle valuations? Yeah. And we're looking at a whole bunch of projects and there's one identified the other day, which has got me a bit of, a little bit confused.
Um, it's called Patriot. And, uh, they hit, I think it was like 150 meters at about 1% lithium in spodumene. Now the company is trying to get like a $20 million market cap kind of confused as to why. Um, if that same hall was drilled in Australia, the company would be probably worth a few hundred million. Um, so it's kind of got us a little bit strange, but it is also an opportunity.
Um, and I've been buying the stock myself professionally just, and looking for opportunities like that. And, uh, I think, uh, the story of the year was the two Australian companies, uh, uh, duking it out over a neuron resources that would be, uh, Andrew forest of, uh, for dusty fame and, uh, also the, uh, large, uh, Australia minor.
Now we have a lot of retail investors that follow kick go, um, battery metals. Uh, you did mention, uh, you did mention page. Battery metals. Just seem to be harder though. You have that chemistry component when you're certainly talking about the different cuts of grades of lithium, nevermind that you get into graphite.
What would be your advice for somebody that wants to take a punt on battery metals? Um, well, again, with industrial minerals, it is a lot about the chemistry of the actual body. Um, in our it's it's, every commodity has its different aspects, different issues, but. In terms of getting to battery metals. I mean, I built the world's largest graphite mine, and I'll tell you that it's not easy to be able to grab online.
So I'll give you a little bit of, bit of history there from the time you actually fund and build the operation to actually get your product into the supply chain for an actual industrial, uh, for a battery producer, the amount of time it takes to do the safety, the testing, the real life testing. So it takes, it takes a significant amount of time.
To be invested to be able to put a product into a supply chain, that's going to be effectively in a foreign or under, you know, in your car. Um, so it's, it's, it's, it's just not as simple as what people think. However, Once you are successful when a company take ticks all those boxes and it is in the supply chain, it's going to capture a large component of the upside that's coming, um, and is already here, but he's also going to expand from it in terms of, um, the electric vehicles in the.
Yeah, I think that dovetails to what Ken Hoffman said, uh, at McKinsey at where he was talking about. If you want to look at who is a successful in the space or who is going to have some success, how closely are they working with, uh, their, you know, major suppliers to the battery? I think the social, uh, dovetails on to the next question.
And I think you've answered it. Uh, there Toga, uh, car executives say that we just need more copper. We need more. Nicole. We knew were graphite. We saw that with the Tesla earnings that came out yesterday. We're just not going to be able to increase supply that quickly right now, because when you're doing these mines, they just take a long time.
Yeah, increasing building a new couple of Milan or an equal mine or carbo project is just not that easy. I mean, it takes time and clearly tax a lot of capital. So investors also need to mitigate as much risk as possible, um, when they're financing these projects and I mean, each one of those commodities has its own supply, demand, issues and constraints, and know with a couple projects, the grades are dropping.
Um, significantly around the world nickel sneaker projects that I don't know, the last large scale nickel sulfide deposit was actually discovered, but that's actually going into operation. So again, we've asked, had asked him like finding a nickel sulfide deposit of scale is incredibly unique. Um, carbo, same thing.
It's got the same issues, but, and are waiting to graph out a little bit and I'll go in and be a little bit more. You know, we found a deposit in Mozambique, which is owned by Syrah resources and discovered that and funded it and it's sound built. I mean, that project is now in the supply chain. So it's gone through the headaches and hurdles of all the real world testing it's gone through those dramas.
Um, so what would typically happen is instead of, uh, financing a new operation that has to go through those hoops? Um, it's easier just to apply the capital to that one project and expand it. Um, So there's all these different, uh, aspects of actually bringing these projects into production and getting him into the supply chain let's, uh, finish, uh, back with ah, Aston to-go you you've had those initial drill results that you've put in a, what are the next 12 months going to look like?
Uh, the next 12 months, something about the next two weeks, to be honest with Michael. So. We drilled that hole, um, which was 163 meters, a 0.52 plus the cobalt and the highest grade zone is the last 18 meters of it. So kicking up and grade, what we're doing is we're taking a step to the south of that hole.
Um, about 150 meters. We're going to do what you would call the down DePaul, the actual Meg structure, magnetic feature intrusive, um, feature that we're drilling into maps. The mineral. Almost perfectly. Um, today we're going to drill a hole that down that structure, that structure, it looks like it goes 1500 meters.
And, um, like I said, it's tight as a grain of salt mother nature, geology, which anything could happen, but we're, um, we're drilling a hole down the structure just to just see how deep this all body gardeners. So again, early days, but that's starting really this weekend, um, or the next time. Um, what's it, what's it like?
Uh, what's it like getting a drillers and getting a drill results right now it's made such a drama. Um, it's been very difficult over the last eight months, but, um, our drilling companies, we've got a couple of drinks, all the drill rigs on site. We've got a great relationship with them. The assay labs we've actually gone through three different asset labs over the last, uh, year.
And we found that we actually have a relationship with now that we're comfortable, that we're, um, we're getting results over a four week period of thereabouts. So we're quite comfortable with that now, but, um, yeah, we, with this need, this nickel sulfide, we can actually see the sulfides in the core. We're drilling diamond core, so we'll know pretty quickly, um, what, where we're into Toga.
Thanks for speaking with gecko. Thanks Michael. It's total comb-over. He is executive chairman of Aston minerals. My name is Michael MacRae and you're watching Keiko mining.