Interview with Caitlin Jeffs, President & CEO of Red Metal Resources
Recording date: 16th September 2026
Red Metal Resources Ltd. (CSE:RMES) is a Vancouver-based explorer focused on the Carrizal copper-gold-silver-cobalt property in the coastal cordillera of Chile's Atacama region, near Vallenar. President and CEO Caitlin Jeffs is a geologist who began her career with Placer Dome and later co-founded Fladgate Exploration Consulting. With fellow Red Metal director Michael Thompson, she took Kesselrun Resources from its 2012 founding to a sale to Gold X2 in December 2025.
The company's distinguishing feature is its funding model. Chile allows small operators to mine up to 5,000 tonnes per month on individual concessions and sell ore to state-run ENAMI processing plants. Red Metal rents selected claims to experienced artisanal miners and takes a 10% net sales royalty paid directly by the plant. At the Farellon 1/8 concession, a 1.5% vendor royalty reduces Red Metal's net share to 8.5% until the vendor has received $600,000. The arrangement also gives Red Metal underground access to observe the mineralisation. It has the option to buy bulk samples at the plant price and keeps its exploration rights.
The first operator, Minera KMT SpA, signed in May 2026 with a seven-month development period and a minimum rate of 2,500 tonnes per month thereafter. It delivered about 592 tonnes of copper sulphide ore to ENAMI last August, roughly four months early. Red Metal can cancel the lease if the minimum is missed for three consecutive months. Earlier small-scale mining on the ground averaged 1.87% copper. Jeffs expects similar grades that could produce a royalty of $35,000 to $50,000 a month. Final ENAMI assays and settlement for the first deliveries are pending. A second lease over the Irene and Margarita claims, with operator Catalina, targets the same monthly rate within about six months.
The larger prize is exploration. About 9,000 metres of drilling has tested roughly 1.5 km of a 5 km vein system. It showed continuous mineralisation with better grades and widths towards 200 metres depth. Mapping has traced about 15 km of veining towards the historic Carrizal Alto mine, which flooded in 1891 at around 500 metres depth. A LiDAR survey and a 3D IP survey have followed. The southern IP block produced chargeability anomalies over the drilled zone and over veins mapped at surface. Northern-block results are still to be released. Jeffs is targeting an underground operation grading 1% copper or better across three parallel veins, with a long-term goal of 50 to 100 million tonnes. Drilling is planned for late 2026 at about US$350 per metre. The full path could require 50,000 to 100,000 metres.
Red Metal has 61 million shares outstanding and about 80 million fully diluted, with options and warrants priced between 6 and 15 cents. Cash was about $300,000 at the time of the interview, so new funding is needed before drilling. The key watch items are the first ENAMI settlement, KMT's progress towards 2,500 tonnes per month, northern-block IP results and the first holes of the late 2026 programme.
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An insight into junior mining and opportunities to invest.
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