It is my pleasure to share an interview with Mr. Tom Yingling from Berkwood Resources. Mr. Thomas Yingling is President, CEO, and a director of Berkwood Resources (TSXV:BKR). He owns 3.5% of the company and is providing capable leadership. Witness the news out today from the company!

Read on for the transcript of an interview that I had with Tom back on July 24th, 2017, which was initially published here:

http://cdn.ceo.ca/1cncqim-2017-07-24-BKR-NewtonInterview.mp3

Please note that I have been compensated to prepare and distribute this material.

Berkwood is a “Canadian junior exploration company engaged in the exploration for graphite, cobalt, and lithium - key metals demanded by the batteries and energy storage industries. The Company owns the Lac Guéret Extensions Graphite Project, the Cobalt Ford Project, and the Delbreuil Lithium Project, assets all located within the mining-rich area of Quebec, Canada.”

The company has 15.5 million shares outstanding. At recent trading prices of $0.40, the market cap is approximately $6 million. The company has $2.1 million in cash and $200,000 in debt as at the last quarter. You can find more on the company website here.

Tom Yingling: Hi, my name's Tom Yingling. I'm president and CEO of Berkwood Resources.

Peter Bell: Tom, thank you so much.

Tom Yingling: Thank you for having me here.

Peter Bell: We've just been talking for almost an hour and I'm completely blown away.

Tom Yingling: Well, it's a very unique story.

Peter Bell: Please tell me again the name of the company.

Tom Yingling: Berkwood Resources. We trade under the symbol BKR in Toronto market.

Peter Bell: Berkwood Resources, BKR. And that company, how long has it been public?

Tom Yingling: It's been around for quite a few years. I just got involved in it recently. It has a graphite project, which was involved there for quite some time and then we've added a couple other projects since my involvement.

Peter Bell: Great. Do we have a date of that graphite project as well?

Tom Yingling: It goes back quite a few years.

There was a company that's next door called Mason Graphite, LLG is the symbol, and it has set the stage for the project and why the previous management of Berkwood acquired the land. There was a discovery made in Mason. Once again, it is graphite. Mason's made one of the highest, largest-grade graphite discoveries in the world in Quebec. And so previous management acquired land next to them in a close-ology type play. Of course, it developed as further work was done over the last few years to where it is now where we'll be drilling it here in the next couple weeks.

Peter Bell: Wow. Good for you.

Tom Yingling: It's quite an interesting situation. The fact that we are going into a drill program fully cashed-up and we still only have 15 million shares out. It's a very unique story. In 25 years of being involved in resource-based public companies, I've never been involved in such a tightly structured company with cash going into a drill program. Usually, it gets diluted considerably prior to actually hitting the ground with the drill.

Peter Bell: And you have a drill program lined up.

Tom Yingling: Yes, actually in the next week or so the crews will be heading out there to clear some trees and clear space for the drill pad. First week or two of August is the tentative actual turning date. It's taken quite a few years to get to this point.

Peter Bell: Really, has it?

Tom Yingling: Well, drilling's very expensive. When you're ready to drill, you've tried to de-risk the project as much as you can. It's cheaper and to walk away from a program than to drill it!

What we did here was basically what Mason did. They did airborne geophysics, including electromagnetic or EM mag survey. 'Cause you're hunting graphite. Graphite, obviously, is used in electric vehicle batteries, that's what we're passionate about. And it conducts electricity really well.

Peter Bell: That's right.

Tom Yingling: So Berkwood did the exact same thing that Mason did, and sure enough six targets popped up. Four of them are way too small, so they were all kicked to the curb as nowhere near economic size. But two of them, however, are very significant. One of them, in fact, has the Berkwood Mason claim border cut right through it. So part of it's on ours, and part of it's on Mason.

And then of course the team then went out and did ground geophysics. I'd say in 25 years of drilling, I've discovered airborne targets, then you go right to a drill program and you miss. Then you do the ground geophysics to figure out why you missed. You go back and say, "Oh, I can see why we missed. There was a shift in the data."

So the previous guys at Berkwood did the ground geophysics; they matched up almost perfectly with the airborne geophysics. And then of course after that, once again, when the summer came and the snow melted they did ground sampling to look and see is there any outcrop. And if it is outcrop, what is it? In this case, yes, there was outcrop. And, almost no surprise, it was graphite. And a really high-grade graphite.

So we're in a pretty good situation. You can never completely de-risk a project. It just doesn't happen. Anyone that tells you that is lying. But we've tried to mitigate as much risk as possible prior to the drill 'cause you don't wanna waste the money. So we're now at a point now where we're ready to drill. We've got the permits in place. We got the drill contract en route. The geologists are heading out there in the next 10 days or so. In the beginning of August we should have it, the drill turning. So with 15 million shares outstanding and pretty strong treasury and pretty good drill program, we could see some impact.

Peter Bell: Well, of those 15 million, do we have a number that were involved in the recent financing?

Tom Yingling: Well, we just did a 1.6 million dollars at 26 cents. We'll be hitting the drill program with roughly six-and-a-half million shares tradable.

Peter Bell: Yes.

Tom Yingling: A lot of that is in Germany, actually. We're very fortunate there's quite a big following of Berkwood due to the fact that there was some German newsletter writers that wrote up the story prior to my involvement. And a lot of stock went over there and the German shareholders are excellent. They hang on to the stock and they're very passionate. They fell in love with Mason, but they missed the boat on Mason.

Mason is trading at $1.85 with 200 million dollar market cap. And we're trading 33 cents with like a four million dollar market cap. So the potential ... I mean, obviously they're way ahead of us, more advanced. But there is interest. There is upside. There is growth. And of course the electric vehicle battery minerals are what Berkwood is. Our slogan is: Plugged Into High Tech Minerals.

Peter Bell: That's probably the single biggest development that would bring some encouragement, and I would think would please some of the German investor base. The change in management, the coherent vision around the electric metals did you call them? Or the battery ...

Tom Yingling: Yup. High-tech battery minerals. I say graphite is one of them. Lithium. We just announced a lithium project. And we also have a cobalt. So in the high-tech mineral world, those are the big ones. I mean, even Elon Musk, who's the president, CEO rather, of Tesla, his famous quote is that the lithium batteries shouldn't be called lithium battery, they should be called graphite-nickel batteries. 'Cause there's more graphite and nickel in it than there is lithium. He says the lithium's like a salt on a salad.

Peter Bell: Jeez. So when you added these new projects in, was there any discernible change in market cap?

Tom Yingling: Gradually, yes. The share price actually moved down a little bit, but there hasn't been any serious impact just yet.

Peter Bell: Okay.

Tom Yingling: The real impact, I believe, is when we get to the drill program here shortly.

Note: See Berkwood's news out today.

Peter Bell: That's been hanging over the stock I'm sure for a long time. Getting some new cash into it will help. Was that drill program already financed prior to you guys bringing some new money into it, the company?

Tom Yingling: No, no. There was a half a million dollar raise that was done back in December. And that's going towards it, but it's not enough. And of course with the plan here, there's two, as I mentioned, there's two zones we're targeting. Both of them, at least from the geophysics, appear that they have the potential to have tonnage if they're graphite and if they're thick enough to have some significant resource size. The drilling of course will tell us that.

But the plan is to test both of those and see if there's graphite. And then if we're successful in hitting the graphite in one or both, then we'll need to raise more funds to delineate one or both of those zones up to see what sort of tonnage we have.

Peter Bell: Well, to have a long-term shareholder base who have been sticky with their shares, they've held on to their shares, and they've probably been waiting for some of these targets to get drilled and watched the development right across the border next door and been feeling frustrated sometimes, I'm sure. To hear that things are on track and moving forward now, I would think that would be very encouraging for them. And some of them, they may be at a point now to where it's like, "Okay, I've forgotten about that story, remind me about that." And the whole, everything continues in the broader macro backdrop, right. So I think you'll have some good trips to Germany soon. I hope things go well for you. Munich in October, maybe --

Tom Yingling: Oktoberfest. Hey, I never thought of that.

Peter Bell: To our German audience out there listening, "Hello, hello. Thank you so much." There are some active German people on ceo.ca and I've encountered some of them. They are great. I have found them to be very committed shareholders.

Tom Yingling: Yes, very much so. They are long-term holders, which is always nice to have. As president and CEO of a company, you always want to have people that have the same vision as yourself and are willing to hang on 'til you least give a chance to prove that opportunity.

Peter Bell: And here we are today in Vancouver, July 24th, 2017. It seems like a world apart from over there but ... You described briefly to me some of your venture capitalist background as well. Wow. Great stuff, right. Look forward to hearing and seeing what you could do globally with new investor base as well. And to have this existing base is probably came to see you and the global potential out there just really exciting.

Tom Yingling: Yes, it's a very good opportunity. And if you visit our website you can see that technically we're strong as well too. Numerous ... I say in over 25 years of doing this, my team has got well over 100 years collectively together. Numerous projects have been discovered and brought into production and we hope to do that again with Berkwood, or at least sell it off.

We are not the guys that say ... that sit up on stage and cut the ribbon and shake hands with the politicians. We will sell the asset prior to that. Hopefully, we'll do that again with Berkwood.

Peter Bell: Not up on stage cutting the ribbon. You're in the ... You'll be in the audience, in the crowd with a big round of applause.

Tom Yingling: Yes, clapping loudly with a large check in the bank. We'll see.

Peter Bell: So is there anything else we should talk about? We're at the 11-minute mark. I'm sure we could keep going here. How are you?

Tom Yingling: Great, thanks Peter.

Berkwood is well-rounded. The graphite project alone is a potential company maker. For as long as I have been doing this, I've realized that you don't want a one-horse pony in case that pony breaks a leg. That's why we brought in the cobalt asset. We're in the process of getting approval for our lithium project, as well. They are all located in Quebec, which is one of the best places in the world to explore.

I've been all over the world and worked in numerous countries all over the planet, and Quebec is very unique in the fact that politically, environmentally, everybody ... Being the First Nations are onside, they're all pro-resource and exploration. Not only that, you got the phenomenal infrastructure. We have one of the largest hydro-electric dams just a stone's throw away from our project. The Quebec government has committed 400 million dollars to upgrade the highway that goes ... 'cause Mason is gonna go into production and say our neighbor they're gonna be producing. So the Quebec government's committed 400 million dollars to upgrade that highway 'cause they know that they have to truck that material down to the St. Lawrence. And then once you get to the St. Lawrence, you've got free access to the world to get your product anywhere you need to.

Peter Bell: I have a vision of development happening at the project site to the point where they're making batteries at site and charging them with electricity from the local hydro-electric dam and sending out charged batteries.

Tom Yingling: Wouldn’t that be something.

Peter Bell: And if they have a recharge station there during delivery. So if you wanna claim any residual rights in some of the terms that you structure with people in any takeover scenario. Throw the kitchen sink in.

Tom Yingling: We have the graphite, the cobalt, the lithium, and all the infrastructure you would need to make that happen.

Peter Bell: All three in Quebec. What a rich geological setting.

Tom Yingling: Yes, it is. The province of Quebec are doing it right. Some of the governments in the rest of the country should take a few notes from them. They're pro-mining. They're pro-exploration. They've got a good tax system out there that makes it attractive to invest in that province. We spend a ton of money there and will be spending a ton of money there. And the locals will benefit from it. The trickle out effect will be phenomenal. Everyone benefits from it.

Peter Bell: A random thing to tell you about just briefly, I'm sorry. So I'm sure you're aware new provincial government in British Columbia recently. Very tenuous, but an NDP government for the first time in a long time. I live in Victoria and I went down to the legislature, the provincial leg there on the day of the inauguration of the new government, something like this, right. They opened the doors to the building and let people go around different areas they don't normally get to go to. There were thousands of people waiting in line for hours, streaming through the building.

I've lived in Victoria my whole life. I've never seen anything like that before. So, I don't know what's happening in B.C. right now politically – obviously something has happened.

The NDP are pretty strong when it comes to groundswell movements. I think we're in the era of the crowd to some degree. I think there are big changes happening out there. I don’t know of any, really, but I hope B.C. can get its act together. I hope NDP can be pro-mining and find a way to follow in Quebec's footsteps.

Tom Yingling: I hope so too.

Peter Bell: And are you guys headquartered here in Vancouver?

Tom Yingling: Yes, our head office is in Vancouver.

Peter Bell: Okay.

Tom Yingling: I'll say all three projects are in Quebec, but our head office is here. If we're successful with what we hope to find out there, then we'll probably open up an office either in Montreal or Baie-Comeau, one of the two.

Peter Bell: A field office out there is not an unreasonable proposition.

Tom Yingling: No, not with the three projects. It would totally make sense to do that, particularly now that we got the third just waiting for approval from the exchange on it, the lithium asset. By having a presence out there and an office ... I'll be going back and forth more and more as we develop these projects. So, it may make sense. But I'll say I'll know in a couple of weeks when we start to drill.

Peter Bell: Fingers crossed. Is your workforce out there all contractors?

Tom Yingling: Yes. We don't have our own drill crews or any teams like that. It doesn't make sense for us financially and we like to support the local crews that are in Quebec. We try to hire as many locals as we can. As it does support the province. They look after us and we try to look after them.

Peter Bell: They have a fairly well-developed kind of market for drilling services.

Tom Yingling: Everything. Geophysics exploration, they're very highly trained, reasonably priced as well. And Quebec is busy. Although the last few years have been a bit of a downturn in the mining sector, to say the least, Quebec has remained busy. And that's a real ... You gotta put the feather in the cap to the government. The reason they've remained busy is they have made it attractive enough for companies like us to raise money and spend it there. So it-

Peter Bell: Acquiring new projects in the province.

Tom Yingling: Yes, acquiring new projects, hiring new people. We stay in the hotels. We hire the helicopter companies. We buy the diesel. We stake land. And the government should put a big feather in their cap 'cause they're directly responsible for that. I'll say the First Nations are onside, there's no issues there. They've done a really good job, and it shows.

Peter Bell: Well, one of the biggest problems in mining that seems to happen is times get tough and the human capital or some of the corporate infrastructure it gets destroyed or impaired. And I've heard it said that the reason commodities run so hard to the upside is because the bear markets take away a lot of the potential supply response in the near term.

Tom Yingling: Correct.

Peter Bell: So prices may run, but your signal of stimulating production cannot be met because there is no investment on the sufficient timeline, so there's time effects and delays and things that go back and forth. To not have that impairment of everything that you need to have a mining industry in province is very, very important and not the case, as I understand it, globally or across the country. It's been very, very tough.

Tom Yingling: The rest of the country has been impacted significantly. In my 25 years of doing this, the last five or six have been the worst I've ever seen.

Peter Bell: Is it the worst you've ever seen it?

Tom Yingling: Completely. And I've been through ups and downs and cycles. I've seen the dot-com dot-gone, you know, back 2000. I've seen things like Bre-X come in and go. And this has been the worst. It's been a serious culling of the herd. The strong have survived and hopefully we've got some good times ahead of us.

But you're right, with the market downturning, nobody raised any money, nobody raises any money, nobody does any exploring. Nobody does any exploring, nothing new is discovered, right. It creates a downward spiral. Yet the world still consumes resources. You still consume it. If we're not finding any new deposits to replace it, you're going to create a huge vacuum.

And particularly now with electric vehicles, there's a demand for the high-tech battery minerals like cobalt, graphite, and lithium. Our focus is on that niche area because there's such a massive growth for the next 2-25 years. The current production can't keep up with predicted demand.

Peter Bell: And that’s not a case of impairment to the supply side there. That’s just unprecedented demand requirements.

Tom Yingling: Right. You get both sides of the economics 101, right. You're having a huge demand and you've got this diminished supply. If you can get one side of that on a business, you're going to be successful -- but if you can get both sides of that move in supply and demand, then you're in a good situation. Economics 101!

Peter Bell: Let alone the technological innovation angle ...

Tom Yingling: That's what we're pretty excited about. With the drill program happening shortly, the share structure, and experienced team, we're pretty optimistic. We'll see what happens. And with the cobalt and the lithium as well, we're developing those assets. We'll be doing some work on that this summer as well, we'll have multiple irons in the fire.

Peter Bell: Berkwood Resources, BKR on the TSX Venture. Your technical team are they familiar to the markets?

Tom Yingling: Yes. Say they've been involved in numerous discoveries around the world that have gone into production. Right from the Diavik diamond mine, Northwest Territories to Bunder diamonds in India to nickel projects throughout United States of America. But once again, they're usually part of it but not up on the stage. We're explorers. We love to find, identify, develop, but not go into production.

And that's probably the same case here. If we're fortunate enough to hit the graphite in this drill program and it looks like it's of potential grade and quality to be economic, then we will probably not go into production. We'll either sell it to maybe Mason or somebody else whoever else that's looking for it. Then that would be our exit strategy. And then move on to the next one.

Peter Bell: Well, and the whole company with those three different minerals as well, that just makes it so juicy as a potential takeover target as a four million dollar market cap at this point.

Tom Yingling: With Mason's 200 million dollar next to it.

Peter Bell: And those projects are very early stage, the other ones. It's up to the ... whether or not you'd want ... I would want your team to do some work on those other projects as well before the whole company had somebody come in. And I don't think the market's that hot at this point that that's gonna happen really, but that long-term potential-

Tom Yingling: That or you sell the graphite project. Yup, you can just sell the graphite project as well too, right. So the graphite project gets valued once you delineate, drill up one or both, hopefully, those zones that we're exploring. And if you're successful in finding the graphite and you delineate it and prove it up, then you got a tonnage estimate that you can approach and then someone would just buy that, which would be a nice very, hopefully, a very large check to the shareholders of Berkwood. And then we could then explore and keep the other cobalt and lithium assets as well.

Peter Bell: That would be a nice potential for funding.

Tom Yingling: Yup, agreed.

Peter Bell: Do we have a potential timeline at Mason for development there? Are they-

Tom Yingling: Well, they just got their environmental assessment approved a few weeks back. So that caused their share price to jump up a little bit. They're trading about $1.85 today I believe.

Peter Bell: Good. Good.

Peter Bell: It sounds like they have a share price there that they can use to finance.

Peter Bell: Do they have any debt at this point?

Tom Yingling: Do they? They might.

Peter Bell: Have they announced publicly any large project financing yet?

Tom Yingling: Not that I'm aware of, no.

Peter Bell: Okay. I remember when they launched, the interviews with Jim Rogers and Larry King, was it?

Tom Yingling: Yeah.

Peter Bell: Weren't those amazing?

Tom Yingling: Yes. Someone told me about those, so I went to YouTube and searched it.

Peter Bell: They're on the internet.

Tom Yingling: I was like, "Oh, wow."

Peter Bell: Did you watch them?

Tom Yingling: I watched one of them.

Peter Bell: Isn't that wild that that's just out there on the internet?

Tom Yingling: It is. I don't know how they arranged that, but good on them. We're talking about it, so it worked.

Peter Bell: And it is years later that we're talking about it, too. That's the thing about the internet, you never know what's gonna echo somewhere, somebody will hear it.

Tom Yingling: Good or bad.

Peter Bell: Well, that's the other thing too. It's permanent, right. Excuse me if I said anything inappropriate here today.

Thank you, Tom. It's been a pleasure to talk to you here. This is the first time I've had a chance to meet you and I've been very impressed.

Tom Yingling: Thank you for the interview, Peter. If you have any other questions, by all means, please give me a call.

Peter Bell: Thank you, Tom. We'll call it there. Goodbye everyone listening.