Temas CEO targets dual ASX listing by September

Temas Resources (CSE: TMAS) is working on an Australian Stock Exchange listing that will help the Canadian explorer and metals technology company broaden its investor base and advance two titanium-vanadium-iron projects in eastern Quebec.

Vancouver-based Temas is aiming to have its shares trading on the ASX by the start of September, CEO Tim Fernback said in an interview. Temas executives recently returned from an investor roadshow in Australia, and the company expects to file the required securities prospectus by early August, he said.

Temas’s planned A$15 million ($13.5 million) listing on the ASX would see the company join Canadian miners such as NexGen Energy (TSX: NXE) and Capstone Copper (TSX: CS) in courting Australian investors after struggling to attract capital in Canada. Mining and metals companies listed on the ASX had a combined market capitalization of $616 billion at the end of 2024, outpacing the $606 billion figure for peers listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

“Over the last three years we’ve been getting investor inquiries from southeast Asia and Australia, and we’ve decided strategically that now is the time to list on the ASX, which is a large exchange,” Fernback told The Northern Miner. “The Australians know the titanium market. They have extracted titanium in Australia for a long time and have had several listed companies, whereas there aren’t any really in Canada.”

Listing on the ASX will expose Temas to investors who are less focused on gold miners than their Canadian peers, Fernback said. This, in turn, should boost the company’s market capitalization, he predicted.

Temas shares fell 12% to 22¢ apiece in Toronto Friday, giving the company a market capitalization of about $7.8 million. The stock has more than doubled since the start of the year.

Patented tech

Besides mining exploration, Temas also owns patented metallurgical processing technology that it uses on its projects while looking to license it abroad. At least four undisclosed companies have shown interest in the technology for gold and nickel mining projects in countries such as Indonesia and Canada, Fernback said.

This, the CEO argues, means that Temas should be valued more like a metals-technology or manufacturing company. He cited Australia’s Metallium (ASX: MTM), IperionX (ASX: IPX), Silex Systems (ASX: SLX) and Metal Powder Works (ASX: MPW) as peers.

“These companies are all in the hundreds of millions of dollars of market cap,” Fernback said. “Our market cap is not anywhere near where it should be, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that the world is focused on gold, international trade and tariffs. It’s a distracted market for a titanium exploration company.”

Titanium – a key aerospace and defence industry metal – and vanadium are used in industrial alloys for their valuable strength-to-weight ratios. Both are expected to benefit from their inclusion on Canadian and U.S. critical mineral lists, as well as from a desire by the U.S. government to cut its reliance on Chinese imports. China is the world’s biggest refiner of titanium dioxide, accounting for more than half of global supply.

Quebec projects

Both of Temas’ Quebec projects in the resource-rich Côte-Nord region are focused on future titanium dioxide and vanadium production.

Lac Brûlé, where the company owns 36 mineral claims, is a high-grade hemo-ilmenite deposit with areas containing up to 34% titanium dioxide. Temas is working to reach the preliminary economic analysis stage by 2026.

La Blache, the company’s other Quebec project, is the bigger priority. Located about 100 km north of Baie-Comeau, it has an inferred resource of 208.5 million tonnes grading 16.7% titanium dioxide equivalent.

A June update to an earlier preliminary economic assessment — based on an 8% discount rate and a 14-year mine — gave La Blache a net present value of $6.6 billion and an internal rate of return of 61%.

Once the ASX listing is out of the way, Temas is planning to carry out up to 10,000 metres of infill diamond drilling at La Blache. The goal would be to upgrade the deposit’s resource to measured and indicated in about a year, the CEO said.

“We’ve got the drill permits in hand, so we’ll be starting this fall,” he said. “The area is suited for winter drilling because the ground is solid and transportation is easier over winter roads.”

Resource upgrade

By mid-2026, “we would be able to move that project from inferred to measured and indicated status,” he added. “At that point we’re talking about deploying even more capital to get it to a feasibility study. We’re sort of starting the prefeasibility work right now.”

Temas recently acquired land around La Blache, and the CEO has high hopes for the deposit.

“We’ve done quite a bit of drilling on the project and we know about the geology in the area,” he said. “There are other additional historic resources around it that are not part of the $6.6-billion PEA calculation, so that could be a multigenerational deposit” similar to Rio Tinto’s (ASX, LSE: RIO) Lac Tio mine in Quebec, he said.

Putting together a feasibility study for La Blache could take as long as three years, Temas said in June. If all goes according to plan, the mine could start shipping mineral to customers by the early 2030s, Fernback said.

“Five years is a good window for this – let’s say five to 10 years,” he said. “All things can change in terms of permitting because the permitting time is shrinking these days. Titanium is a critical mineral so it’s entirely possible that this could take way less time to get this to market.”

Since Lac Tio is the only major source of titanium dioxide supply in North America, “there’s a real onshoring or near-shoring possibility here,” the CEO added. “There’s not a lot of refining capacity in North America as well.”