EPISODE 8. Anthony Milewski and Christian Purefoy are joined by special guests Mike Stier, CEO of Saga Metals and Michael Garagan, Geologist of Saga Metals, to talk about the importance of titanium, especially in national security, and their titanium-vanadium project in Canada.

🎙️ Transcript

Conversation between Christian Purefoy, Anthony Milewski, Mike Stier (CEO, Saga Metals), and Michael Garagan (Chief Geologist, Saga Metals). Edited for clarity and readability.

Anthony Milewski: All right, great, everyone.

Mike Stier: Welcome to Boom, Bust and BS with Anthony Milewski and me, Christian Purefoy.

Michael Garagan: And today, we’ve got two special guests to talk about titanium.

Christian Purefoy: Not just titanium,

Anthony Milewski: we’re going to talk about exploration in Canada and and national security, right.

Mike Stier: It’s always interesting.

Michael Garagan: Hey, guys. I appreciate you guys coming on.

Christian Purefoy: Why don’t you just talk in real quick who you are and who you guys are with?

Anthony Milewski: Yeah, sounds good. I’ll start.

Mike Stier: So my name is Mike Stier.

Michael Garagan: I’m the CEO and Director of Saga Metals Corp.

Christian Purefoy: And Michael Garagan, the geologist for Saga.

Anthony Milewski: And yeah,

Mike Stier: I see.

Michael Garagan: I’ve kind of had a look at your website.

Christian Purefoy: Yeah, Saga has a few different projects, but my understanding is

Anthony Milewski: you guys are focused on the titanium part of the exploration portfolio.

Mike Stier: But what exactly is titanium?

Michael Garagan: I mean, when I think about titanium, it’s like,

Christian Purefoy: you know, like someone broke their arm or something.

Anthony Milewski: They’ve got like a titanium bone in there.

Mike Stier: But what actually is titanium for?

Michael Garagan: Yeah, I think that’s a good point, is that it’s you’re right it’s used implants.

Christian Purefoy: If you need, so I’ve got an implant

Anthony Milewski: my old hockey injury I have an implant for my front tooth.

Mike Stier: Right.

Michael Garagan: And it’s titanium based and so it’s really used in so many facets

Christian Purefoy: of our everyday lives that I don’t think we’ve fully grasped it right.

Anthony Milewski: At the end of the day, it’s in your iPhone.

Mike Stier: It’s, it’s on your walls, right?

Michael Garagan: It’s a pigment in paint.

Christian Purefoy: Where does it come from? Right now if I go in and I get something done or whatever,

Anthony Milewski: where is titanium produced today?

Mike Stier: So the majority is it comes out of China.

Michael Garagan: Right.

Christian Purefoy: And so, you know,

Anthony Milewski: when you mentioned at the beginning of this

Mike Stier: the whole national security side

Michael Garagan: of things, over 60% of the world’s titanium comes out of China.

Christian Purefoy: And so that’s that’s kind of the hot topic.

Anthony Milewski: And big issue right now is that…

Mike Stier: Is it mined in China?

Michael Garagan: So the deposits – is a lot in Africa, too?

Christian Purefoy: Or is that something different?

Anthony Milewski: Minerals, you know, titanium.

Mike Stier: Yeah.

Michael Garagan: There’s something that comes out of Africa as well.

Christian Purefoy: Russia, some comes out of Canada right now from Rio Tinto.

Anthony Milewski: Right?

Mike Stier: So it does come from all over the world, but it just it’s dominated by China.

Michael Garagan: And so America is it’s safe to say that

Christian Purefoy: most of America’s titanium is coming from China.

Anthony Milewski: Is that fair?

Mike Stier: I think that’s a fair statement.

Michael Garagan: And again, to come back to the national security side of things,

Christian Purefoy: United States is one of the largest manufacturers of titanium metal.

Anthony Milewski: So like your end use products that, you know, companies

Mike Stier: like Boeing or Airbus or Lockheed Martin would use,

Michael Garagan: but they don’t mine

Christian Purefoy: really any titanium like they import

Anthony Milewski: the majority of their full consumption.

Mike Stier: Is titanium on any of the – I know in recent months there’s been

Michael Garagan: these sanction lists and critical minerals lists and all that sort of stuff.

Christian Purefoy: Do you know, in terms of America, is it on any of those lists?

Anthony Milewski: Absolutely. 100%.

Mike Stier: So has China put tariffs on titanium?

Michael Garagan: Not at

Christian Purefoy: this point in time, but it has come up recently as a threat

Anthony Milewski: of one potential metal that they would not even just tariff

Mike Stier: but potentially cut off the exportation of it to other countries.

Michael Garagan: And I mean, it’s being used on fighter jets in America, right?

Christian Purefoy: This is this is literally national defense fighter jets are made out of this stuff.

Anthony Milewski: All the drones do.

Mike Stier: They use titanium in drones?

Michael Garagan: Yeah,

Christian Purefoy: it’s used in aerospace applications.

Anthony Milewski: So it certainly can be a I haven’t specifically looked up drones,

Mike Stier: but it’s in airplanes, satellites, spaceships, fighter jets.

Michael Garagan: Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Raptor uses 40%

Christian Purefoy: structural titanium and there’s no replacement for titanium.

Anthony Milewski: You said Raptor. I was thinking about the Ford Raptor.

Mike Stier: I wonder. I wonder if there’s titanium in cars.

Michael Garagan: Do they put, there must be titanium in automobiles as well, right?

Christian Purefoy: Automotive. Yep.

Anthony Milewski: There are.

Mike Stier: There are applications as well.

Michael Garagan: Chemical processing.

Christian Purefoy: Do either of you guys golf?

Anthony Milewski: Right. It’s in your it’s in your time.

Mike Stier: Well, it’s yeah, well, it’s in your it’s in your golf clubs.

Michael Garagan: It’s also in tennis rackets.

Christian Purefoy: So titanium is kind of like

Anthony Milewski: a lot of these, you know, Christian, we’re always talking about minor metals

Mike Stier: and critical minerals, and it kind of it’s in the same category.

Michael Garagan: So it’s sort of the same setup.

Christian Purefoy: You know, it’s critical to all these military applications,

Anthony Milewski: uses a bunch of stuff we don’t even know.

Mike Stier: It’s being used in our golf clubs.

Michael Garagan: And there’s always one problem.

Christian Purefoy: China controls it, it’s back to China.

Anthony Milewski: So, you guys, I guess what’s interesting, Mike,

Mike Stier: you guys have a company, it’s listed on the TSX, right?

Michael Garagan: The TSX Venture,. And that and you’ve

Christian Purefoy: got an asset in Canada and you guys tell me a little bit where are you are.

Anthony Milewski: You guys have drilled, I know, quite a bit.

Mike Stier: And what’s the size of your titanium deposit today?

Michael Garagan: And like how does that fit in around like other global deposits

Christian Purefoy: and that sort of thing.

Anthony Milewski: Yeah.

Mike Stier: Like if you want to jump in.

Michael Garagan: Yeah, you bet.

Christian Purefoy: So yeah, we have done are maiden drill program.

Anthony Milewski: I’ll probably like correct you a little bit, is we haven’t done a ton of drilling

Mike Stier: but we, we are pretty advanced within the project.

Michael Garagan: It’s and this kind of comes back to a big discussion within the junior

Christian Purefoy: mining industry in Canada

Anthony Milewski: and the critical minerals and everything that we’re looking for.

Mike Stier: Canada, North America has a ton of these, but for a long time

Michael Garagan: Canadian companies have looked elsewhere around the world.

Christian Purefoy: So there is you know, this is kind of a perfect example

Anthony Milewski: is this titanium vanadium deposit that we’re looking at…

Mike Stier: Sorry to interrupt you,

Michael Garagan: we literally just published on vanadium. You did,

Christian Purefoy: yeah, absolutely.

Anthony Milewski: And I read that article and it was I honestly thought it was a brilliant

Mike Stier: article.

Michael Garagan: And titanium vanadium, in my opinion, go hand in hand.

Christian Purefoy: They are quite often found in not only the same deposits,

Anthony Milewski: but often the same minerals as is the case with our project is

Mike Stier: we are getting titanium and vanadium locked up in titanium magnetite.

Michael Garagan: So when I hear magnetite and

Christian Purefoy: I’m not a geologist, I just play one TV, I think about iron ore.

Anthony Milewski: It is there is, there

Mike Stier: is a relationship between your deposit and iron ore.

Michael Garagan: Absolutely.

Christian Purefoy: You’re absolutely right there. Yeah.

Anthony Milewski: Okay.

Mike Stier: So you’re saying that Canada and North America have got a lot of these minerals,

Michael Garagan: but there’s been this problem they have in mind, is that correct?

Christian Purefoy: So yeah, and it’s kind of an interesting discussion.

Anthony Milewski: And you know what Russia and China has done really good at is going at these

Mike Stier: really large tonnage,

Michael Garagan: layered mafic intrusions, big, big deposits of titanium.

Christian Purefoy: I got to hold you right there.

Anthony Milewski: You lost me at layered

Mike Stier: Well, what what is the.

Michael Garagan: I don’t even know you’re talking about. You got to help us out.

Christian Purefoy: It’s a layered, mafic intrusion, intrusion, layered mafic intrusion.

Anthony Milewski: And that didn’t mean to get too technical, but point is, they’re very big,

Mike Stier: very large deposits. And what you’re saying

Michael Garagan: is your style of deposit sitting in North America and Canada

Christian Purefoy: potentially the

Anthony Milewski: 51st state we’ve heard, although it’s not been confirmed,

Mike Stier: has this big

Michael Garagan: ore body or this big anomaly, is it an anomaly right now?

Christian Purefoy: And you guys are basically going out and you have a drilling program lined up.

Anthony Milewski: What do you guys have going on?

Mike Stier: Yeah, absolutely.

Michael Garagan: So we’ve started to find the shape of of the anomalies in the ore body.

Christian Purefoy: And we’re continuing to do the drilling

Anthony Milewski: to essentially try and prove how big this thing actually is.

Mike Stier: And it very well could be massive.

Michael Garagan: And that’s what we’re hoping to prove to the markets.

Christian Purefoy: How much are you guys drilling, how many meters do you guys have scheduled?

Anthony Milewski: So the next drill program we’re looking at doing about 10,000 meters.

Mike Stier: That’s going to hit our main targets that will allow us to infer

Michael Garagan: the 20 kilometer trend that we believe is mineralized.

Christian Purefoy: So right now, there’s not an inferred resource on the property.

Anthony Milewski: It’s just you guys are kind of kicking off the drilling program to create one,

Mike Stier: is that right?

Michael Garagan: Absolutely. That’s correct. Yep.

Christian Purefoy: And remind us what who else produces titanium in Canada?

Anthony Milewski: Does anyone Rio?

Mike Stier: Maybe Rio Tinto at the mine

Michael Garagan: Lac Tio in southeastern Quebec.

Christian Purefoy: They, as far as I know, are the only big time producers

Anthony Milewski: of titanium coming really out of North America outside of your ilmenite sands.

Mike Stier: There’s this this one

Michael Garagan: in America, right in Utah or something, I thought.

Christian Purefoy: But they’re very well like there’s I know

Anthony Milewski: if you follow the Appalachians down there like I think Tennessee has one

Mike Stier: there’s ilmenite sand deposits and they’re pretty rich in titanium.

Michael Garagan: The problem with those deposits is because they’re like

Christian Purefoy: a sedimentary sand, essentially a plaster deposit.

Anthony Milewski: Quite often they’re not that big.

Mike Stier: And, you know,

Michael Garagan: that’s the that’s been the big difference between, say, China and Russia.

Christian Purefoy: And what the Western nations have done is we’ve looked at these plaster deposits,

Anthony Milewski: If you will, as as being easy and cheap to mine, where Russia and China has looked

Mike Stier: at these great big deposits that, yes, might take more capital to get it going,

Michael Garagan: but they might have 75, 150 year mine life.

Christian Purefoy: And a deposit like you guys

Anthony Milewski: And I know it’s early,

Mike Stier: but what order of magnitude of CapEx is something like this going to require?

Michael Garagan: Is it

Christian Purefoy: is that in the low hundreds of millions or I mean, I don’t like it, who knows?

Anthony Milewski: But it seems like it’s hard to raise $1,000,000,000 today.

Mike Stier: Right? I mean, it’s challenging.

Michael Garagan: Yeah.

Christian Purefoy: I mean, I think for us and again,

Anthony Milewski: like we brought on Paul McGuigan, he’s an expert, geologist and metallurgist,

Mike Stier: and he’s confirmed in the zone that we’ve drilled

Michael Garagan: that we do have simplified metallurgy, right.

Christian Purefoy: So because we only have the one mineral magnetite

Anthony Milewski: that we can essentially do a crush and magnetic separation of the mineral,

Mike Stier: pulling out the combination of iron, titanium and vanadium

Michael Garagan: ore body essentially, and then ship that off for processing.

Christian Purefoy: So our we would endeavor to keep, you know,

Anthony Milewski: any kind of plant or CapEx to a minimum at our actual site

Mike Stier: because there’s already other facilities around the world like in Quebec

Michael Garagan: that already processes titanium, iron, vanadium, those kinds of things.

Christian Purefoy: Would you guys,

Anthony Milewski: would you also be producing

Mike Stier: vanadium and iron ore?

Michael Garagan: Correct? Yes.

Christian Purefoy: Yeah, it’s it’s all it’s all byproducts from the same processing methodology.

Anthony Milewski: Interesting.

Mike Stier: Yeah. Okay. So what’s the next steps?

Michael Garagan: The next step is you guys, over the summer, you’re going to be drilling.

Christian Purefoy: You’re probably already out there.

Anthony Milewski: Are you going to be out there?

Mike Stier: And. Yeah, I’ll be out there in the next week actually.

Michael Garagan: Cool, and then help us out.

Christian Purefoy: So how long from when you start drilling until you can start typically

Anthony Milewski: announcing how those drillers thoughts are going as

Mike Stier: is it take a few months, a few weeks, six months.

Michael Garagan: So I mean, yeah, go for it.

Christian Purefoy: So really what you’re waiting for is your assays from the laboratory, right?

Anthony Milewski: So you’re pulling the drill core up,

Mike Stier: you’re doing your descriptions, you’re taking your samples.

Michael Garagan: Those samples have to go to the laboratory and you need that.

Christian Purefoy: That kind of verified laboratory confirmation of what

Anthony Milewski: is in that rock to be able to actually release that to the public.

Mike Stier: We can we can talk about things and update the public

Michael Garagan: in the markets and the investors on how the progress is going.

Christian Purefoy: But not until you have those concrete laboratory results,

Anthony Milewski: can we speak to that.

Mike Stier: And is it getting busy with gold being where it’s at?

Michael Garagan: Is there a lot?

Christian Purefoy: I mean, is that

Anthony Milewski: are you feeling like more pressure at the labs

Mike Stier: just because of all the activity that’s going on up there?

Michael Garagan: Not not really a factor, I think here.

Christian Purefoy: I mean, we we’ve got a good relationship with the lab

Anthony Milewski: and they’ve I would actually say the last drills results

Mike Stier: we got on our first maiden program like they were

Michael Garagan: we didn’t have to overpay for rushed

Christian Purefoy: assays and they came back in a respectable time

Anthony Milewski: period consistent with a lot of our other programs that were just grab

Mike Stier: sample programs like it all came back fairly in good order.

Michael Garagan: So I’m not expecting any unknown delays or unforeseen delays

Christian Purefoy: with other commodities. Interesting.

Anthony Milewski: So what’s changed then in North America to make this viable

Mike Stier: from what’s gone through the last couple of decades to what’s happening now.

Michael Garagan: Geopolitics, for one,

Christian Purefoy: the geopolitical atmosphere,

Anthony Milewski: but also the research that has gone into the metallurgy

Mike Stier: and the recovery of titanium and vanadium from things like magnetite.

Michael Garagan: That’s again, one of the reasons that North America

Christian Purefoy: has looked at these small ilmenite sand projects as being so viable.

Anthony Milewski: There is less complications now.

Mike Stier: But we’ve actually, you know, and in China’s

Michael Garagan: led some of the headway with the research on the recovery,

Christian Purefoy: it’s potentially a massive turning point

Anthony Milewski: where these big deposits

Mike Stier: are potentially even more viable,

Michael Garagan: more economically viable than they’ve ever been before.

Christian Purefoy: I’ve had people reference that it’s kind of on

Anthony Milewski: and again, not to get technical but on the verge of when we worked out

Mike Stier: the models and the research for copper porphyry deposits

Michael Garagan: that changed the copper industry for forever like globally

Christian Purefoy: and it kind of feels like we’re on the verge of that. But

Anthony Milewski: so what’s next steps here?

Mike Stier: I mean, it seems like for the market just updating on this joint program

Michael Garagan: is going to be really, really key to kind of

Christian Purefoy: just everything it sounds like from my perspective.

Anthony Milewski: I mean, in addition to the geopolitical environment

Mike Stier: which you don’t control, I mean, that’s just as what it is.

Michael Garagan: But it seems like there’s drilling programs pretty critical.

Christian Purefoy: Yeah, for sure.

Anthony Milewski: And just the back up, you know, one second.

Mike Stier: I think one important factor here is that our the maiden drone program

Michael Garagan: that we did sort of confirmed the thesis

Christian Purefoy: that not only does this magnetite sit below the surface,

Anthony Milewski: but it is quite extensive, extensive,

Mike Stier: and has the ability to be quite, you know, large across the entire property.

Michael Garagan: And so this is utilizing a combination of grab samples, geophysics,

Christian Purefoy: which is essentially utilizing a magnetometer

Anthony Milewski: which detects the magnetic levels coming from underneath the surface,

Mike Stier: and then using that to to drill essentially.

Michael Garagan: So all of that combined is what got us to where we are right now.

Christian Purefoy: That has confirmed this 500 meter zone that is quite extensive.

Anthony Milewski: Just within this small zone, we have 19 and a half more kilometers

Mike Stier: at minimum to go drill with

Michael Garagan: about four immediate priority targets that this summer we’re going to be doing

Christian Purefoy: that same geophysics on to get that same below the surface

Anthony Milewski: 3D, you know,

Mike Stier: image, an anomaly that you can see so that Mike can take that to delineate,

Michael Garagan: you know, exactly where do we want to put the drills and then we’re going

Christian Purefoy: to move that along the property along the remaining 19 and a half kilometers.

Anthony Milewski: So again, this is where when you compare it to other projects,

Mike Stier: this 20 kilometer

Michael Garagan: inferred zone is unbelievable.

Christian Purefoy: That’s pretty cool.

Anthony Milewski: So just for the people who are not

Mike Stier: mining engineers or even you know, that close to the industry.

Michael Garagan: I mean, 20 kilometers.

Christian Purefoy: I’m just thinking about how long that is.

Anthony Milewski: You know, I can’t go jog 20 kilometers, let’s put it that way.

Mike Stier: I mean, probably more like 5, but

Michael Garagan: do you have to put the roads in that

Christian Purefoy: get a drilling spot or is it kind of open, is it forested?

Anthony Milewski: How hard is it to actually get out there and drill this thing?

Mike Stier: So that’s a great, great point.

Michael Garagan: Mike, if you don’t mind, I kind of step in. There is

Christian Purefoy: one of the

Anthony Milewski: amazing things about this property is we are ten kilometers from the coastal

Mike Stier: town of Cartwright, Cartwright, Labrador,

Michael Garagan: so we have unbelievable infrastructure.

Christian Purefoy: Like we have a road that literally takes us

Anthony Milewski: about 100 meters from our main mineralized zone.

Mike Stier: So in other projects where you’re expecting heavily

Michael Garagan: forested areas and you’re punching big roads and yes,

Christian Purefoy: we are putting roads in to get the drill exactly to where we want it,

Anthony Milewski: but that’s a matter of a kilometer or two or a mile or two

Mike Stier: or a couple hundred meters rather than ten, 15, 20 kilometers.

Michael Garagan: So that is a huge difference and an advantage that we have.

Christian Purefoy: Well, and to kind of help people with that,

Anthony Milewski: when we say we’re going to put a road in from, say,

Mike Stier: one of the already existing access roads that would come into the property

Michael Garagan: where you would actually drill,

Christian Purefoy: we’re not we’re not talking about your typical road,

Anthony Milewski: you know, in your neighborhood, Like we’re not paving this thing

Mike Stier: or it doesn’t require a whole, you know, extensive amount of work to do it.

Michael Garagan: We’re talking about using an excavator to just create a proper,

Christian Purefoy: nice smooth surface so that we can move a drill along.

Anthony Milewski: Right.

Mike Stier: So it’s a very simplistic process, doesn’t,

Michael Garagan: you know, cost a whole lot to do it, but it’s going to be game

Christian Purefoy: changing in terms of being able to move that drill along

Anthony Milewski: and just keep going along the whole 10,000 meters that we want to do right.

Mike Stier: It’s exciting.

Michael Garagan: Well, look, I am really glad you guys have come on the show

Christian Purefoy: and talked to us a little bit about titanium.

Anthony Milewski: I’d love to have you guys back when some of your results start coming in.

Mike Stier: Help us understand what the meaning of it is

Michael Garagan: and maybe come back on and give us an update on the market

Christian Purefoy: as things continue to develop inside of the U.S.

Anthony Milewski: And Elon and Trump work out their their the bromance.

Mike Stier: Yeah.

Michael Garagan: So like really appreciate it and thanks a lot for coming in.

Christian Purefoy: Yeah thank for having us on today.

Anthony Milewski: I really appreciate it. Thanks guys.